Circles
Hope McGovern
I once heard in a sermon that finding yourself back in the
same situation does not mean that God hasn’t been at work in
your life. These words hover almost menacingly in the back of
my mind as, once again, I find myself wrestling with familiar
voices of dissatisfaction, loneliness, and doubt. Once again,
I spend my time trying to convince those around me I’m
worthy of their time and affection, only to feel guilty for the
deception when it works. Once again, I settle for that which
feels secure rather than reach for that to which I know I’ve
been called. And it makes me wonder how, after deliverance
from every storm, my trust can be tossed and turned anew
with each crashing wave of uncertainty. It seems audacious to
claim God has been at work when traveling in circles feels so
much like spiraling.
I know what is required of me: It seems audacious to
to love God and keep His com- claim God has been
mandments. But still, like Jonah,
at work when travel-
I run from the call of God when
ing in circles feels so
it is uncomfortable. Like Pha-
raoh, I deny the reality of God’s much like spiraling.
power as soon as the memory of His omnipotence fades. Like
Job, I question God’s goodness when He takes from me what
I love. Like Samson, I trust in my own gifts rather than the
One who has given them. Like Israel, I forge a golden calf of
my pride although it was the LORD who delivered me out of
Egypt. From the genesis of my exile there has been no revela-
tion of the Promised Land, no exodus from the outcry of my
lamentation. Time and again, although I know what is good,
I do what is not, and I spend another lifetime wandering in
the desert.
but as the Father taught me,” and in the wilderness, did not
turn to other gods. Because of this, I can look beyond my own
folly to see deliverance on the horizon. In Jesus, the cycle of
rebellion is broken so that it may be broken in me. Though
I am brought lower with each turn in my downward spiral,
Christ was brought to the lowest of the low when he died a
death he did not deserve on a cross meant for someone like
me. It is because of the cross that I am both already justified
and not yet perfected. 1
Herein lies my hope: if all I can ask of God in times of trial is
only to feel that the wound be somehow less gaping, the grief
be somehow less cavernous, then all my religion is nothing
more than sophistry, an elaborate delusion for coping with
pain. I suffer that I may be perfected, refined by the flames of
the furnace and weathered by the journey through the Valley
of the Shadow of Death. God did not wall His own son off
from suffering, nor does He allow it for me. Instead, Jesus bore
his cross, although despising its shame, for the glory that was
set before him, and so will I.
Lord, if I am like Jonah, pursue me with wind and waves that I may
not escape You. If I am like Pharaoh, send plagues until I cannot deny
Your power. If I am like Job, send ruin that I may proclaim You alone are
sufficient. If I am like Samson, relieve me of my own strength that I may
see Yours. If I am like Israel, send me into the desert that I may hear Your
voice crying out in the wilderness.
God, let it be so.
Hope McGovern is a senior concentrating in Engineering Physics.
But there is one who, in the midst of trials, was obedient to
God unto death. He did not doubt God’s omnipotence, but
performed miracles in faith. He said, “I do nothing of myself,
20 Spring 2019
1
Hebrews 11:10-15