In God's Time

I loved “Little House on the Prairie” as a kid. I daydreamed about traveling back in time to visit Laura, Mary, Ma and Pa. I’d bring with me modern-day items that would rock their world. They would think my Cabbage Patch Doll was amazingly lifelike, putting their little corn-silk dolls to shame. I would dazzle them with my flashlight. “We could dance to Pa’s fiddle in the barn at night without the lantern setting the hay on fire!” Forget Pa’s fiddle. Wait till they hear The Charlie Daniels Band on my Walkman.

After careful consideration, I decided it would be a bad idea to bring a TV. It would be too much for them. How could they begin to comprehend seeing someone live on a tiny square screen thousands of miles away? They haven’t even figured out how to get water a hundred yards up hill into the house without buckets yet. I’d have to take it slow and possibly hold back a few things lest they declare me a witch and burn me at the stake.

And, my, how things have changed since I was a kid! What would they think about our technological advances today? I remember the telephone episode where Mrs. Oleson was the switchboard operator. This new-fangled contraption, along with Mrs. Oleson’s love for gossiping, caused all kinds of strife, including the near break-up of a marriage. What kind of effect would Twitter have on these people? Albert would regret tweeting about the 15 fish he caught in the swimming hole when the entire town showed up with their cane poles. Nope, it wouldn’t be wise to jump too far ahead of the times. There are just some things these people aren’t ready for.

This brings me to the question: What things are my great grandchildren going to have access to and knowledge about that would be too much for me to understand? The Ingles never dreamed of talking with Mary in Mankato at the Blind School from Walnut Grove. Seeing her on Skype would be unimaginable. It makes my brain hurt to think what communication will be like a hundred years from now.

One day it dawned on me as I was driving (Can you see Nellie loose behind the wheel of a convertible Miata? Watch out, Willie!), that this same concept is true in my spiritual journey. There is so much about God, the Bible and prayer that I cannot seem to wrap my tiny, unimaginative brain around.

Up to this point, I have been ashamed to admit that I have a hard time completely understanding what I have been taught about God and the Bible. Some of the stories seem too farfetched for me to believe. Really, someone could build a boat that held that many animals and none of them ate each other over a forty-day period? I’m fairly certain that the stomach acids of a great fish would completely destroy a person after three days. And Moses parting an entire body of water with a little rod is hard for me to picture. (I know, lightning is going to strike me down for questioning the validity of these stories, but I have to be honest here.)

Prayer is a concept I most likely will never grasp. How does God hear all of our prayers, especially when a majority of mine are silent ones? Is it like in Bruce Almighty with the post-it notes? Morgan Freeman never did reveal how he answered all those pleas to win the lottery. And the whole free-will versus God-has-everything-planned-out-before-we-are-born thing goes beyond my comprehension.

I suppose just as Nels Oleson was not ready to learn how to utilize Facebook to market his mercantile business (“Like us, and you could win a free tiller!”), I’m not quite ready to understand exactly how God works.

And that’s where Faith comes in. Thank God (literally) for that little seed planted so long ago in my heart that has kept my beliefs strong all these years, even when my head is in total chaos. I will continue to search for answers and pray as I always have. That is the only way I will grow spiritually. But I can relax, knowing that the answers are out there, and I will one day receive them all… in God’s time.