By Tin-chee Lo (盧天賜); February 10, 2017
The first question of the seventeenth century West Minster Catechism is “What is the chief end of men?” We are catechized that “Men’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.” My question is “If we are to enjoy God forever, why don’t we enjoy Him now?” The reality is that we don’t seem to enjoy God all the time. I believe the reason is that we have forgotten the preceding phrase: “to glorify God”. It seems to me that to enjoy God we must glorify Him first. However, John Piper has a slightly different perspective. He modified the Catechism’s answer by saying “We glorify God by enjoying Him forever.” I see truth in both statements because enjoying God and glorifying God are two intertwined disciplines which are complementary to one another; they go hand in hand.
How do we glorify God in practical terms? I believe to glorify God, we are to practice five basic essential things which will cause Christians to grow: Bible-study, Worship, Prayer, Fellowship, and Stewardship. Among these five disciplines, I believe Prayer is the subtlest one. Prayer can be as easy as a child instinctively crying out to his father. The shortest and the most incisive prayer in the Bible is “Lord, save me” (Matthew 14:30). It was uttered by Peter when he was about to sink down into the sea. Yet, prayer is also the most difficult lesson to learn in life. One time, a student asked Professor Einstein a question, “I am running out of ideas for my dissertation. Do you have any suggestions?” Einstein did not miss a beat and said, “Young man, write something about prayer.” C.S. Lewis resisted writing any book about prayer, for he considered himself to be always a student of prayer.
To me, the most difficult thing about prayer is to pray in times of suffering. These are the hard times when I couldn’t enjoy God.
One day in late summer of 2015, I woke up in the morning with a very strange feeling. I felt that I didn’t know where I was and as I looked at the mirror, I didn’t know who that man was in the reflection. Quickly, I realized that I had a double vision in my left eye. This was a very terrifying situation. I was not able to drive for I saw through the windshield two roads in front of me—one real, one virtue. Accident was bound to happen if I mistakenly drove on the virtue road. At home, I had difficulties to read and view my computer screen. Without the sight, “What is the meaning of my life?”, I said to myself. My daily works consist of reading, writing, and painting. All these activities required good eye sight. Without normal sight, my life was unlivable.
Through it all, I did not complain to God, I did not harbor bitterness toward Him, I had not said “Why me?”. I just wanted to pray which is the only thing I could do, but I really didn’t know how to pray.
One day, for unknown reasons, two Bible verses came to my mind:
• “In all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
• “The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.” (Job 1:21b)
I sometimes prayed with these two verses, and sometimes I prayed through these two verses with my own words. An unspeakable peace came to my heart. But I wanted to be sure that I wasn’t using the Bible verses as an incantation to conjure up mysterious healing power from God because I knew this would be idolatry. I wanted to make sure that I prayed with a deep conviction in the trustworthiness of the Word of God. Therefore, I mentally checked my theology by asking myself the following questions:
• Do I truly believe that God is all good, all powerful, and sovereign? Yes.
• Do truly believe that God knows my present suffering? Yes.
• Do I truly believe that God loves me and He wants me to grow in Him? Yes.
• Do I truly believe that God who takes care of the lilies in the field and the birds in the sky will even more takes care of me? Yes.
• Do I truly believe what Joseph said to his brothers “What you had done meant evil to me but God meant good through it all to save lives.”? Yes.
• Do I truly believe that Daniel had faith in God when he said, “Even if God does not deliver me, I shall still not bow down to the king’s statue.”? Yes.
Since my answers to these questions were all positive, I could then boldly pray in this way: “Lord, I am truly convinced that everything in my life, including my bad eye sight, works for the good of me providing I love you; I am confident that I am your elect child and I am chosen by you with a good purpose.”
I also truly believe that in God’s economy, God owns everything, including my health. So, I was at great peace to pray “God, you have given me good eyes for so many years, so you have every right to take my sight away. Blessed is the name of the Lord who have had the sovereign grace toward me.”
These two prayers gave me great peace beyond words. After several weeks of hopelessness, I was advised to consult a neuro-ophthalmologist in New York City. She prescribed me a flat prism over the eye glasses for my defective left eye. The idea was to pre-distort the incoming image to compensate for my warped vision. I thanked God that I was immediately able to drive and do daily works. The doctor told me that my problem was due to a minor stroke in my left eye causing damage to one of the six nerves that control the six eye muscles. But the good news was, as the doctor assured me, that this kind of nerves, unlike those inside the brain, could be self-healed but very slowly. Today, my problem is gone and I thank Lord Jesus for His healing. Although the cause of the mini stroke was still unknown, I view it as a wake up call to me to watch out my blood sugar to prevent bigger problem in the future. Who can say that suffering produces no good coming out of it?
This story, thankfully, had a good ending but the process of going through it taught me a great deal of spiritual lesson. My theology wrought through these two verses (Romans 8:28 and Job 1:21) had helped me to converge my heart, my mind and my volition to a genuine act of prayer that brought about in me peace, stillness and joy during my difficult times. I prayerfully hope that the Word of God may help you too in your dark night of the soul.
