Walking Thoughts

There was once a great and noble King whose land was terrorized by a crafty dragon. Like a massive bird of prey, the scaly beast delighted in ravaging villages with his fiery breath. Hapless victims ran from their burning homes, only to be snatched into the dragon's jaws or talons. Those devoured instantly were deemed more fortunate than those carried back to the dragon's lair to be devoured at his leisure. The King led his sons and knights in many valiant battles against the dragon.

Riding alone in the forest, one of the King's sons heard his name purred low and soft. In the shadows of the ferns and trees, curled among the boulders, lay the dragon. The creature's heavy-lidded eyes fastened on the prince, and the reptilian mouth stretched into a friendly smile.

"Don't be alarmed," said the dragon, as gray wisps of smoke rose lazily from his nostrils.

"I am not what your father thinks."

"What are you, then?" asked the prince, warily drawing his sword as he pulled in the reins to keep his fearful horse from bolting.

"I am pleasure," said the dragon. "Ride on my back and you will experience more than you ever imagined. Come now. I have no harmful intentions. I seek a friend, someone to share flights with me. Have you never dreamed of flying? Never longed to soar in the clouds?"

Visions of soaring high above the forested hills drew the prince hesitantly from his horse. The dragon unfurled one great webbed wing to serve as a ramp to his ridged back. Between the spiny projections, the prince found a secure seat. Then the creature snapped his powerful wings twice and launched them into the sky. The prince's apprehension melted into awe and exhilaration.

From then on, he met the dragon often, but secretly, for how could he tell his father, brothers or the knights that he had befriended the enemy? The prince felt separate from them all. Their concerns were no longer his concerns. Even when he wasn't with the dragon, he spent less time with those he loved and more time alone.

The skin on the prince's legs became calloused from gripping the ridged back of the dragon, and his hands grew rough and hardened. He began wearing gloves to hide the malady. After many nights of riding, he discovered scales growing on the backs of his hands as well. With dread he realized his fate were he to continue, and so he resolved to return no more to the dragon.

But, after a fortnight, he again sought out the dragon, having been tormented with desire. And so it transpired many times over. No matter what his determination, the prince eventually found himself pulled back, as if by the cords of an invisible web. Silently, patiently, the dragon always waited.

One cold, moonless night their excursion became a foray against a sleeping village. Torching the thatched roofs with fiery blasts from his nostrils, the dragon roared with delight when the terrified victims fled from their burning homes. Swooping in, the serpent belched again and flames engulfed a cluster of screaming villages. The prince closed his eyes tightly in an attempt to shut out the carnage.

In the pre dawn hours, when the prince crept back from his dragon trysts, the road outside his father's castle usually remained empty. But not tonight. Terrified refugees streamed into the protective walls of the castle. The prince attempted to slip through the crowd to close himself in his chambers, but some of the survivors stared and pointed toward him.

"He was there," one woman cried out, "I saw him on the back of the dragon." Others nodded their heads in angry agreement. Horrified, the prince saw that his father, the King, was in the courtyard holding a bleeding child in his arms. The King's face mirrored the agony of his people as his eyes found the prince's. The son fled, hoping to escape into the night, but the guards apprehended him as if he were a common thief. They brought him to the great hall where his father sat solemnly on the throne. The people on every side railed against the prince.

"Banish him!" he heard one of his own brothers angrily cry out.

"Burn him alive!" other voices shouted.

As the king rose from his throne, bloodstains from the wounded shone darkly on his royal robes. The crowd fell silent in expectation of his decree. The prince, who could not bear to look into his father's face, stared at the flagstones of the floor.

"Take off your gloves and your tunic," the King commanded. The prince obeyed slowly, dreading to have his metamorphosis uncovered before the kingdom. Was his shame not already enough? He had hoped for a quick death without further humiliation. Sounds of revulsion rippled through the crowd at the sight of the prince's thick, scaled skin and the ridge growing along his spine.

The king strode toward his son, and the prince steeled himself, fully expecting a back handed blow even though he had never been struck so by his father.

Instead, his father embraced him and wept as he held him tightly. In shocked disbelief, the prince buried his face against his father's shoulder.

"Do you wish to be freed from the dragon, my son?"

The prince answered in despair, "I wished it many times, but there is no hope for me."

"Not alone," said the King. "You cannot win against the dragon alone."

"Father, I am no longer your son. I am half beast," sobbed the prince.

But his father replied, "My blood runs in your veins. My nobility has always been stamped deep within your soul."

With his face still hidden tearfully in his father's embrace, the prince heard the King instruct the crowd, "The dragon is crafty. Some fall victim to his wiles and some to his violence. There will be mercy for all who wish to be freed. Who else among you has ridden the dragon?"

The prince lifted his head to see someone emerge from the crowd. To his amazement, he recognized an older brother, one who had been lauded throughout the kingdom for his onslaughts against the dragon in battle and for his many good deeds. Others came, some weeping, others hanging their heads in shame.

The King embraced them all.

"This is our most powerful weapon against the dragon," he announced. "Truth. No more hidden flights. Alone we cannot resist him."

Melinda Reinicke, Parables for Personal Growth (San Diego, CA: Recovery Publications, Inc., 1993), pp. 5-9.

