Faith And Skin

“Faith Comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.”
~ Romans 10:17

A short time ago, I heard this story; One night a dad was lying in his bed, when his young son’s voice was heard crying out to him; “Daddy, daddy, I’m afraid.” The dad called back to him, “It’s alright son, I’m right here, go back to sleep.”

But yet, the young boy kept crying out. Finally the father got up from his bed and went to the son’s room and put his arm around him and told him that it was all right because God was there watching out for him.

The son tearfully looked up at his dad and replied, “Yes, but sometimes I need someone with real skin.”

Sometimes I feel like that too. In fact, I’ve been feeling that way all this week; I need God to have real skin.

Last month I shared with you that I was suffering with a back problem caused by a recent accident back on August 17th. I also related about the conclusions that I came to, and I haven’t changed my mind.

It has now been six weeks plus, and I went to a doctor nearly two week’s ago, who had xrays taken because she thought my back was fractured. The xrays came back negative and the doctor seemed to dismiss the reality of anything being wrong with me, even to the point that she refused to give me some potent painkillers. She did prescribe Tylenol 3, which barely took the edge off of my pain. Looking back, I believe that she thought my pain was in my head.

The day after that, I was desperate, and so I went to a “holistic” chiropractor, recommended by an old friend. This chiro adjusted my lower spine but he attempted to do it through the front of my body and through my lower intestines, which proved to be most painful!

The chiro aggravated something down there and by the next day my bowels were screaming in pain and my back seemed worse too. Another 24 hours later, I was so sick and in pain that I lay in a fetal position and pleaded with The Lord to take me home to Him, and I did so all through that day and part of the next.

It is now two weeks later and my bowel pain is still giving me fits and the pain, while much decreased, is still in my back.

I’ve even resorted to taking off of work and just sitting around and doing nothing this past ten days, in an effort to obtain permanent relief. Steady doses of Ibuprophen keeps the bowel pain subdued, but not the nerve pain in my leg.

I know that there is always a purpose in what happens to you and me, if we are followers of Christ; He is sovereign and in charge of my life and that means nothing is by happenstance, or coincidence or by luck (good or bad).

But that fact does provoke me to asking some hard questions; what do I need to learn from this? Is there unknown sin lurking in my heart? What direction do You want me to take Lord? Do You want me to quit work? Are You closing doors and opening others? What do I do Lord?!!!!!!

And yet, as the days go by and my incessant questions go heavenward, all I’m greeted with is absolute silence. No direction; no answers. Oh, I do remember that last month I told you I did hear one small question back; “What if it isn’t God’s will to heal you?” But that wasn’t a definitive answer; it was a possibility for me to consider.

By the way, I’ve also learned that complete silence can be awful loud! Think about that.

I have no answers as to why I’m not hearing from The Lord. I don’t know whether my condition is to be permanent and I should just get on with life and cope the best way I can; I don’t know whether it is His way to have me quit work, where the pain is aggravated; am I to just sit and vegetate? I just don’t know.

And so, I find myself being just like the little boy in the story; wishing that The Lord would come down and He’d have a real body, with real skin and a real voice, and He’d sit there next to me and comfort me, and He’d say, “This is what I am showing you, and this is what I want you to do.”

But in the Christian life, in my life, that ain’t gonna happen. I have to walk by faith and not by sight, nor actual hearing. My faith means I have to cling to Someone not seen nor felt, believing that God know best! By the way, ‘You know best.” has become my motto in the last coupla years.

Faith tells me that God “will never leave me nor forsake me” and that He always hears my questions and my prayers. Faith is believing that even though the path before me is dark, uncertain and unknown, The Lord does see the way before me.

Of course, in the Book of John, in chapter one, it does say that “In the beginning was The Word, and The Word was with God and The Word was God.” Jesus wrote the entire Word and maybe in a way, that Word is His skin. Maybe the answers are there to feel, grasp and cling to, although I haven’t seen them yet, and maybe Holy Scripture will give me the comfort and assurance that I so desperately need from The Lord of Hosts.

But then again, it sure would be nice if He would come down and sit next to me in His real skin.

Larry Lightner
For: Calvary Chapel Silver City
October 2011