My Latest Reading

I grabbed the book titled An Echo in The Darkness in our church library and have been thoroughly lost in the book since I picked it up. It's fictional, but encouraging to me. You might recognize the author as Francine Rivers who has received numerous awards for her books. One of the reasons I love her as an author is that she writes about people in her books searching for truth and usually eventually finding God. In this part of the book the 2 key characters, Alexander the physician and Hadassah the assistant, have set up a clinic in a Roman city and have been healing and treating people with all kinds of diseases. Hadassah, a devoted follower of God and Alexander who has grown up relying on the Roman gods for answers. This is the thought from Hadassah as they were working with patients:

"...They came looking for magic cures and quick recoveries. Some were pale and thin, addicted to vomiting one rich meal so they could partake of another. Others complained of trembling muscles while their breath reeked of wine and their skin was yellow with jaundice. Men and women alike practiced a life of promiscuity and then wanted to be cured of ulcers on their genitals or noxious discharges. The appeal was so often the same: Make me comfortable so I can go on doing whatever I want to do. They wanted sin without the consequences.

How do you bear us, Lord, when we are so stubborn and foolish? How do you bear us at all?

And then there was poor Alexander, empathetic to their pain and suffering, striving to be a master physician, yearning for concrete answers to all the ills of mankind. Remedies, he always thought in terms of remedies! Avoid the midday sun, be cautious of the cut of meat, the quality of water, etc.

None of them, not even he, seemed to realize they weren't just physical beings, that God had left a mark upon them by the simple fact of his creation. They preferred their idols, tangible, possessing capricious characteristics like themselves, easily understood. They wanted something they could manipulate. God was inconceivable, intangible, incomprehensible, unexploitable. They didn't want a life of self-sacrifice, purity, commitment, a life of Thy will be done, not mine. They wanted to be master of their own life, to have their own way, and be answerable to no one.

And you allow it, Father. You absolutely refuse to violate our free will. O Lord, blessed Jesus, sometimes I wish you would reach down and take hold of us and shake us so hard their would be no one able to deny you- that every man, woman, and child would bow down before you. Forgive us, Lord. Forgive me. "

This book expressed perfectly how I feel sometimes working in health care as a nurse and how I felt doing mission work in different countries. One of the reasons I like this quote so much was Hadassah's prayer at the end: "Forgive me."

God is master over my life and my purpose is to do his work. There are consequences for sin and disobedience. This book focused on the physical consequences some face, but more importantly sin separates us from God. That's why we needed Jesus as the ultimate sacrifice for our sins. Thank you Jesus! How much misery we would avoid if we listened and followed God wholeheartedly!

"Forgive us, Lord. Forgive me."