Well my bout with the flu is over. I like to think that prayer, yours and mine, were responsible for it. Do you believe in prayer? Most people just casually answer to the affirmative, but I’m not sure that they really believe it.
When I was still just a baby Christian, my brother Jim’s five-year son, (Bob, named after me), developed a brain tumor. This little boy was beautiful. He had long curly blond hair, extra sparkling blue eyes, and was off the charts, brilliant far beyond his age, (a byproduct of his rare disease.) My brother loved that little boy with all his heart, as did anybody who ever met him. Jim took it to the extreme, in that he had never even used a baby-sitter because he did not want to be separated from Bob. If little Bob could not go, my brother and his wife did not go, end of story. Jim’s entire life was built around little Bob.
One day Bob’s left eye began drifting in an odd direction. Jim took him to the doctor and the diagnosis was not good. All tests pointed to a brain tumor at the base of his brain. His eye was drifting off to the left because the tumor was putting pressure on his optic nerve as it grew in size. The doctors could not tell for sure whether it was malignant or due to its position possibly could be surgically removed with a brain operation, but they scheduled him for surgery. All our family and friends began praying with an intensity that was unparalleled to that point in all of our lives. I was on my knees and prostrate before the Lord sobbing and begging with all of my fiber.
Finally the day for the operation came and we all were gathered in the waiting room for some ten hours while this beautiful little innocent five year old child underwent surgery. At last a phone rang at the desk of the waiting area and the nurse called my brother to the phone, the doctor wanted to talk to him. I did not have to be told what the results were because I could easily see from my brother’s reaction to the news. He was standing and leaning over a counter and I saw him slump down and sag as if someone had sucker punched him. The tumor was massive and malignant, and they removed as much as possible but they could not get it all because it was positioned as such that the operation would kill him if more of it were to be removed. There was no hope.
I will spare you the agonizing details, but despite of our constant prayer, that precious little boy lasted just three months. The tumor metastasized after the operation and seeded up and down his spine creating enduring, savage, unbearable, and cruel pain all over his little body every second of every minute of every day that he lived. It was as though he was being cruelly tortured for three months. I was there in the hospital with my brother in the final moments as he held little Bob’s little emaciated body with tears in his tortured eyes as he looked upon his son and little Bob said to him, “Daddy I want to go home”, and then he mercifully died in my brother’s arms and his pain was silenced forever.
Every treatment known to man was tried on little Bob including chemo-therapy, radiation, and even experimental drugs. We prayed and prayed and prayed through each treatment every day for months, and we prayed for a miraculous healing, but he only got worse and worse right up until the moment he died.
I ask again, Do you believe in prayer? I do, but I have come to realize that the answer is not always yes. Sometimes God says, no! It is difficult; I would say that it is “impossible” to understand the “Why?” question. I have learned through this tragedy and others in my life not to ask that question of God. I accept with blind faith that God has His reasons for calling little Bob home. I know with certainty that little Bob is in heaven and what would heaven be like without little children? I cannot envision it as being nearly as joyful without children running everywhere. That is the only comfort that I have been able to achieve in this tragedy.
When we go to God in prayer, we must understand that the answer will not always be the one that we hope to hear. We are God’s creation and not vice versa. He is all knowing and has a sovereign plan for each of our lives and that included little Bob’s short life and excruciatingly painful death. I believe that Satan and sin are responsible for all death and suffering , but for some reason known only to Him, God did not restrain Satan from devouring little Bob in this case.
God’s perfect plan will always manifest itself according to God’s schedule right on His timeline. The Bible tells us to petition Him and pray ceaselessly, but to accept His answer when it comes. It does not tell us that we will always understand it. In fact, just the opposite, it tells us that God’s ways are higher than ours and we cannot understand them.
One thing that we “can” understand is the fact that God loves us. He knows better than anyone what it is like to lose a beautiful Son who is pure and innocent as a newborn lamb. He watched His own Son be terribly crucified by evil men on a cross and die a horrible death. Worst of all, in the end His Son Jesus had to be left all alone for the very first time in His life, as God necessarily had to turn away from Him because His holiness and righteousness precluded Him from looking upon the black sins of the world that Jesus took upon Himself as a sacrifice for us all, in order that we might live. How difficult it must have been to keep from sending a hundred thousand angels to slay the murderers of Jesus and lovingly take Him down off that cross and heal Him, but His love for us prevented His taking any action. he just sadly watched His only Son be slaughtered on our behalf. I do not have a direct line to heaven, but I know in “my” heart that God wept as He watched Jesus, and I believe that He did when little Bob suffered.
If you are suffering a tragedy or struggling with similar questions, I “pray” for you today. If God can give me peace over such things, He can do likewise for you as well. It begins with faith and that is made strong through studying God’s holy word the Bible. If you do not already do it, please start reading it today. It will better prepare you for your agonizing trials and tribulations as well as those times of good cheer
James 5: 13
Is anyone among you suffering?
Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful?
Let him sing psalms.