On school picture day I was at the private Christian school my girls attend, waiting with my youngest daughter to get her school picture taken. Friday chapel happened to be at that time, so I sat in on it. The guest speaker told the story of a family committed to Sabbath-keeping who was experiencing a plague of grasshoppers that would devour their fields. They stood to lose tens of thousands of dollars because the company spraying for grasshoppers refused to spray their field when asked to work around Sabbath hours. Amazingly, the power lines the length of their property were covered with solid rows of birds Sabbath morning, which descended and ate all the grasshoppers, saving their fields and fortunes.

Stories like this trouble me. Especially when we share them with elementary school children. What exactly are we trying to say? That if we trust God He will make sure everything works out in our favor? That we can pray and expect Him to take care of things in a way that preserves us? What about all the things that don’t work out? And why would God save a field of grain but not save little girls from brothels, or a wife from her husband’s affair, or a Christian from torture and death?

Often my reaction to my inability to see and understand the ways of God is to reduce God’s provision to a cosmic “everything will be alright in the end” platitude. Clearly He’s not making everything alright now, so He must mean that His care and protection are for the race as a whole over the arc of history, and not really for individuals. He must mean that my soul is safe – not my body, or my possessions, or my relationships. He has redeemed me and I trust in Him for my eternal provision, so at least if I am tortured to death, I know my soul is safe with Him. (Unfortunately, I happen to like my body and my life, and I don’t like the idea of being a pawn in a cosmic game.)

But this really feels like a cop-out to me. How can I possibly enjoy an intimate relationship with a Being who I believe doesn’t care for my well-being today? And how do I explain my own experience, that He does care for things as minute as my to-do list and whether I have time to take a shower? How do I explain the times He has provided perfectly the intimacy I was missing in my marriage, or the words to connect with my distraught child? The longer I respond to Him, the more I am convinced that He desires to be present in every moment of my day, every cell of my being, every thought, every need. But while He does provide for me often, He seems more interested in being with me than in fixing everything. This is puzzling to me, because I place high value on things being fixed. In fact, God and I have had some serious altercations about why He has not made me good yet.

So where does this leave me? Certainly I have not answered the questions that millions have been asking for thousands of years. Truthfully, I think God is beyond understanding. His goodness is beyond understanding and I’m certain He is a little crazy for loving me. And when I think about all the badness that is beyond understanding, I just don’t get it. I explain to my kids the story of Satan’s fall, our own fall, and the importance of humans having the power of choice even though it hurts us. But still the evil in the world is unsettling.

For me, in this season, there are two beliefs that comfort me when I think about pain. The first I have already touched on, and that is God’s desire – and His promise – to be with us. I want to be crystal clear that pain is real, and sometimes so deep and raw it threatens to destroy us. It cannot be spoken away, “faithed” away, hidden away. It is part of our experience, and we will feel it, and we will know that we cannot escape it. Sitting in pain, the most comforting, affirming, burden-lightening experience is to have someone sit in it with us. Most of us have a friend or friends who are quick to offer advice, solutions, and fixes for everything in our lives, and we quickly learn not to share struggles and pain with those people. The times I have felt the most safe in my own emotional skin are the times when I was allowed to be in pain, when my experience was affirmed and I knew someone was with me. This is a rare gift.

God is Emmanuel: God with us. He has an incredible capacity for feeling, and He enters into our feelings as an intimate friend. One of my favorite authors, Ty Gibson, calls Him omnipassionate. He is able to feel deeply with each of us. He is present in our pain. There is no pain outside of His desire to be in it with us. He sits with us in deep sorrows, and He is present in the passion of misplacing my phone for the seventh time today. I’m starting to wonder if this is actually better than Him fixing everything. It irritates me just a little to even say that, but my spirit says yes to a God who is with me just to be with me. A God who holds my pain with tenderness and affirmation, and holy presence. A God who is not immune to my pain, but actually feels it with me because He is one with me by His grace. A God who became human so He actually knows what it is like to feel pain as a human.

The second belief that comforts me is that God can somehow undo our pain in the future. If believing God’s presence in pain is hard for me to grasp, trying to understand His ability to work backwards and “undo” pain is even more of a mystery. In the book “The Great Divorce” by C.S. Lewis, one of the characters says, “That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.” I believe that God’s redemption is for all time. His sacrifice on the cross saved the first humans who breathed, just as it saves us. And if the cross can reach backwards and forwards, maybe heaven can, too.

Consider this passage from Ephesians: “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding. God has now revealed to us his mysterious will regarding Christ—which is to fulfill his own good plan. And this is the plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth. Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us in advance, and he makes everything work out according to his plan.” (Eph. 1:4-11, NLT) 

I am ignorant, sinful, selfish and blind, observing an infinite God through a finite lens. My understanding is weak, but I am drawn by Holy Mystery – a God who is here right now, desiring the intimacy of knowing my own feelings as they emerge naked and timid from my heart; a God who desires to extend His love and grace, passion and power to us in order to bring all things and all times under the healing power of His love. We are not left empty handed, holding only a promise, and neither are we held in the moment with no anticipation of future healing. It’s just like Him to offer comfort right now, and hope for the future. 

Maybe I feel unsettled about the farmer and the grasshopper-eating birds because I’m focused on the wheat. I assume God is placing value on the wheat and the money, when in fact He is placing value on His child. He is present in the experience of the farmer. His presence could be birds, peace, wisdom, money. It doesn’t really matter how He shows up. It matters that He shows up. Because He loves you. Emmanuel Mystery.