Other Answers

Oh Lord, hear my prayer.
Oh Lord, hear my prayer.
When I call, answer me.


Oh Lord, hear my prayer.
Oh Lord, hear my prayer.
Come and listen to me.

It's a reflective and quiet melody. (Here's a link to listen to it.) I prayed it this morning.

What troubles me is two-fold. First off, when I pray it, I feel a bit (or a little more than a bit) like a hypocrite. My heart cries out as if God has not been answering me. But when I take my blinders of self-pity off, it's patently obvious that God has blessed me in literally uncountable ways. My life is a litany of blessings. It's just that my personality focuses on the disappointments.

So that's the first problem. When God answers me, and he does, do I even notice?

The second one is even more challenging than the first. I recently finished Night by Elie Wiesel. Shaken to the core, I have to ask, "Did Elie see any answer to his prayer?" The answer was No. Not from Elie's perspective, at the time. And who could blame him? Upon his entry into a Nazi death camp, he walked past a pile of burning human flesh. Men. Women. Children. Babies.

That is my second problem. Whoever answered Elie's prayers is the one who answered mine. In light of Elie's experience, that's not a comforting thought.

And between these two problems I struggled mightily as I pondered the God who answers all prayers. It's a package deal. The same God answers them all.

But then a very encouraging thought ran through my mind. The package includes Jesus. God the father answered the prayer of Jesus Christ. Jesus despaired too. Jesus knew the answer was not what he wanted to hear. And Jesus went to Calvary, for me, because that was God's answer to my unspoken prayer. My unspoken need.

The God who answered my prayer answered Elie's prayer. And Jesus' prayer. All three of us experienced the sense of abandonment. My experience pales before that which Elie endured. And Elie was not Jesus. But across the wide spectrum of experience it's the sense of abandonment that haunts us worst. When we pray, and the world seems silent, we inevitably feel abandoned. Does God care?

So it may not be the answer I want – but it's the answer a loving God gives to both me, Elie, and Jesus.

"Take up your cross. I'm not going to tell you otherwise."

If we're not in the mood for a cross, we'll certainly feel abandoned.

But this is what God's son experienced. If Jesus is to be formed in me, I will need to make my peace with the occasional feeling of abandonment.

Take up your cross.

What comfort is there in that? It is in the knowledge that beyond the cross lies life. Eternal life. Life with God. Beyond my petty day-to-day grind. Beyond the death camps of Germany. Beyond the cross where God himself died alone.

Beyond. Just a bit beyond that which is gruesome and just beyond that which wearies a human man.

God himself awaits me.

And he loves me.

On the other side of the cross, I will never be alone again.

Oh Lord, hear my prayer.
Oh Lord, hear my prayer.
When I call, answer me.


Oh Lord, hear my prayer.
Oh Lord, hear my prayer.
Come and listen to me.

Reminder From A Hamster Bottle

No, I didn't dream about a hamster last night, (as noted in a prior blog), though I have had that dream again since I last blogged about it.

This time it was an image. Sometimes images form in my head, and I find myself a bemused spectator. "I wonder what I was picturing?" I find myself asking, a second or two after the image took shape. I query my own brain for an answer to my own question. It's weird. We really do have subconscious minds. Sometimes I think it says a lot simply about what primordial thoughts are percolating below my conscious thoughts. Sometimes I think it's a nudge from God. Most of the time I cannot tell, and probably the true answer is that I never know.

Too much prologue. So there I was this morning, reflecting on some long, long, painful struggles I have been dealing with. And yet I am alive. Healthy. In a warm home. And yet... And yet... it's so human to turn to God for a solution to every problem – even when we have so much else to be thankful.

While I struggled with a few "Why" questions this image formed. Took shape. And I asked myself what I was looking at. It was the stopper on a hamster bottle. It's been 30 years now, but I'm pretty sure it was the way the bottle worked when I was a kid and had my own hamster. Rubber, with a tube running through it. Nowadays they screw on, but I digress.

So there it was. A hamster bottle stopper.

Why on earth? What brought that ancient artifact to my mind?

But as I reflected a bit, I had to smile. The hamster has to really work at it to get the water. There's a little ball at the end of the tube. That's what keeps the water from flowing out all at once. So the little feller has to push the ball bearing up to get each sip. It takes a little while. But it works.

If the hamster had a brain (a dubious proposition) he might wish for a faster delivery system. Why, oh God, he might ask, do I have to go through all this hassle. There's tons of water up there. I can see it.

But of course if it all came down at once, it would flood the cage and make it unsanitary. And I know from experience that an open dish of water likewise soon gets soiled with hamster poop, cage fluff and soggy hamster treats.

There is an upside to that delayed and slow delivery system. The water that comes is good, pure... and it sustains.

So maybe there is a lesson here for me. I am alive. The trials I have been through have not taken me out. God has provided. Drip-feed survival is not to be mocked. It may be a blessing. One day I will die anyway, but in the meantime perhaps a lesson from the hamster bottle. Someone who loves me has provided for me.

Even when it comes out slowly.