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CHAPTER 1

Reaching Through Doubt

If You Are Willing

If. A tiny word. And yet it holds the world in its hands. If you want. If you are willing. You can make me clean. If ... that single word echoes in my soul, and I know we must start the journey here at If. Not if you can. Not if you have the power. Not even if I do it all right. If you are willing. Lord, are you willing to make me whole?

I look at the question spoken by this man with a skin disease, a disease that ostracized him from his community, that made him an outcast. I gaze at it long and hard and find there a mirror to my own doubts, my own fears.

I know God has the strength.

I know he can do anything.

But is he willing? Does he want to?

That's the question that steals my breath, scratches at my faith.

So with trembling I begin this journey of encounter. I whisper, "Are you willing, Jesus, to heal me too? Even me, even now. Is your love enough?" Is it enough to conquer my "If"?

And the leper's story calls out to me, beckons me closer, whispers of a hope in the storm of doubts, of despair, of disappointments.

I take one step toward the leper. I take a step toward his fear. In his healing, can I find my own? Will I see that the question is not so much if Christ is willing, but if I am ...?

I imagine it happened something like this:

A Leper Tells His Story

The crowd moves like the Red Sea moved before my ancestors. Great walls of people pressed against each other to avoid touching me, to prevent even the slightest brush against my flesh. They create a path as dry as the ground in my soul. A path that ought to lead to hope. But I am afraid to hope.

I remember all the promises given to my people after their flight from slavery. I remember that our God is redeemer, rescuer, savior. He is to be my strength and my song. I know all that. But it's hard to believe it. So difficult to believe the promises could be for me.

I am an outcast. I am untouchable. I am ...

"Unclean." I murmur the word.

I'm supposed to shout it. But I can't. I just can't. So I move forward through the parting waves.

A last chance. A final try. An impossible request. But I have nothing left to lose.

My skin flakes and crumbles. My own body betrays me. It started as a small sore. It grew to swallow my life. I used to have plans; I used to have dreams. Once I believed. I was loved, walked with others. I had confidence in what the future would hold. I had confidence in the God of Israel. I have no such confidence now; I have no such dreams.

But if ... if ...

My if is the only thing I bring.

Perhaps I am a fool.

But I still press through the crowd. I still move toward him. He should shun me. The law says to shun me. And yet I don't turn around. I can't. Not today.

I reach him at last. I kneel before him, my hands at my sides. Hands covered in disease. Face marred.

The words spill from me. Too quick. So unsure.

"If you are willing, you have the power to cleanse me." I emphasize the if. Because sometimes hope is a terrifying burden.

Then, something strange happens. He stretches out his hand toward me. Is he? No, he wouldn't, he shouldn't.

He is. This Rabbi, this holy one, this Jesus, he does the unthinkable.

He touches me.

His fingers brush my face, rest on my open wound. I shiver. His hands are warm, calloused, rough, wondrous. It has been years since I felt the touch of another human being. And now, I tremble. His warmth seeps into me, into my soul.

And I wonder, does he want to cleanse me of more than my disease? What does it mean for a man like this to make me whole?

Then, he speaks. "I am willing. ... Be clean!" Simple words that change everything.

I feel it leave me: the disease, the heartache, the hopelessness. I am clean. Freed. Healed.

I step back and look at my hands, my arms. They are clear. They are clean, perfect. I touch my cheek and revel at the smooth skin I find there.

I am no longer looking at him, no longer facing him. I am looking at me. And what I see astounds me.

He is speaking again, but I am not listening, not really. I am healed! I must tell my family, my relatives, those who were once my friends. I must tell everyone. I am healed!

"Say nothing to anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest."

Nonsense. Say nothing? How can I say nothing? I came with "if." I leave with everything.

Everything but the one who healed me.

Reaching for Wonder

As I write this chapter, I come from discovering a loved one has made some choices that devastate my soul. A shocking discovery, a painful truth. And I'm reeling, blindsided, grasping for hope as I gasp for air. So many things I know about God. Know, and truly do believe. God takes shame and pain and transforms them to his glory. We need but turn to him. Nothing is beyond his reach. As he changed the cross from a symbol of horror and death to one of grace, hope, and life, so he can transform all things. All things, even this. He is able. I reach for that truth like a drowning man, like a woman whose heart is shattered.

I reach, my fingers trembling. And I find in my grip this tiny word, sharp like a shard of glass. If. I, too, am afraid to hope.

If you are willing, Lord.

If you are willing, you can redeem even this for your glory and for the redemption of the one I love.

This is my little, weak faith, this is all I can offer. If.

So, like the leper, I offer my doubt before God in the same breath that I offer my faith.

And then I wait. I wait here with these words on the screen and ponder again the leper's story.

