I have been sitting on my front porch more than usual. It’s warmer, for one thing, and I’m no longer walking the kids to school. Maybe it is to avoid the dog, who wants to climb up into my lap (she is not a lap dog, nor do I invite or even like lap dogs). She stays off my lap, out of my business, and in the backyard until I’ve had coffee and read or written a bit. Gretty joins me on the porch while two of the boys think about dragging their bodies out of bed and Lu reads upside down on the couch.
It is us two, just girls, and I’ve had a lot of busy-in-the-morning little boys to know to appreciate a little girl doing her little girl thing. Gretty loves worms and roly polies and is often on the hunt for things to add to her orange five gallon bucket. She talks to her little critters like a mother. Oh you precious little guy, don’t you worry. We’ll get you nice and cozy in your bucket. Do you need a pretty flower? You do? Oh, you sweet little thing, we can get you a flower!
Yesterday, she pressed a tiny ball of a roly poly into my palm and urged me to love it while she prepared its new home. I examined the ball and its neatly plated armor hiding the soft inside secrets that tell it to move. After a moment to decide he was safe, it unrolled itself onto its curved back and squirmed ten or twelve little legs in the air, begging for me to flip it over.
This creature, a walking shell. A miniature military vehicle that cruises my vast concrete driveway and suddenly dries up when death takes over. What makes up its last moments? Does it raise one last leg up into the air, too weak to go on? I bet its wee brain, no more than a spark of instinct, simply shuts down. It halts like a toy whose batteries have run out. You could never convince me that several million years of development separate me from it. Millions of years should have upgraded this life form to its advantage; he shouldn’t just be scooting around on pavement, but rather sitting inside at the kitchen table.
I will never be a person who willingly argues a young earth viewpoint. But I can vouch that for me, only creation makes sense. The miracles expressed in a given day–have you seen how small and frail a dandelion seed is, yet the root of such a weed fixes itself in the dirt like an anchor?–the wonder of creation speaks. Environmentalists, activists, and Greta Thunberg are on the right track, sort of. There is something about this old-young earth worth saving, redeeming, or at least paying some attention. It is profound: For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen…so that men are without excuse. (Romans 1:20)
Just by marveling at creation we are testifying we see Him. We see God’s handiwork; we hold roly polies in our hands. We’ve seen babies born. We’ve picked vegetables out of our garden, we’ve eaten food from the ground. We’ve climbed mountains and watched sunsets. We’ve swam in the ocean. We are without excuse.
One time I met a rocket scientist during cello lessons. I was sitting on the couch, waiting for Jubal to wrap up his session, a massive textbook spread on my knees. Nerdy draws nerds, I suppose, and the man across the coffee table stopped strumming his guitar and asked me what I was studying. We fell into an easy conversation, pondering the pros and cons of various educational systems. I asked him what he did for a living. He began describing solar flares and how to measure them, and then he told me of a three million dollar machine prototype he would drive next week, strapped in his car like a baby, to Washington DC.
As usual, I felt pretty out of place talking to someone so qualified. Obviously he was important–though I’m not sure I know why solar flares need to be measured. But finally, at the ripe old age of the mid-thirties, I don’t feel threatened and I don’t mind asking foolish questions. Astronomy, rocket science–it’s not in my wheelhouse. I hardly know anything, not about the stars and sun, not about how to measure them, or even why man tries. I have enough faith to believe there is a God who holds it all in balance, who has a plan I’ll never even understand. I’m not curious about how solar flares work, at least not until it applies to me in an existential way.
I will not spend my life questioning how the universe has been put together. Eventually, we will know it–science is simply the mystery of God being distilled in a way humans can comprehend, with our limited tools of comprehension. It’s like the miracle of life itself, how several years ago we couldn’t imagine the secrets of the unborn child within the mother’s womb, yet now we can see the babe by ultrasound, sucking its thumb and dancing, patiently waiting for her day to be revealed. The more we uncover, the more we are without excuse. Science is a marvelous mechanism in the hands of the Father, but speaking for myself–I don’t think I need it. I live with a moral obligation to trust that even in the things I cannot see or understand, God has my best interests in mind. This is the security of every believer. Our eyes are fixed on Him.
But oftentimes, as I am in the habit of writing, an idea plagues me until I must fiddle with it until I understand it. I don’t need to know why I’m here anymore–I’m solid. What I need to know is how to answer questions for people I love. It is the question, as Francis Shaeffer put it, How Should We Then Live?
I am desperate to know, determined to put it on paper. Thank goodness we’ve got the Bible, but even the Bible is read through our human lens and often misinterpreted. I grew up sandwiched between scare tactics and midwestern work ethic. Grace rarely figured into the equation. I need better vision. I lack wisdom, I am cynical. I fall into rhythms of hopelessness and doubt.
God, help me, I plead, and He never, ever ignores me.
Most people know the Lord’s prayer, the template Jesus offered when his disciples asked Him how they ought to pray. We all have it memorized, as simple as reciting a nursery rhyme:
Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name…
But after Jesus taught them, he gave a little story. He talked about a guy who was at home, asleep in bed, his kids snuggled up around him. All of the sudden, there is a knock at the door. It’s his friend who lives down the road. His buddy yells through the window, “Hey man, sorry to bother you. Can you lend me three loaves of bread?”
The man inside is slightly annoyed. It’s the middle of the night, his kids are asleep, and he doesn’t want to be bothered.
Jesus says, “I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man’s boldness he will get up and give him as much as he needs.”
This, apparently, is what God wants from us. Boldness in asking questions.
“I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.”
(Luke 11)
These words of Jesus are life to me. Lord, I can ask questions. I’m at your door every night and all day long. God, lend me your ear. I am not leaving till you throw me some bread.
As Gretty gently puts the little roly poly back into the flower bed–“he just loves my crazy flowers,” she giggles, referring to the wild flower seeds she’d sown the day before–I stand on the doorstep and knock. I’ve got questions that need answers–for Gretty, my early morning bug hunter, my future teenager, my forever baby girl.
God, how should we then live?
