Postcard from Macedonia

"For even when we came into Macedonia our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted at every turn-fighting without and fear within. But God, who comforts the downcast, comforted us by the coming of Titus" (2 Corinthians 7:5-6).

A few years ago, just before dawn on Interstate 75 in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, I jerked the wheel at 70 miles per hour to avoid a majestic deer planted like a statue in my lane and looking into my headlights. My rental vehicle spun around and landed in a ditch. When I noticed I wasn't dead, I got out of the car, dropped to my knees, thanked the Lord for an extension on life, and rededicated myself to Him.

Later, I boasted to someone about the way God had kept me out of the path of trees or boulders, and the person said, "Well, God could have kept the deer out of the road to begin with." Fair enough, I would like to deal with that objection here.

In the passage quoted above, Paul gives glory to God for bringing Titus to comfort him and his company just when they so needed comforting. Now Paul was an intelligent man. It is interesting to me that he does not raise the same doubtful objection against God as the person did who found fault with my deer rescue account. He might well have thought to himself, "If God were really concerned with my troubles and desirous of my comfort, He could have kept me from being 'afflicted at every turn' to begin with. He could have spared me some of the 'fighting without and fear within.'"

I am mindful that Paul was sometimes "perplexed" in his Christian walk, and perhaps this sojourn in Macedonia was one of those times. We don't know. But we do know-we have this record-how he determined in his heart to view such things. It is evident in this passing reference in Corinthians that Paul was a man who had made up his mind ahead of time to not impugn God in affliction, and to not fail to credit Him in happy times.

As Christians, we must give up the game of continuing to collect circumstantial evidence to use in God's trial. There is no end to that approach because our human minds never reach the end of the rippling effects of a cause. There is always another unforeseen outcome ahead that would prove the more unfortunate-seeming occurrence to be ultimately fortunate. But more importantly, to continue to keep God on the witness stand is to seat oneself in the chair of "unfaith" rather than the chair of "faith." The fact is there are only ever two chairs in the room. We need to make the big decision about the gospel once and for all: Will we live by sight or by faith, or won't we?

This small parenthetical detail in a letter to the Corinthians strengthens me. For one thing, it tells me a lot about what I may expect in life: lots of affliction-and occasional comfort. Nothing has gone wrong.

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