I Just Stood There....

So much of life these days seems to be problem management. If there is an issue, you address it, something broken, you fix it. The Christian world is not much different really. Issues come to the forefront and we are trained to meet them head on. Sometimes I get so paralyzed and the gravity of a situation, I just stand there. There is nothing to say, nothing to do, all you can do is stand there. As a pastor, I feel that surely I must be able to come up with something, but not today. Today was one of those days when I just stood there. I was watching a father cry and grieve and mom do the same as they watched their 8 year old boy lay there in a hospital bed, and they were told that he has an aggressive, possibly terminal disease. My heart breaks even now because in reality there is nothing to say, so I just stood there.

If you are not a parent, you may say man that's terrible, but you can't really relate. Just standing there watching your child possibly die knowing that there is nothing you can do is gut wrenching. Why do we always feel that we need to fix it? At the heart of it for me, is that I cannot stand suffering especially is one so young and full of life. But the question remains...

Sometimes I wonder if people who are not in submission to the Lord ask themselves if times like these shake my faith or any believers faith. Of course it does! I echo Lane Staley from Alice in Chains, "Why does it have to be this way?" But in the end, all I can do is stand...

So, we just stand there, but maybe standing there is better than trying to fix it. I am often reminded of some words by the apostle Paul and they do give me hope "And having done all, stand firm." That Statement comes in the context of spiritual warfare, but the truth of it is more broad. Obviously we want to fix issues, but it is not up to us to always fix, many times we are simply called to stand faithfully. I know, it flies in the face of the modern American mentality. We are programed to think and believe that we can do anything, when in actuality, we can do nothing of ourselves. We don't have the strength, counsel, or wisdom to fix things, but the Holy Spirit does. The quiet call is to stand firm in the faith. The faith that says God is sovereign, the faith that says that Jesus never leaves us nor forsakes us, the faith that enables us to be faithful.

Today I just stood there; tomorrow I will go and stand some more. I am learning that standing is all we really want anyway. We just want someone to stand with us and bleed with us. Jesus bled for us, He died for us, now the call in our lives is to bleed with His people and to count our own selves dead for the sake of His people. None of us control our lives, but in the end it is always comforting to know that we are not standing alone. So yes, I just stood there today, and you know what, when tomorrow rolls around, I will stand some more...