Like him, I do not know if God will make this brokenness whole. But I do know that I need more than promises, more than memorized verses, more than the knowledge of God's power. I need a touch from Christ himself.

So, I watch for what this God of mine will do in the face of desperation mixed with doubt, to a man who is unclean, untouchable. To a man filled with my same doubts, my same fears.

Is God's love enough?

And then it happens. "And [filled with compassion], Jesus reached out his hand, [and] touched him" (v. 41). A variation of this verse says that Jesus is "incensed," but his actions speak much more to compassion than anger, which is why most critical editions of the New Testament say "filled with compassion." Compassion caused Jesus to first heal more than the man's surface disease. Compassion caused Jesus to do the unthinkable.

Jesus touched him.

And he touches me.

What's in a Touch?

I am drawn to this strange dichotomy of "if" paired so closely with the confidence of "you can ..." or "you are able." In the original Greek, the word used for "you are able" is from the verb dunamis, from which we get our word "dynamite." It's a strong word. It means this man has no doubt of Jesus's power. But he does have doubts, not that Jesus can, but that Jesus will.

He doubts God's care. His love.

The law made it clear that people with leprosy, a designation used for a variety of skin diseases, were not to be touched lest the person who touched them would also become unclean. So I wonder, as I think about this man ostracized from society, family, friends because of his disease, if the pain, the discomfort, of his disease is actually the lesser thing. I wonder if his leprosy has taken more than his health, if it's taken his heart, his faith, his connection to people who make him feel human.

The isolation, the loneliness, the rejection has become his reality. "If" is born in the barrenness of being alone. In our pain, our hurt, our desperation, it is easier to believe in power than it is to believe in love. It's easier to doubt than to hold hope in trembling hands.

We hear that doubt, that desperation in the leper's silent question: "Jesus, are you willing?"

And Jesus answers. But he doesn't answer the question first. If we rush through this section, we miss the importance of the order of Jesus's actions. Before he says he is willing, he reaches out and touches the man.

He touches the untouchable. He breaks the isolation. He addresses the deepest need, the need for connection to become whole.

We expect Jesus to heal the man of leprosy. But Jesus begins by healing what we do not at first see. He first reaches out to heal the ostracism, the rejection, the source of hopelessness and doubt.

Jesus makes the man whole, not just well, but whole. And he does it by touching him, by reaching, by encountering the man just as he is.

That's how it is with us.

In this place where I feel untouchable, unclean, where I only have "if," I find that it is not I who reaches for God, it is he who reaches for me.

He reaches for me when I cannot.

And suddenly, I dare to hope.

I Am Willing

And in the face of doubt and fear, Jesus speaks not a condemnation, but instead two simple words (in the Greek) that dispel both doubt and fear. The first is, when translated, "I am willing." And the second is, "Be cleansed."

When we are at our lowest, when faith fails, when it hurts to try to hope anymore, God's answer to us is not disappointment or guilt or shame. His answer is, "I am willing." He is willing to make us whole. He loves us enough not just to heal but to make clean.

I love the deeper meaning of the word "to cleanse" in the Greek. It not only means to cure a person from an "unclean" disease, but it also means to free from faults, to free from the doubt we see in "if." It means to consecrate, to dedicate, to make complete for God's use.

That is what Jesus intends to offer us. Not simply a cure for the external need, but a deep soul cleansing that takes our "if" and transforms it into wonder.

He is willing. The question is, are we?

Are You Willing?

The leper was not. He was willing to accept healing, but he left health behind. He would not accept the full meaning of cleansing that Jesus offered. After Jesus healed the man of leprosy, Jesus said, "Don't say anything to anyone. Instead, go and show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifice for your cleansing that Moses commanded" (v. 44).

This may look like a command. I see it as a call, an invitation to more, to be consecrated and set aside for God's use. It's an invitation to become not just healed, but a part of something great and beautiful and wondrous. To become a part of Jesus's movement in the kingdom of God.

But the man is not willing. Mark 1:45a tells us, "Instead, he went out and started talking freely and spreading the news so that Jesus wasn't able to enter a town openly."

Instead. I shudder at the word. And my heart breaks.

Because in the face of the great "if," Jesus offered so much more than healing. He offered himself. And yet this man was unwilling to claim the greatest gift of all.

As I consider this disturbing truth, I think about the little, once-wild donkey we recently rescued and brought to Wonder Wood Ranch. She was so thin, ragged, and terrified.

For the first two weeks, she was too afraid to come to the barn and eat. Every day I would haul an armload of hay out to the pasture for her. I could see the "if" in her eyes. She would stand and watch me; sometimes she would let me pet her. Sometimes she wouldn't. She knew I was able to feed her, help her, bring her what she needed to heal. But she didn't know if I was willing to give her more. She didn't know if I cared, if I loved.

I was willing. I am willing.

