I wish I'd missed a recent phone call.
"You've got to listen to this radio broadcast tonight," the church member urged. "It's the story of a 'miracle man.' It's fantastic! He died, saw a glimpse of heaven, and then came back to life-all because faithful friends were praying. Isn't that tremendous!"
"Yes," I acknowledged, with less enthusiasm than he. "Tremendous." What was I to make of such a call? Was this to help me believe for more of the miraculous? Why did I feel subtly accused, painfully reminded of the shortage of spectacular answers to prayer in my ministry? I wondered if my caller wished I would join the spiritual elite and begin raising the dead.
Time has not erased my disappointment from a spring day more than twenty years ago. Our high school baseball team trailed by a run with two out in the bottom of the ninth, and my coach sent me to the plate to pinch hit. With the pressure on, I swung at a curve ball and struck out.
Going to bat in the ninth is nothing, however, compared to stepping into an intensive care unit, called by a desperate family to pray the equivalent of a home run. All too aware of what is at stake, I pray before I pray officially: "God, if ever I needed a hit, I need it now."
Then I perform my role as a minister, God's representative to a family with its back against the wall. I pray with them for healing. I give them a reassuring hug.
"I'll be praying for you," I say as I leave the room. "God's in control!"
Then, sometimes only hours later, I get word that the patient has died. I walk back through the corridor, the echo of my footsteps punctuating the sterile air, mimicking the empty echoes in my heart: You didn't connect. You struck out.
How can we pastor on those occasions when our faith-filled aspirations are not matched by the outcome? When our cry for a miracle is met with massive disappointment? When I've gone on record imploring God to act in a certain way, and he chooses to respond in ways counter to my request?
In the churches I've served, all in the Pentecostal tradition, an unwritten job description seemed to define my role: "Full of faith, able to move mountains, influential with God." I suspected that they, like I, were frustrated by the lack of visible results. Too often my requests for miracles were like ostriches trying to fly. The prayers were genuine but ungainly. They didn't get off the ground.
Guessing at God's Response
As pastors we're supposed to represent God. We're ambassadors embodying the power of the Almighty to weak and needy people. But frankly, I've found it hard to represent God, particularly when I feel off balance, uncertain what God will do.
Sometimes I've felt like the Lord is throwing curves, and I'm usually missing. Not that I haven't kept on swinging. I've prayed frequently for miracles. I've sought God when conventional wisdom said there was no hope. Medical doctors might give up, I'd tell myself, but I know the Great Physician. City hall might close the door, but I've got the keys to the kingdom.
My spiritual heritage taught me, in the words of an old chorus, "God has a thousand ways to answer every prayer."
And at times, he's answered visibly. I remember praying at the bedside of Roxanne, a young woman horribly injured when a drunk driver hit her car. I asked God to heal her.
For weeks she lay in a coma. The doctors did what they could, but they couldn't offer hope for her recovery. Then one day Roxanne began to wake up.
Eventually God healed her. She has since married and had children. She still has scars, but she lives a normal life. She is a miracle that people can see.
When I was 4, I stood on my grandparents' back-steps and watched my father run to the car: "Richard! Tell Grandma to call the hospital. Tell them it's an emergency!"
With his left hand, he held his right arm together-its bones, nerves, and blood vessels ripped apart by a tractor's circular saw. A mere scrap of skin and tissue remained unsevered.
I told my grandmother the news. Then I began to sob, feeling so helpless and afraid. Grandma made the call, and then she held me, comforted me. And she prayed. My fear subsided as faith grew. I knew God would answer.
In 1954, medical science could not do what it can today. Even if they could sew his arm together, the doctors said, it would never function properly. Still they did what they could while my family prayed, and God responded. I saw God heal my father's arm, which, though weaker, has functioned well. After the accident, he was accepted to medical school. Later he used the fingers on that arm to do surgery.
Yes, I've seen God answer prayer in unmistakable ways. That has encouraged me to continue praying. But because God's answers aren't predictable, I don't always feel like a paragon of faith and confidence.
For example, Ken and Debbie had wanted children for nearly eight years. When they requested, I prayed that God would give them a child. But it took a visiting minister, a friend of mine, to pray with confidence.
Though I stood alongside praying with him, I wouldn't have dared to announce as he did, "A year from now, you'll be dedicating a baby to God." (They actually dedicated Kendra thirteen months later, but that was close enough by my reckoning.)
