The Time to Love

Dear God,

I don’t want to tell you what to do, but

there are four, even five issues

concerning your work in the world

that disrupt my dreams.

First, a thousand years may be as a day to you,

but it’s still a thousand years to us.

Couldn’t the devil-defeating-Deliverer

have been Eve’s third son or first daughter?

Second, the Light of the world was born

in an obscure pin prick on the map.

What about the people in China or Chile?

Why didn’t you do in Benin what you did in Bethlehem?

Third, do you really need our help

spreading the good news to others?

Our witness is often too little, too late, and too lame.

I fear we turn more off than we turn on.

Fourth, when can we depart this death-shadowed valley?

I feel like a child asking when will we get there.

Like my father, your answer is,

“It’s just around the corner.”

And, fifth, the issue that challenges my faith the most

is why you allow pandemics and poverty;

hurricanes and holocausts; cancer and corruption.

Haven’t we suffered enough.

My child,

Time is really on humanity’s side since

I don’t want any to perish

without the chance of knowing me.

I’m working with someone you love right now.

And yes, my Spirit does speak to every heart.

But it helps those hearts to see my heart through yours.

I could have the stones tell of my love,

but that wouldn’t help the stones.

As for pain and suffering,

know that I suffer with you.

Not everything is explainable now so,

I ask you to simply trust me.

Don has spent the majority of his career in education teaching from academy to post graduate. For the past 18 years he has been in academic administration first as Chief Academic Officer and then as Assistant to the President for Mission at AdventHealth University. Don has a bachelor’s degree in psychology and a Master of Divinity degree from Andrews University, and a Ph.D. in Counseling from Purdue University. Last fall he and his wife Merrie Lyn retired to Kettering, Ohio to be near family.

Photo by Jasper Boer on Unsplash

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