Responding in Truth

This morning I read a tweet from a prominent speaker in our country, and it said something to the effect that God doesn’t respond to our need, He responds to our faith.  I immediately had a “no” in my heart and I thought of the story of the father who brought his son to the disciples and they couldn’t heal him.  He asked Jesus to heal his son IF He could.  IF…there wasn’t a lot of faith right there, you know?  He then admitted to Jesus that he needed help with unbelief and Jesus gave him the miracle of healing his son in order to do just that…Jesus boosted the man’s faith.  Jesus didn’t respond to the guy’s faith.  He responded to his need so that He could give him the gift of faith.  I’m not sitting here gleeful because just one more preacher dude made a mistake.  That’s not the point.  The point is I am tired of the church sign approach we Christians have to the truth.  We often say things that sound so pious and right and cute and cuddly, but when you really start digging into a lot of these platitudes they aren’t right at all, and I think that they also harm because somewhere out there is a hurting person that DID believe and they didn’t get what they asked for and now they are floundering.  The last thing that person needs is a 2 x 4 across his head making him think he didn’t believe “enough.”  I think God responds the way any good Father would respond.  He does what He knows is best in the situation and based on what will bring us the most good and help us to grow.  Truth isn’t straightforward.  It just isn’t.  If you don’t believe me then read Proverbs 26:4-5.  I am learning that God is more often a “both-and” person and NOT an exclusively “either-or” type of person.  And somewhere, somehow we are going to have to quit acting like we know it all, and we are going to have to start acting out of the place that our faith contains mystery and unanswered questions and there is not one human being on this planet that has it all right including (and probably especially) myself.  If we lead people to the Answer instead of trying to have all the answers, we might go far.  Just a thought…