The Fine Line Between Wonder and Wander

You’ve all heard the stories. Stories like the one from  a man named Steve Huffman: Steve, while serving at a small field hospital in Africa- traveled every two weeks through the jungle to a nearby city for supplies. This required camping overnight halfway. At the onset of his return home, he saw two men fighting in the city. One was seriously hurt, so he treated him and witnessed to him about Jesus. Then returned home.

Upon arriving in the city several weeks later, he was approached by the man he had treated earlier. He told him he had known that Steve carried money and medicine. He said, “Some friends and I followed you into the jungle knowing you would camp over night. We waited for you to go asleep and planned to kill you and take your money and drugs. Just as we were about to move into your campsite, we saw that you were surrounded by 26 armed guards.”

Steve laughed at this and said, “I was most certainly all alone out in the jungle campsite.”

The young man pressed the point, “No sir, I was not the only one to see the guards. My five friends also saw them, and we all counted. It was because of those guards that we were afraid and left you alone.”

As Steve shared this story to a men’s group in Michigan, one of the men in the church stood up and interrupted the missionary. He asked, “Can you tell me the date- the exact date- when this happened?” The missionary thought for awhile and recalled the date.

The man in the congregation told him why he asked, he said, “On that night in Africa it was day here. I was heading to the golf course, but I felt strongly that the Lord leading me to pray for you. In fact, the urging was so great that I called men of this church together to pray for you. In fact, they’re all here today.” Then the men stood up… there were 26 of them!

You’ve heard stories like this. And our hearts are warmed… our faith is moved. But not always. Sometimes, some of us can become frustrated.

Let me read to you a journal entry from an Army chaplain that I find quite fascinating: I wish that people would stop writing about people who pray on rafts and get rescued. Because they don’t all get rescued. We prayed together before our makeshift altar, a young pilot and me… his chaplain. Then he climbed into his jet and flew away into the desert with God’s blessing and a peace in his heart. But… his plane crashed, and the young man- whose eyes still haunt me- was killed. Is there such a thing as getting ‘the breaks’ in prayer? What about him? What about the fellows who pray regularly, but get killed regularly? What was wrong with their prayers? That why I’m beginning to get a little touchy about all these stories of successful raft praying. That why I wish people would stop writing about the soldiers who pray and have their prayers answered by not getting killed. Why do all the other soldiers seem to get the wrong answer? What sort of an extra-special, super-powered prayer is needed to make everything turn out the way you want it? I’m an Army chaplain, and I could use some special prayers with my men- and heaven knows, we need them badly at times. The fact is there are always more men who pray to come back home than there are men who get back.

It’s early in Jesus’ ministry, and He’s healing. Miracles. Wonder. Amazement. Raising the dead. Casting out demons. There is a fevered pitch of awe growing in the world. Jesus says things like, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.” My question is this: Do you believe that? Sure you do. I do. Ever tried it? Ever tried to move a tree… or get healthy by faith alone? Ever pray for a miracle? Ever pray for rescue? Have you ever been disappointed? Sure you have. I have.

Dr. Larry Crabb, nationally known Christian author and speaker, tells this story: I remember running outside, standing on our driveway, closing my eyes real tight, and praying: God, I want to fly like Superman. And I believe you can do it. So I'll jump, and you take it from there. I jumped four times—and each time landed half a second later and half a foot farther down the driveway. I had believed and I had asked, just like Jesus said. But I didn't receive. Thus began my 50-year journey of confusion about prayer.

Have you ever been frustrated by prayer? You’re not alone.

Amazing things are happening early here in Jesus’ ministry. The apostles (“the sent ones”), feeling eerily like you and I, begged Jesus: Give us more faith! Lord, the amazing things that you’re telling us and showing us are so far beyond our grasp, that if only our faith would grow, maybe we’d get it.

But here’s the thing… it’s not so much great faith in God, but rather faith in a great God. Faith doesn’t move mountains. God does. What faith does, is it moves you. The hiddenness of the glory of God through our sharing with others and our forgiving of others may make us feel as if we do not have enough faith, but like a mustard seed, the smallness of our faith in Jesus conceals His great power and through us… God will produce great wonders.

So you’re praying for a tree to move. And we believe- without reservation- that God can do all things. We know it. We believe it the deepest recesses of our soul. But that tree… well… it won’t get out of the way. But it’s not so much great faith in God, but rather faith in a great God. And if that’s true, then perhaps the smallness or the largeness of our faith is not so much in whether we believe we can move that tree, but whether we believe it is God’s will that that tree be moved or not.

As for me, I pray that my hope is found not in my prayer, nor even in my faith, but in the greatness of God, and in His pure and perfect will. For no matter what happens in this world, for trees that won’t move, for sick friends who won’t get better, for soldiers who won’t come home, God is still God… and when He says “Move!”, I still believe that tree will move… no matter how many times my prayer falls flat.

One last word from our Army chaplain: He flew the Atlantic to Africa alone.  But before he left to this foreign land, there we were, together, kneeling at that make-shift altar. This- to him- was home. As he said his prayers, this strong man of faith thanked God for many things- for having been born in a good land, for having parents who taught him to love God. For himself he asked little, save that he stay in God’s good grace. But me… I asked for God to keep him safe. And despite my sadness, anger, and heartache standing at the foot of the wreckage of that plane, I thanked God for bringing him safely home. God rescued him after all.