Asking for a sign

One of my favorite movies is Bruce Almighty. Unlike the Spitfire Grill (my favorite favorite movie), it makes me both laugh and cry.

Bruce is a news reporter who is jonesing for an anchor job.  He winds up fired and alone and reaping the whirlwind of his own self-importance. It's been a terrible day.

At one point, Bruce asks for a sign from God and then promptly ignores the (many) sign(s).

Then he gets miffed at God and bawls God out.

Morgan Freeman played God and there is a scene where Freeman recounts the hissy fit:

"God has taken my bird and my bush."
"God is a mean kid with a magnifying glass. "
"Smite me, O mighty smiter!"
Now, I'm not much for blaspheming, but that last one made me laugh.
…
I'm the one.
…
Creator of the heavens and the earth, alpha and omega.
…
Bruce, I'm God.

Yes…this is all so familiar…daily…familiar.

Before I feel superior to Jim Carey, aka. Bruce Almighty, let's just say, I've lived this so many times in my own life that I wonder why God puts up with me.

And my shenanigans.

I know people that have peace and trust and rest in situations that would make my hair curl and my heart quit while I skip around emoting over the tiniest of wonderings.

I can be such a bonehead.

And God is so patient and kind. 

This morning, I dove into some old reading territory, 2 Kings 5. It's about a soldier who seeks healing from his skin affliction…leperosy even. He visits a prophet who tells him to "go wash" in a certain place to be healed.

Naaman, the soldier, goes ballistic when he hears this from the prophet's messenger.  It's too easy!  Isn't there clean water back home to bathe in? What the heck?

You read on and find that the officers under Naaman's command (sometimes translated "servants") approached with a question.

¹³ But his servants caught up with him and said, "Father, if the prophet had asked you to do something hard and heroic, wouldn't you have done it? So why not this simple 'wash and be clean'?"

 ¹⁴ So he did it. He went down and immersed himself in the Jordan seven times, following the orders of the Holy Man. His skin was healed; it was like the skin of a little baby. He was as good as new.

Hard and heroic.  Hmmm.

For some of us, hard and heroic is more palatable than "easy peasy."  We can do hard and heroic. 

We also can whine about "why does it have to be so hard" and "I'm nobody's hero" and "why do I get all the tough stuff?"

When God asks us to simply trust Him – sort of like a little child – we freeze up and wonder if God can be trusted to be gracious? We ask how people can just trust and why don't they ask questions like we do. (It makes us feel super holy and superior.)

If God's will doesn't require us to do backbends while juggling flaming chainsaws and pedaling a unicycle up hill-than it is suspect.

So when he chooses to be so gracious and extend an easier grace over the harsh graces we've grown accustomed to, we spin. And freak out. And emote.

He is so good.

And patient.

And I am so glad.

A friend recently asked me if all my questions to God ever amounted to answers. "Not really. Not often, but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop asking them."  His point was that he trusts God without the drama. He trusts God and rests peacefully as I yelp driving over snakes and wonder if I can trust God to be good while my stomach is full of bacon biscuit, the funds are there for another month, and I am wealthy in friends.

Lord. You know me. You made me.
When it comes to trust, I have so much of nothing.
Thank you for putting up with my shenanigans and cold sweats and histrionics.
Thank you for putting peaceful people into my life to laugh with me, hold my hand, kayak with, and swing on the porch swing.
I'm slow.
But learning.
Amen. Amen.