How Christian parents of estranged children can make some sense out of God’s timing.
Cynics love to drag out an old chestnut of a riddle to trip up Christ followers. They ask, “If God is all-powerful, can He make a rock so large that even He can’t move it?”
If God is all-powerful, can He make a rock so large that even He can’t move it?
So what’s the answer? And how does the answer help us with our relationship with our beloved strangers?
Here we go: There are things God can’t do. He can’t do anything against His nature. Jesus cannot allow someone who is not born again into the kingdom of God. (Take a look at Jesus’s dead-of-night conversation with Nicodemus in John 3.) That also means He can’t prevent a child whom He loves and rescued from his or her sin from entering His eternal presence.
That’s great and everything, we think, but then why does God allow something that seems against His nature: our separation from our children? Why would that be in His will? If we were reunited, wouldn’t that bring God glory and honor?
David and Saul
King Saul and his army of thousands hunted David with more fervor and cunning than Gerard’s hard target search through every henhouse, outhouse, and doghouse for Richard Kimble. The future king hid in brush, behind rocks, in caves, and dodged soldiers who came within a spear’s length. Does that sound like God working within His own nature? For months, the Lord preserved David. The once and future shepherd/harpist even composed Psalm 31 to celebrate God’s protection and safety.
Like Saul, even though our life feels impossible, as if we’re under attack and the storms will never relent, we can go to God in prayer for His protection and comfort. There is a reason for the whirlwind that we may know on earth or may only find out in the new heaven and new earth.
Mary and Martha
Mary and Martha had lost their patience. They must have grown tired asking, “Where is Jesus?” Their brother was breaths away from his final one, and Jesus was dawdling in the next town over. Didn’t He care? Wasn’t Lazarus His friend?
Then Lazarus died. They buried him. Still no Jesus.
How does this reflect the nature of God?
When Jesus neared the home four days after Lazarus breathed his last, Martha met him on the road, and the two wept together. How many days had they begged Jesus to come? How many messengers had they sent to the Rabbi?
In just a matter of minutes, Lazarus was alive and in desperate need of some scissors.
Jesus comforted Martha with His tears even though He knew He would raise Lazarus before Martha’s nose stopped being red.
When our grief and sorrow are at their worst, we can go to God in prayer because He will weep with us. And He will bring about a resurrection in His time and according to His will, even if it isn’t in ours.
Moses and Joshua
Moses passed the mantle of leadership to Joshua to lead Israel into the Promised Land. But there were giants in them there hills. The ragtag bunch of former Egyptian slaves was outgunned, outmanned, outnumbered, and outplanned. How was this in God’s nature?
Could God do the impossible again? Five times—five times—God told Joshua to be strong and courageous. God prepared him for challenges and difficulties. Then God divided the Jordan River. A second parting. A second crossing.
We have impossible staring us in the face every day, but we can look to God Almighty and His timing for His hand. (And if He chooses to part the frozen tundra between our children and ourselves, we will look at it and declare it miraculous.)
Read: Psalm 31. Read it slowly and aloud. Don’t do it as a task. Read it as an act of worship. Take your time, especially through verses nine through 13. (Consider memorizing this Psalm in the Bible translation of your choosing.)
Pray: Psalm 31:1–5
Write: Describe in pixels, pencil, or pen what seems impossible to you about your relationship with your beloved stranger? Then describe what you understand to be impossible from your child/children’s side. Don’t forget the “why” from both perspectives.
Listen: “Blessed Be Your Name” by Matt Redman