I didn't want to be presumptuous in my prayers, but I couldn't keep from wondering, Was his confident assertion part of the effectiveness of his prayer?
A pastor friend of mine-who admits to zero business acumen-pulled off a real estate coup for his church that made area developers drool. "How did you get such prime land at that price?" they asked. Some added, "We've wanted to get that land for years."
Stan just shrugged. "We prayed, and God did it for us." Property makes a tangible monument to the miraculous: "Hitherto the Lord has helped us."
But far more often than I care to admit, heaven has responded to such requests from me with silence. As a church-planting pastor, I'd pray, "Lord, please help this young church. We can't make it without you. I can't make it without you." I marched around a piece of property. "God, let us possess the land where the soles of my feet tread."
If it worked for Stan, why not for me? Despite our high expectations, we never got the land. And with each setback, my fears grew. I began to think of worst-case scenarios. We'd better not set our sights too high. We'll only be disappointed.
Yet even in my darkest moments, people still called on me, expecting a man of faith to answer. I still carried a Bible filled with promises for God's people.
"Hang on," I'd tell them. "Don't give up! God can do anything." And I believed what I was saying, in my head if not always in my heart.
What do you do when you haven't seen a miracle for a while? How can you be God's representative at those times when you have no idea whether he will grant your request or not?
God used several experiences to help me see more clearly. I've found it possible to minister on behalf of God Almighty, even as I struggle with the questions and fears.
Obedience, Not Certainty
I've learned first to be available and obedient to God. He wants me to minister to hurting people even when I can't answer their questions. So I try to do my part and let God worry about his part. God calls me to compassion, not certainty; God calls me to obedience, not omnipotence.
Cory taught me that lesson. Debilitated by a combination of MS and diabetes, she was, at 37, completely dependent on others, confined to her bed or wheelchair. MS robbed her of muscle control and prevented her from writing or working with her hands. Diabetes had left her blind so she couldn't even read. She was depressed.
Sitting next to her bed, I asked in the most positive voice I could muster, "How are you doing, Cory?"
"Terrible," she sighed. "I'm no good to anyone. I can't do anything. I don't know why God doesn't just let me die. I'm ready to go, and there's no reason why I should be left here any longer. Why won't God take me home?"
My heart ached with Cory's frustration. "I know it's hard, Cory, but if God didn't have a reason for you to be here, then he would take you home." She stared at the ceiling with blank, unseeing eyes. "The question is not if God can use you, Cory, but how. We just have to pray to know what God wants to make of your life."
"Yes," she protested, "but . . ."
She didn't have to say any more. My arguments couldn't disprove her useless muscles, her insulin syringes, her vacant eyes. My explanations failed to convince even me. My heart screamed, If I were you, I'd feel exactly the same way!
Despite not having satisfying answers for Cory, my calling as pastor demanded that I remain obedient to God and compassionate to her. Ministry continues even in the absence of miracles.
Cory taught me that I needed faith simply to obey, simply to pray. I needed faith that holds steady when everything else, including explanations, crumbles around us. Faith does not mean I've got all the answers. Faith means I act in obedience even when answers aren't apparent.
I've also come to see God doesn't ask me to heal Cory. Nor does he ask me to explain his specific purpose for her life. All God asks me to do is to be available, to show compassion, to pray. He wants me to obey, even though I may not be certain about what he's doing.
Once, in a transparent moment, a popular contemporary faith healer acknowledged that his results, if analyzed carefully, could only claim about a 10 percent success rate.
That encouraged me. It brought miracle-working closer to my level. Nobody bats 1.000. I realized it's okay to keep on asking and believing, even if we strike out nine times out of ten. In fact, it's not only okay, it's essential. Without stepping up to the plate, without asking, we wouldn't even get one out of ten.
Praying in simple obedience has a side benefit: God lifts a tremendous responsibility off my shoulders. It's not my reputation on the line; it's not my ministerial statistics at stake. I don't have to defend God or explain him. But I do have to obey him.
Faith, Not Adequacy
I'd prefer to wait for ministry until I feel totally equipped and spiritually empowered. But I'm not always given the luxury of waiting. Pastors are often forced to act out of urgency rather than adequacy.
When 3-year-old Melissa faced surgery to correct a congenital heart abnormality, I was called to pray for her. I didn't have time to wait until I was "endued with power from on high." The surgery was scheduled, and the clock was ticking. I had to pray even though I felt unprepared.
