God's Perfect Ways in Our Imperfect Circumstances

by Gary L. Cox

[As for] God, his way [is] perfect: the word of the LORD is tried: he [is] a shield to all those that trust in him.  (Psalm 18:30)  

Recently, I received the following question.  "What you would conclude if you prayed for someone and the Lord opened the womb immediately but they had a miscarriage?"

This situation described is very difficult because there is such obvious pain in this deep loss.  Any sense of purpose which might aid understanding and give comfort is not readily imagined by mere human reflection alone.  What really strains the sense of purpose is the fact that God's seeming answer to prayer for the human desire to have a child, is denied (humanly speaking) by the miscarriage (why would God contradict himself, or change his mind?).  But this view, though understandable from the perspective of the disappointment of desire, would mistakenly place the purpose of man's desire as sovereign over the purpose of God when he answers deeply felt human prayers. 

In fact, if one must be able draw out some adequate human understanding of God's purpose or plan in order to be comforted in these situations, one may as well expect to have no comfort at all.  However, when thinking more generally about what God is always doing in the lives of  his children, it must be remembered that God's objective is to strengthen and purify one's faith in him.  When facing any matter that is beyond human understanding, perception or reason, we are called to trust God, not our understanding.  The scriptures are filled with helpful examples of saints who were stretched to believe God in circumstances they could not explain or understand, even though they seemed unfair, unreasonable or without purpose.

Psalm 18:30 is a simple reminder of this process.  The perfectness of God's way is the focus or object of faith in every personal circumstance.  However, this confidence in God's perfection is drawn from past trials of faith where the Word of God was proven.  Every proven experience of the Word has a benefit to the believer in new trials.  In any present trial, God can be trusted with the understanding that his way is perfect even though it stretches one beyond human understanding.  The one who trusts God will find him to be an armed defense, or shield against the onslaught of human questions, reason and doubt against God's perfect ways.

This incident stirs up my memory of the first and second miscarriages of our 11th and 12th children.  I was surprised by the deep troubling of soul that unexpected questions about our first miscarriage put upon me as a father/husband, Christian and pastor.  Every doubt and fear came from my inability to understand God's purpose in our circumstances.

In January 1998, I preached a "wonderful" pro-life message on Psalm 139 (first ever).  That was the Sunday before the Roe v Wade anniversary (Jan. 22).  I was sincere and passionate, but did not realize how little the Word really meant to me personally in this area.  God had not yet pressed me to find his word "tried" and my faith in him, a "shield".  At the close of the message, I joyfully announced Sally's pregnancy of 10 weeks.  Later that evening, she started to miscarry, and we lost the baby on Wednesday, January 22, the abortion industry's morbid anniversary of ascribing nothingness to unborn children. 

Upon inspection, the baby had not developed to the 10 week level.  The visible appearance of our child was so minute that my human reasoning strained within me, "is this really a child, a real child like all the rest?"  What thundered the loudest in me was the inability for my reason to judge the matter beyond appearances.  How could I ascribe humanity to this apparently shapeless, nothingness?  I was stunned by the staggering powerlessness of my reason and perception.  Spiritually, I felt as if God put his finger upon my faith and found me to be trusting in my perceptions and not in God.  In quietness, I remembered the lofty sermon I had preached and sensed the distance my experience had pushed me from the idealistic platitudes so recently spoken. 

I picked up the Psalm and read it again, only this time I had a more personal and pain-filled lens to process it through.  "Your eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect; and in thy book all [my members] were written, [which] in continuance were fashioned, when [as yet there was] none of them". (vs. 16)  Suddenly, God gave me a glance through his eyes.  My eyes could not see any substance; however, His eyes did see!  God's eyes saw the complete and perfect substance of my yet unperfected child.  More than that, God had written down every member of my child's being when there was yet nothing of them formed.  The complete and finished substance of my child was recorded in God's book of life before there was any appearance of him upon the earth. 

There it was, God's heavenly perspective and purpose had preceded and ruled over the limited earthly perspective available to me.  Verse 17 welled up in me with great joy, "How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!".  Here was the real comfort and hope: God's thoughts mattered, not mine.  My child's life and purpose were certain and substantive, preserved in the thoughts and ways of God, and God alone.  It no longer mattered what or why God was thinking, but that he was thinking.  He was thinking of my child to a greater degree than I could think of even myself.  That is relief, that is comfort!

The Lord led me next to Romans 4:17, "God, … raises the dead, and calls those things which be not as though they were."  Here were God's thoughts toward my child, he called a child, that by my human perspective was non-existent as though he was fully formed and complete.  Here was my relief and my joy.  My trust in God truly became a shield against the onslaught of doubts from my limited understanding.  My unformed child was every bit as whole, complete and real as any child ever born into visible appearance. 

Now the joy from the truth that God had truly given us our 11th child flooded upon me and to the whole family.  It was time to celebrate as we did with every natural-born child.  I bought flowers, birthday cake and all manner of party celebration occurred.  God had given us another child and we were rejoicing!  We named the child Kathab Yatsur, a transliteration of the Hebrew meaning written members.  One of our sons handmade a tiny casket and we had a small funeral service at home, and buried Kathab in our rose garden.  We placed a granite tombstone upon his resting spot and were filled with complete satisfaction, comfort and joy. 

