Blurred Visions of God’s Mosaic

It was the Sunday before Valentine’s Day and I was supposed to have the rare opportunity as a student minister to preach to the full congregation. I was going to preach the gospel from Hosea in honor of the greatest love the world has ever known, at a time when the rest of the country is chasing after a “valentine.” Sometimes we forget how great the love of God is in the midst of a world that “loves” so many things. And then He reminds us.

I didn’t get the opportunity to preach that sermon. We found out that week that my wife was having complications with her pregnancy. There was only a slim chance that our baby would live. This being our first child, we both took the news pretty hard.

We all have those passages in scripture we find difficult. Difficult to understand. Difficult to stomach. For me, the stories of Abraham and his son and Jephthah and his daughter have always been difficult. Why would God save Isaac and accept the death of Jephthah’s daughter? Why the pain and the suffering, and ultimately, why evil? I don’t have the answers, but I would like to make two observations: First, we’re all pieces of a beautiful mosaic that we won’t be able to see as long as we live in this fallen world. Second, maybe I’m a little too fond of my piece of the mosaic.

Some people preach that if you pray the right way, or if you pray enough, or you give enough money, God will give you what you want. Maybe we don’t buy this when we see it preached on TV, but when we’re faced with tragedy, we can’t help but entertain those thoughts. Here’s the only problem—how much is a life worth? If we could afford it, would it be worth the price of the whole mosaic? And would I really demand it from the One who did not spare His only Son so that we could all be a part of the mosaic in the first place?

Abraham offered up his son and a broken heart, but God had other plans. Jephthah learned what it meant to grieve. The Bible is full of people who suffered and died. Why is it that we’re so afraid of death? Solomon wondered the same thing and noted that all the rivers flow into the same stream, all of our earthly lives ultimately flow to the same destination. But that destination is not the end.

The same guy said that the only thing worth anything is to fear God and follow Him. Maybe we just keep forgetting what this is all about. Maybe we forget the world beyond the end of our life’s stream. Maybe we keep falling in love with the beauty of the mosaic. Maybe we continue to love the blessing, the stuff, the health, the money, the “life,” and we forget God. Maybe we forget that the chief end of man is to love God and enjoy Him forever.

I’m finding that when my eyes are focused on Him, He has the whole thing under control—which means I can let go. Let go when I feel the need to be in control. Let go when I feel like life has thrown me a curve ball, or that I’ve been given a raw deal. Let go of the anger and the fear. But it isn’t enough to let go. Ultimately we must be driven to look beyond ourselves to the One who suffered the cross that we might experience life.

Our baby died. We don’t really know when the exact moment was. I was flipping through my journal and I found the entry that I wrote the day Emily told me she was pregnant. Amid the prayers for my unborn child, I wrote, “Your father loves you, but your Father has always loved you.” That’s true. God doesn’t mess up when he knits babies together in their mother’s womb. Our baby served a purpose and was a beautiful piece of the mosaic that we will admire together one day. I can’t wait to see it.