Just show us

After John 14:1-14 

Just show us,

he says, just

show us and

it is sufficient,

it is enough,

sufficient

to answer

all questions,

enough to quell

all doubts, just

show us, that’s 

all you need 

to do.

 

I’ve already

shown you.

I am sufficient,

I am enough,

I taught you

this from the

beginning. No

surprises here;

you’ve already

seen, already

been shown.

 

Photograph by Marcus Paulo Prado via Unsplash. Used with permission.

When in doubt

After Luke 24: 36-43 

When he appears

among them, without

sign or warning,

not there one moment

and there the next,

and says peace,

they feel anything but.

Peace? Are you serious?

You died, and here

you are. Peace? How

about fear, and shock?

No, he offers peace:

set aside the questions

in your hearts, and 

consider: does a ghost

have flesh and bone?

Can a ghost let you

see and feel the wounds

in his hands and feet?

And by the way, is

there anything to eat?

 

When in doubt, touch,

and eat fish.

 

Photograph by Jonathan Borba via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Hands and feet

After Luke 24:36-43

They see, they touch,

they doubt.

He sees the doubt.

Why, he says, why

this doubt. See

my hands. See

my feet.

(Why point them

To his hands and feet?”

(His hands and feet

bear the marks, 

the testimony.)

Touch me, and see,

They see, they touch,

they doubt and disbelieve

still,

even as the joy

begins to bubble up,

even as the marvel

begins to seize them,

unbidden.

And to prove his point,

he asks the normal.

Anything to eat?

Some fish?

The world is turning

upside down,

right before them,

right inside their hearts.

Photograph by Cristian Palmer via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Bam! Shazam! Pow!

After Luke 24:36-43

They’re talking about

these events, this man,

wondering if this could be

true: that he was alive.

Bam! Shazam! Pow!

He’s there, among them,

and says, prosaically,

peace be with you.

Peace? Are you kidding?

Shock, fear, turmoil, yes;

like seeing a specter,

a ghost, yes. But peace?

They know he died;

they know he died

because they saw it,

witnessed it, saw 

the last gasps, felt

the earthquake, saw

the sky split open.

But they touch him,

and he’s real.

Photograph by Dan Meyers via Unsplash. Used with permission.

"Clear Winters Nights" by Trevin Wax

Chris is a young man who appears to be on his way to a good marriage, a job in the ministry, and a promising future. He’s finishing college, engaged to his girlfriend Ashley, and working with a group of other young adults in planting a new church in Knoxville.

But Chris has doubts, and the doubts are growing. He’s not sure how much of the Bible he can accept as true. He’s feeling a lessening of the commitment to the church plant. And he doesn’t share the assurance that his girlfriend has about faith. What’s driving his thinking is something that happened in his past – the family abandoned by his father – and something happening in the present – the strong influence of a non-believing college professor.

Chris breaks off his engagement, walks away from the church plant, and is considering continuing his religious studies program to become a professor. If that sounds contradictory, that’s because it is. He is one confused guy.

He spends a few days leading up to the New Year’s holiday with his much-loved grandfather, a retired Baptist minister, a recent widower, and the victim of a recent stroke. The two will spend the holiday talking about faith, the Bible, belief, and what actually happened with Chris’s father. It will not be an easy conversation for either Chris or his grandfather.

Clear Winter Nights: A Journey into Truth, Doubt, and What Comes After by Trevin Wax is written as a novel. But the story is more a discussion of doubt and faith, and what many young people raised in Christian homes struggle with in their personal lives and the culture at large.

Trevin Wax

Wax is the Bible and Reference Publisher at Lifeway Christian Resources, general editor of The Gospel Project, a blogger at The Gospel Coalition, and a teaching pastor. He is also the author of Holy Subversion: Allegiance to Christ in an Age of Rivals (2010); Counterfeit Gospel: Rediscovering the Good News in a World of False Hope (2011); Gospel-Centered Teaching: Showing Christ in All the Scripture (2013); and This is Our Time: Everyday Myths in Light of the Gospel (2017). He and his family live in Nashville, Tennessee.

Clear Winter Nights doesn’t have a nice, all-loose-ends-tired-up-and-all-doubts-resolved type of ending. That’s what make it seems so real, not only in the lives of young people but in the lives of many older ones as well. Wax tells a good story, and he tells a real one.

Related:

Trevin Wax on How to Trust God in an Age of Fear and Anxiety.

Top photograph by Allessandro Viaro via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Is God a Puppeteer?

We’ve lived in St. Louis since 1979. That’s 37, almost 38 years. We left Houston to come here, Houston which was a big boom town still riding the oil wave brought on by higher prices and the OPEC oil embargo in 1973. In terms of boom towns, St. Louis, well, wasn’t.

I moved first, in late 1978, and lived in a hotel for six weeks. Our house in Houston sold, and then the buyer was transferred. It sold again, but existing usury laws in Texas kept a lid on mortgage rates, which not only kept a lid on mortgages but also on home sales. The housing market teetered toward collapse for the wrong reason – plenty of home buyers but no mortgages.

Then my wife got pregnant. Apartment rent in St. Louis, a monthly mortgage payment in Houston – we were broke. And stayed broke. It would be more than a year later that our house in Houston finally sold. Times were lean. It was not fun. We still don’t look back and laugh. Or even smile.

I questioned God. I did. Repeatedly. Angrily. Prayer didn’t work. Believing didn’t work. Faith didn’t work. I got caught in depression. And anger. If we were supposed to move to St. Louis, then what happened?

I said more than once that I felt that God was a puppeteer, and I was the puppet.

In Heart Made Whole: Turning Your Unhealed Pain into Your Greatest Strength, Christa Black Gifford says this about her own dark night of the soul: “I realized that at its core, the offended, broken pieces of my heart didn’t believe that God was good.” In my case, I didn’t believe that God was good to me. Broken pieces of my heart refused to accept that God could be good to me, even in the midst of turmoil and pain.

That’s exactly what happened to me way back in 1979 and 1980.

What I couldn’t see then – blinded by pain and anger – was that the experience was the first significant training session in faith, in understanding, and in knowledge. It made me more attuned to the pain of others. It made me hear a word or an expression, and know that behind a smiling face was deep hurt.

It was a lesson that I still apply today. I watched about four minutes of the vice-presidential debates before I had had enough. But it was sufficient for me to see that the Democratic nominee, Tim Kaine, had pain and anger behind his bullying tactics.

I recognized it.

The house in Houston did sell. We were able to move into a house in St. Louis. Gradually the pain subsided. Gradually I understood what had actually happened.

Understanding doesn’t make it any easier. But it does make it bearable.

Led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’re reading Heart Made Whole. Consider reading along and join in the discussion. To see what others are saying about this chapter, “The Doubting Heart,” please visit Sarah at Living Between the Lines.

Photograph by Kai Stachowiak via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.