Is God cruel? Those who know the scriptures would immediately say, no, God is faithful and merciful. His steadfast love endures forever.  However, it's easy to tout the company line and regurgitate what's written and what one has heard every Sunday for the past umpteen years.  For the heart to follow the mind is a more challenging endeavor - especially in the wake of extremely difficult, painful and hurtful trials.  Is God trustworthy and good? Yes, but how do you tell that to a young man I know who was born "by accident" to a prostitue; who lived his life disregarded and shunned by his family?  Essentially orphaned, he grew up on the street, having been shot, stabbed, abandoned and punished for being born in a circumstance that was entirely out of his control.  How do you convince an another older gentlemen who described to me how his father, the church's pastor, experienced a mental breakdown, abused the family and left him, his younger siblings and mother with nothing?  Explain this truth to a woman I met who, as a young child, was raped by a deacon in her church? Or how do you explain it to a young man, having a history of friends and family very close to his heart leaving and hurting him, finally thinking his hope for having a family with a woman he loved was in reach, only to have that come to an abrupt and surprising end?

These are all true stories, and you may be responding to them in one of a several ways. You may be thinking, in a very disassociated and objective manner - That's fine, but they just need to trust God.  What's the big deal, anyway? They must not be believers.  Or you may be sympathizing with them, feeling pity for them in their trials.  Or, you may even be starting to question God yourself because you are all too familiar with hurt and pain.  This just proves that God is cruel.

I would propose that none of these assessments are valid.  To simply say, "just trust God" negates the very real trial and circumstance that God has orchestrated in order to help that person build trust in Himself.  Rather, encouraging them to exercise patience and waiting on the Lord is required - having faith that He will act in the time of distress and waiting is what proves God's trustworthiness and our trust in Him.  On the other hand, to show pity brings God good and wise judgement into question.  He is the author of all trials. Should we pity the "poor person" saying he should never have deserved this - never! God is wise and His ultimate authority and sovereignty is being displayed for that person's good in God's ultimate glory! Is God cruel? No, He is compassionate and like any good father, will train His children to depend on Him through whatever it takes.  He will train them in faith through the trials of life.  The fact that there are trials is not evidence of God's cruelty, but rather His kindness in providing the means through which we can see His power, His glory, salvation and deliverance. Is God cruel? No - in His compassionate mercy He has already told us that He will grow our faith through the trials He orchestrates.

He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry.  As soon as He hears it, He answers you.  And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide Himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher.  And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, "This is the way, walk in it," when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left.
Isaiah 30:19-21

 
And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, "What shall we drink?" And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a log, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet.  There the Lord made for them a statute and a rule, and there he tested them, saying, "If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord your God, and do all that which is right in His eyes, and give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer."
Exodus 15:24-26

The the Lord said to Moses, "Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not."
Exodux 16:4

Moses said to the people, "Do not fear, for God has come to test you, that the fear of Him may be before you, that you may not sin."
Exodus 20:20

Take care lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments and His rules and His statutes, which I command you today, lest when you have eaten and are full, and have built good houses and live in them, and when your heards and flocks multiply, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the houses of slavery, who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions, and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end.
Esodus 8;11-17

His eyes see, His eyelids test the children of man. The Lord tests the righteous
Psalm 11:4-5

The crudible for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the Lord tests hearts.
Proverbs 17:3

 

He brings us trials to test our heart. Is He cruel for testing us? No - it is the very testing, the trying and the trials that build our faith in Him rather than faith in ourselves.  The faith that grows in our hearts can only be proven as real, genuine and precious because of the trials! He is exercising fatherly discipline to train us in faith.

'My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by Him.  For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and chastises every son whom He receives.' It is for the discipline that you have to endure.  God is treating you as sons, For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?  If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
Hebrews 12:5-7

Count it all joy my brothers when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.  And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
James 1:2-4

 

In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuiness of your faith - more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire - may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 1:6-7

 

Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.
James 1:12

So whatever became of those individuals I mentioned earlier? The orphaned boy recently gave His heart over to Christ, trusting Him for His salvation and the hope of a future that is good and not evil.  He has been folded in to the family of God where he is not rejected but is being cared for and loved by the body of Christ.  The woman who was raped by a church deacon has grown into a God-fearing woman who, now as a pediatrician, works to serve the Lord caring for children and helping to protect them against abuses.  The young man who experienced unrequited love spent time truly questioning God's goodness but trusted the Lord and is serving Him as his first love. The older gentlemen spent much of his young life as a man with a hardened and embittered heart towards God. Though Christian by profession, he held God at arm's length from his heart until one night, after returning to his mother's house, darkened from no electricity with no food in the cabinets, he found his mother face down on the ground praying.  She grabbed his shirt and pulled him down to the floor saying, "Pray." Reluctantly, he acquiesced.  No sooner had he begun praying to God, when there was a knock on the door. Going to see who it was, he was surprised to see one of the neighbors handing him a bag of groceries and $200 saying, "God gave me a sense that your mother might need some groceries and money tonight." He is now a pastor of a growing congregation of God-fearing believers.

Maybe your pain and hurt still runs very deep.  In your disillusionment, it still seems very difficult for you to concede that your horrendous circumstances could have been orchestrated by a good and loving God rather than a cruel God.  My friend, please hear me - it is your own sin of pride and hardness of heart that is keeping you from experiencing the joy of humbling yourself in your trial.  God has the best plans for you, and wants to give it to you if you would only be willing to lay down your demands for your own will to determine how things should be or have been. Understandably, the trial is painful. Of that there is no argument, but softening your heart to the One who is willing to heal you is something you will have to choose to allow Him to do. Please take His word to heart.

For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand.  Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
Psalm 97:7-9

Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore He exalts Himself to show mercy to you.  For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for Him . . . you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry.  As soon as He hears it, He answers you.
Isaiah 20: 18-19 

"I am sometimes discouraged by the way, but though winding and trying it is safe and short."

-- Puritan Prayers, Shortcomings