A Game of Cricket

The question still lingered in the air,
"What promises of God are you struggling to believe right now?" As I glanced through the list of promises, they were familiar. They were promises I knew from the Sunday School Bible stories, from the sermons I listened to throughout highschool, and the passages I studied in college. I shrugged, a bit indifferent to the question.

When you've known something since you were little, it's easy to think you believe it. But when I looked at the list again, I realized one of my greatest spiritual struggles in the last year has been my Messiah complex. I think that everyone's salvation, well-being, and growth is up to me. My head knows it's not. But my heart is not always so sure.

This Messiah complex ultimately denies God's sovereignty, God's presence, and God's power. It's practically atheism. It's the belief that God is not present, He isn't doing his job, and therefore I have to pick up his slack.

My greatest doubts question the promise, "behold I am with you, even to the end of the age."

Even after focusing on God's presence for an entire year, this is still my greatest struggle.

I've been studying the attributes of God, and this same week I had been examining God's invisibility. As I studied the scriptures, I found an increasing frustration that God is invisible. While I have always had a deep faith, I love tactile, physical representations of things. Physical touch is one of my main love languages. So naturally, I struggle with God's invisibility. It's easy for me to turn into doubting Thomas, saying, "Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe."

That Sunday morning, I asked God to teach me more about Himself. To reveal more of Himself to me. To speak to my heart clearly.

I listened eagerly in church as I worshiped, I was attentive during the sermon, I read the Word. But there was nothing.

I was craving His presence, and yet I felt only His invisibility.

Frustrated, I went to bed early.

And then God sent the cricket. (God always seems to use bugs to teach me lessons...)

As I lay in bed, I wasn't sleepy. And then I heard it. The distant chirping. I assumed it was in the other room, so I closed my eyes and hoped it would stop.

The chirping got louder. I turned on my light and hunted for it, but it remained hidden and silent.

Annoyed, I turned off the light and climbed back into bed as the silence and darkness enveloped me. Just as I was falling asleep, I heard it again.

I turned on the light and crawled around on all fours looking under the bed, dresser, and wardrobe. The cricket was silent.

This game of Marco Polo continued for an hour and a half.

Exasperated, I informed God that I was not pleased with my cricket friend, my lack of sleep, or the fact that He hadn't showed up in my day even though I made time for Him and asked Him to come.

And then finally He broke the silence,  
 Did you ever doubt the presence of the cricket? 

And I realized the double standard I had... Even though the cricket was quiet when I searched for it, I never doubted its presence. I had hunted for it, even crawled around on all fours for it. I was determined to find it. Meanwhile, when God is quiet, the first thing I assume is that He's abandoned me. That He's no longer with me.

I whispered my confessions, and lay down to hear the cricket chirp yet again. This time it was very close. I shot up in bed, flicked on the light, and found it perching on my bedside table. After trapping it and taking it outside, I drifted to sleep with a deeper trust in God's promise of His presence.

²⁶ And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, ²⁷ that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us..."      -Acts 17:27