By faith, God gave us his perspective that Kathab was complete, whole and had finished God's infinite heavenly purpose in his brief 10-week life in the womb.  What closure, what healing, what sense of real purpose and satisfaction of God's great care for us was realized.  A real child had lived to the fullest extent granted by God, whose carefully thought out ways were absolutely perfect.  We never celebrated a living child's birth more than we were enabled to celebrate Kathab's birth in holy, visionary faith, trusting God for what He was thinking and doing on our behalf through Kathab Yatsur. 

In fact the joy was so substantive that I had begun to fear that I could never celebrate another miscarriage to this degree, if God ever chose to send us a complete-yet-unformed child again.   (I had this same fear after the birth of our firstborn son, how could a second child receive as much love, joy and wonder that was exhausted upon the first?  But God!)  With this quiet fear in the background, news of our 12th pregnancy was met with much more discretion at the tenth week announcement, exactly one year later.  It 'so happened' that our news coincided with the Roe v Wade anniversary again, and while I preached a more deeply felt sermon that Sunday, I refrained from any public announcement of the expectant birth.  However, in clock-like precision, Sunday afternoon entertained the first signs of miscarriage, and by Friday, our 12 child was born, being yet unformed. 

While I had no trauma, and enjoyed the same comfort realized with Kathab, I did wonder how to process the matter without artificially trying to mimic or reenact the happy joys of the prior year.  Each joy needs its own authentic expression.  However, before I had the chance to do anything, one of my youngest children simply said, "Daddy, we're going to celebrate this baby just like we did with Kathab Yatsur, aren't we?"  "Yes, of course", was my only answer.  It was all too obvious that God wanted to reinforce the lessons we had learned and the joys we had proclaimed, even if it was just for our own children's sake. 

Once again, we set about celebrating in the most happy fashion those things that were a part of our own special 'new baby' traditions in thanksgiving to God.  We named the child, Beth Qara reflecting Romans 4:17 that, "the Lord calls the things that are not as though they were".  More literally, Beth's name means, the house of calling.  Truly, our house was becoming a house where we were privileged by God's grace to understand our disappointments in terms of His calling and purpose.  May God grant us ever to be such a house!  Beth lies buried next to her brother in the rose garden with her own granite stone as a permanent memorial of her brief, yet complete life that she was called by God to live.

In reflecting upon difficulties in childbirth, I remember that many significant visitations by God have come through the pain and sorrow of disappointed expectations from everyday wives whose barren wombs denied them the natural joys of motherhood.  Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, Manoah, Hannah, Elizabeth and Mary's virgin birth, each of these women were visited by abnormal afflictions (mostly barrenness) which were resolved in supernatural spiritual service of God's own thoughts and choosing.  When God visits us with abnormalities, it ought to be to us a trigger to remind us of His precious and incalculable thoughts toward us in his eternal plans and purposes in Jesus Christ.  Let us learn to rejoice and enjoy the blessings of these precious thoughts by faith.

Sarah laughed with joy.  God has made me to laugh, [so that] all that hear will laugh with me.  And she said, Who would have said unto Abraham, that Sarah should have given children suck? for I have born [him] a son in his old age.  (Gen. 21:5-7) 

Hannah saw God as her sovereign Savior and exalted God. My heart rejoices in the LORD, mine horn is exalted in the LORD: my mouth is enlarged over mine enemies; because I rejoice in thy salvation. 2 [There is] none holy as the LORD: for [there is] none beside thee: neither [is there] any rock like our God. 3 Talk no more so exceeding proudly; let [not] arrogance come out of your mouth: for the LORD [is] a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. … the barren has born seven; and she that has many children is waxed feeble. 6 The LORD kills, and makes alive: he brings down to the grave, and brings up. …for the pillars of the earth [are] the LORD'S, and he has set the world upon them. 9 He will keep the feet of his saints, and the wicked shall be silent in darkness; for by strength shall no man prevail.  (1Sam. 2:1-10) 

Elizabeth's husband, Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied.  Blessed [be] the Lord God of Israel; for he has visited and redeemed his people,  … As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began:  That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us;  To perform the mercy [promised] to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant; …That he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear,  In holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life. (Luke 1:67-75)

Mary said, My soul does magnify the Lord, And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior.  For he has regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.  For he that is mighty has done to me great things; and holy [is] his name.  And his mercy [is] on them that fear him from generation to generation.  He has showed strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.  He has put down the mighty from [their] seats, and exalted them of low degree.  He has filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he has sent empty away.  He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of [his] mercy;  As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever.  (Luke 1:46-54) 

These bursts of praise and worship underscore the real issues that personal and painful losses and difficulties inflict upon Gods' children in this life.  Our natural man cries out to be satisfied in terms of our earthly experience.  God, however, has a better plan, a perfect plan. His plan will turn our earthly disappointments into heavenly accomplishments.  We may not be able to see the form of it in a way that satisfies our human understanding, but nevertheless, His precious and innumerable thoughts that are personally focused upon us as his children will bring us comfort and protection as we learn to trust in Him and not our own understanding.

May it ever be so with the saints of God!