I fed her, gave her supplements, wormed her, had the farrier out to fix her feet and the vet out to vaccinate. I petted her, brushed her, cleaned her hooves, built a shelter to protect her from the rains.

And the once skinny, bedraggled donkey is now happy, healthy, and able to eat from her feeder at the barn.

But I want more. I want more for her than just physical health. I envision a donkey who finds her joy, her purpose, in bringing hope and healing to disadvantaged kids at Wonder Wood Ranch. I want her to become all that she can be, to fulfill her potential and purpose and leave all her fears behind. I want to take her "if" and bring not only healing but also wholeness.

Jenny may look to me to solve her external problems of hunger and hoof-ache, but I am offering her a chance to be a part of our family, to know love and have a mission and discover the joy of being a part of something wondrous.

In my pain, in my "if," that is what Jesus is offering me too, just as he offered the leper.

God is offering more than healing. He wants to do more than make it better. He is calling us to a mission of love.

He is calling us to show, not tell.

Show, Don't Tell

In the writing world, there's a little phrase that you learn early regarding effective writing. "Show, don't tell," the experts say. Jesus asked the leper to do the same. In Mark 1:44 Jesus instructs the man to "show yourself to the priest. ... This will be a testimony to them." He calls the man to show what God has done. But instead we read, "He went out and started talking freely" (v. 45). The man didn't show, he told, and in disobeying Jesus, the power of his testimony was lost. We learn that because of this "Jesus wasn't able to enter a town openly."

Despite his healing, the leper got it all wrong. Healing didn't make him obedient. Sometimes in our pain and desperation we think if only God would do this thing we want, then we would respond with faithfulness and submission. The leper tells us ... maybe not.

It is our short-sightedness that keeps us from all God is willing to do. We look at the hay in the hand and fail to see the one who holds the hay. We fail to see the fullness of what God is offering.

In our pain and desperation, it is not our doubts that keep us from wholeness; we need only come to him with our doubts. "Ifs" in hand, we must simply encounter him, for he is willing to give not just the hay. He is offering himself.

Who Is This God?

Who is this God who hears my doubt and offers not condemnation but more than I can even dream? I mull over that question as I drive away from the home of my friend with ALS. If you were willing, Lord, you could heal her.

But he doesn't.

Or does he?

Her ALS progresses. Today she was surrounded with tubes to help her breathe and to pull the mucus from her lungs. Another machine pounded her chest to break up the mucus for removal.

She was able to speak only through the movement of her eyes on a computer screen. She asked how she could pray for me.

I read to her from a book called Heaven.

And my soul was filled.

If you are willing, Lord ...

I am willing.

And in that moment as I approach a stop sign, my mind still caught in the room where my friend sits in her wheelchair amidst the menagerie of machines, I know it's true. God has taken my "if" and transformed it to wonder.

He is willing, not to cure the body (at least in this life) but to make my friend whole, and in doing so, to touch me, make me whole, as well. With every labored breath, I see God with her, offering more than physical healing, offering himself — a close, intimate walk through her last stages of life, with him. I see the wonder of a God who can use even this awful ALS as "a testimony to them" (v. 44b) and to me.

People ask me why I go visit my friend when she can no longer speak more than a few computer-generated words, can barely even breathe. They think I am being kind, they think I am faithful. They don't know the truth. I go because there, in the eyes of my friend, I see the God who takes my "if" and makes me whole. I encounter the God who is reaching for me.

And I discover anew that my doubts are no barrier to God's gift of his presence. I discover this God who is willing to give me what I truly need to become all he created me to be.

I find the God of Gideon, who doubted that God was truly calling him to rescue the Israelites from Midianite oppression. Three times in Judges 6 Gideon brought to God his "if" and asked for a sign.

But Gideon replied to him, "With all due respect, my Lord, if the LORD is with us, why has all this happened to us?" (v. 13)

Then Gideon said to him, "If I've gained your approval, please show me a sign that it's really you speaking with me." (v. 17)

But then Gideon said to God, "To see if you really intend to rescue Israel through me as you have declared, I'm now putting a wool fleece on the threshing floor." (vv. 36-37)

Gideon doubted. God encountered. God led. And Gideon received more than a blessing; he received a purpose and the presence of God in it.

That is the God we have. The God who embraces our "if" and changes it to glory.

God is willing, not because of our perfect faith, but despite our stumblings. He loves you. And that is enough.

So come, sit with me and with Gideon, waiting, breath held, our hearts whispering, Lord, if you are willing ... so am I.

Meet me here, Lord, in my doubts, in my desperation, in the "if" places of my life. Encounter me, and make me whole.

* * *

Come and see a man who has told me everything I've done!

John 4:29

See also John 4:4-42.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Reaching for Wonder"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Abingdon Press.
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