When people ask pastors to pray, they don't usually think about whether those pastors are filled with faith or fear. Desperate people know when they need prayer. So they rely on pastors to rise to the occasion.
I went to the hospital before Melissa's surgery, not because I felt great spiritual power, but because it was the right thing to do. I read the Scriptures and offered assurances to the family.
I wanted Melissa healed. I knew God could rearrange her deformed heart chambers. And surgery after surgery, God prolonged her life beyond the expectations of her doctors. I believed God's work was in process. I thought her improving prognosis confirmed his will for her good health.
Then suddenly, four years later, Melissa died. On the operating table, facing yet another ordeal, Melissa's heart gave out. Why didn't God finish what he'd started? My questions again mocked me and dared me to pray again for anyone else.
Will I ever feel adequate for such situations? Probably not. But I've come to see that if I wait until I feel adequate, I will never accomplish anything substantial in ministry.
God also showed me that ministry isn't limited by my perceptions. By faith we can see some of God's obscure ways-ways that transcend our understanding.
I realized that God's work had indeed been done through Melissa's short life. Like valuables washed ashore after a ship goes down, good things rose from the wreckage of what seemed to be unanswered prayers. God helped me glimpse a little of the supernatural perspective.
Melissa's family, for example, throughout her short life, was challenged and stretched. Denied physical healing, they affirmed spiritual growth. Difficulties drove them to God. Pain taught them to trust. These were miracles for eternity, not just answers for earthbound requests.
Melissa's church family had grown, too. Watching Melissa, the church's priorities and values were strengthened. Caring and support for Melissa's family blossomed into ministries of meals, babysitting, and other hands-on encouragement. The members of Christ's body shared their pain.
During her struggle, the church gained new appreciation for the value of "things not seen." When Melissa, still 3, stood before the congregation and sang with poise and confidence, My heart belongs to you, Lord . . . I lift it up to you, Lord, and sing alleluia, most eyes in the place filled with tears-and faith.
In these and other ways God worked, answering prayers we hadn't thought to pray.
Trust Not Fatalism
Still there are times I can't see anything that even remotely looks like God is involved. On such occasions I'm learning to leave room for whatever answer God gives. This is not fatalism. It is trust.
Because my experiences with God have not been consistent, I've often been tempted to lower my expectations: Pray a little, pray a lot. It doesn't matter. Que sera, sera.
Trusting God with the results, however, whatever they may be, increases my expectations without demanding that God fulfill them. Trusting God helps me recognize his work and honor him in whatever way he may choose to answer. He may change the problem, or he may change me. He may answer now or later.
A friend of mine pastors an active church in California. During one evening service, the congregation felt an extraordinary urgency to pray for a missionary and his family in drug-terrorized Colombia, that the family would be safe and their ministry fruitful.
Soon after in Medellin, Colombia, the missionary's daughter, hurrying to return home, flagged a taxi. But when the cab pulled to curb, a sudden impulse caused Robin to change her mind, in spite of the driver's irritation, and walk into a nearby shop.
The woman behind the counter stared at her. "I dreamt about you last night," she said. "You're not Colombian. You're American, aren't you?"
Robin affirmed the clerk's impressions, and the woman continued, "Why would you want to come here? It's war here! Most people here want to go to your country." Her question was legitimate. Drug cartels had offered a $4,000 bounty for each dead policeman. In one month more than a hundred police officers plus many innocent bystanders had been killed in terrorist violence. The store clerk's question, however, allowed Robin to tell her about God's love for Colombians-love that had motivated her family to come.
As they walked toward the door a few minutes later, the city rocked with the concussion of a powerful explosion a couple miles away. Robin later discovered that terrorists had packed a car with explosives and parked it in front of the police headquarters-on the very route she would have taken. The car bomb exploded in jammed traffic about the time Robin would have passed by.
Some might view Robin's inexplicable impulse, the dream of a stranger, the significant conversation about God's love, the deadly explosion, and the prayers of people far away as coincidence. Not Robin. She believes that because of the prayers of a church in California, God protected and directed her in Colombia. If that congregation had shrugged their shoulders and taken a fatalistic view, the outcome would have been different.
After hearing that story, I'm recommitted to praying even when visible results aren't always as evident as they were for Robin.
We can be involved in ministry even when we don't have all the answers. God works in spite of our uncertainties and fears. So when I'm called on for miracles, I'll trust God with the answers-whatever they may be-content to know that he trusts me with the praying.
Copyright © 1991 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
