1990 September/October issue Part 3

Lord, Please remove this dilemma

(...) Some of you face serious dilemmas. We want to pray, “Lord, please remove the dilemma.” Usually the answer is “No, not right away.” We must face it, pray over it, think about it, wait on the Lord, make a choice. Sometimes it is an excruciating choice.


   St. Augustine said, “The very pleasure of human life men acquire by difficulties.” There are times when the entire arrangement of our existence is disrupted and we long for just one ordinary day- seeing our ordinary life as greatly desirable, even wonderful, in the light of the terrible disruption that has taken place. Difficulty opens our eyes to pleasures we had taken for granted. I recall one of the times my husband Add was released from the hospital when he had cancer. I did not suppose he was cured, but just having him home once more was all I asked for that day. I set the table in the dining room with candlelight as I always did for dinner. I had fixed his favourite meal- steak, baked potatoes, salad, my home baked apple pie. As he bowed his head to give thanks in the usual way i had the sudden urge to do something very unusual- to drop to the floor and clutch his hands and sing “Let us break bread together on our knees.” I didn’t do it. Things proceeded in the ordinary way, but there was a new radiance about them simply because we had been deprived for a while, and knew we would soon be deprived again, probably permanently.

   Paul said he had been “very thoroughly initiated into the human lot with its ups and downs” (Phil 4:12, NEB). He was hard pressed, bewildered, persecuted and struck down. God in his mercy did not choose to remove the dilemmas with which he was faced (some of His greatest mercies are his refusals), but chose instead to make Himself known to Paul because of them, in ways which would strengthen his faith and make him a strengthener and an instrument of piece to the rest of us. Hard-pressed he was but not hemmed in- God promised none of us would be tempted beyond our power to endure. Bewildered he was, but never at wits end- God promised wisdom to those who ask for it. Persecuted, but he never had to stand it alone- God promised His unfailing presence, all the days of our lives. Struck down, Paul was not left to die, though some of his rescues were ignominious in the extreme- the great apostle, let down over a wall in a basket, and on another occasion making it to land on a chunk of flotsam! Hardly the means he would have envisioned God’s using to fulfil His promises. But on second thought, why not? The absurdity of it all does us good. Life is absurd- on the surface of things- but every bit of it is planned, as Paul goes on to say:
  
“it is for your sake that all things are ordered, so that, as the abounding grace of God is shared by more and more, the greater may be the chorus of thanksgiving that ascends to the glory of God” (2 Cor 4:15, NEB). Maybe Paul’s testimony which has cheered countless millions will cheer somebody who still faces a dilemma he has begged the Lord to remove. All of Paul’s were solved, but not all of them in Paul’s way or Paul’s time.