“Fake! Fake! Toy, toy, toy!” jeered Danny and Lynn as I showed them Big Dog, one of my stuffed animals. I was about six years old, so they were about ten and twelve. I had claimed that my animals were real. They told me to grow up and stop being a baby. My response was to fetch another animal, the one I called Big Bear. I figured if I told them enough about him, they’d have to believe me. They only taunted more, “Fake! Fake!” I can still feel the humiliation.

But I also remember my belief. Of course I understood my toys were not real, not the way the family boxer was real. But I also knew there is more to the world than what our immediate senses comprehend. I knew imagination and faith reveal more than what skeptics see. And in days when our culture clashes over what is reality and how to describe it, that matters.

‘No World but Mine’

The fight over what is real runs through a thrilling scene from C.S. Lewis’s The Silver Chair. English schoolchildren Jill and Eustace are sent to the magical realm of Narnia by the great lion, Aslan, to rescue the lost Prince Rilian. He has been captured by the Witch-Queen of the Underland, a dank, stale region beneath the beautiful lands and skies of Narnia. Just when the children have found Rilian and set him free, the Witch appears. But rather than subdue them physically, the Witch attempts to enchant them so they will never even desire to flee her dim, shadowy realm.

The Witch throws a magic powder in the glowing fireplace. She strums a stringed instrument with “a steady, monotonous thrumming.” Then she begins to define reality for them. The world of twentieth-century England (from which they came) was just imaginary. Narnia — with its talking animals, shining stars, bright sunlight, and vivid colors — was merely a fantasy. “There never was such a world,” says the Witch. The children repeat back her words. Then she asserts, “There never was any world but mine” (630). They parrot her again. They settle into the lie, and feel relief to stop fighting her spell. They are almost lost.

Modern Spells

“There never was any world but mine.” Is anyone casting a spell over you with these words? They tell you that your antiquated Christian beliefs place you “on the wrong side of history.” The thrumming enchantment makes you wonder, “What if that’s so?” The Witch-Queen calmly, but constantly, repeats her lies. She tells you what every educated and enlightened person knows:

The world was not created out of nothing by some personal God. With nothing above us, we determine our own meaning.

An embryo inside a woman’s womb is not a person yet. “It” is just part of her body and under her sovereign control.

The underlying motivation in every individual or group is power. If from the majority group, you can never stop being an oppressor. If from a minority group, you ever remain a victim.

You can, however, always determine your gender identity no matter your biological sex. To oppose any process of “transitioning” is hateful and leads to others’ depression and even suicide.

What I need is to be freed from any person, morality, or group that impedes my expression of me. I do not need to be liberated from myself; I need to be liberated into myself.

“These are simple truths,” today’s Witch-Queen says as she throws more powder on the fire. “Opposing them forfeits your right to speak, work, or advance. There never was any world but mine.”

On Aslan’s Side

Almost, the children and Prince Rilian succumb to the enchantment. After all, they cannot now see Narnia. Perhaps their memories are only remnants of dreams. But they have with them one more companion on the quest to rescue the prince. Puddleglum, an odd creature called a Marsh-wiggle, is, as his name implies, a rather dour realist. But his gloomy personality makes him more resistant to enchantment.

Just before it is too late, Puddleglum rouses himself with great effort and moves toward the fireplace. He stamps one of his hard bare feet into the flames. The terrible pain clears his head. He has also put out much of the fire, dampening the aroma of the magic powder. The Witch rages. But the children start to come back to themselves.

Then Puddleglum confronts the Witch-Queen with some of the great lines in English literature.

“One word, Ma’am,” he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. “One word. . . . Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things — trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that’s a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We’re just babies making up a game, if you’re right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That’s why I’m going to stand by the play world. I’m on Aslan’s side even if there isn’t any Aslan to lead it. I’m going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn’t any Narnia.” (633)

“Four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow.” What we see through the imagination of faith (grounded in the revealed word of Scripture) is far more interesting and wondrous than all the seemingly sophisticated posturing of the self-centered world.

Open His Eyes

Long ago, Elisha the prophet warned the king of Israel about the plans of the king of Syria. His supernatural knowledge saved Israel’s king from war and destruction. So, the king of Syria sought to capture Elisha. One night, his army and chariots surrounded the city where the prophet resided. Early in the morning, Elisha’s servant looked out upon the siege and panicked.

The servant said, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” He said, “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” Then Elisha prayed and said, “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. (2 Kings 6:15–17)

Earthly eyes saw only earthly things. Fierce Syrian warriors and chariots surrounded the city. But the eyes of faith, as the Spirit enabled, saw much more of reality. The Lord’s army, vast and powerful, protected the prophet in his city. God’s angelic host had chariots of fire! The king of Syria was not in charge of reality. Much more happens in the world than meets the eye. The sovereign God still reigns and works out all things according to his purpose.

Is that a fantasy? The eyes of faith, opened by the Spirit, see the greater picture. Hebrews 12:1 tells us that “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,” all those who have gone before us in faithfulness. The supposed “real world” of today’s unbelief sags under a dull sameness and a tedious imprisonment to self. The vision of Scripture reveals a more glorious reality.

Grim Stories Licked Hollow

When we take our side with those saints who have gone before us, we may be shunned or scorned by today’s sophisticates. So be it. Think of the company we get to keep. Watching, cheering our path are Mary Magdalene and Athanasius, John Calvin and Christina Rossetti, and (still with us) Joni Eareckson Tada and John Piper.

Countless others through the centuries join us. All of us are connected by the testimony of faith in Jesus. This wondrous multitude licks hollow the grim story attempting to capture our culture. How dim, how lonely is any worldview that revolves around me as the center. God has so much more.

Why would I ever go it alone, pretending to be a sovereign self, spinning around nothingness? Rather, acknowledging God’s sovereignty, I am taken into the company of all the saints and all the glory of creation. We walk now by faith, not by physical sight. But the gift of faith opens us to the spiritual vision of God’s glorious reality.

I still have Big Dog. He sits on top of our dresser. Every now and then as I pass by, I pat him and speak to him. I know he’s not real. I also know that imagination and faith reveal sights that can’t be seen by this world. I know the God who entered the world in skin and bone, died utterly, and then rose again in this very world to an everlasting life.

The world may say, “Fake! Toy!” But I say, “True! True! Real, real, real!”

Audio Transcript

The prayer you don’t want answered. Fascinating topic today, coming up because we meet it soon in the Navigators Bible Reading Plan, later this weekend. On May 12, we read Psalm 106:15 together — a text we’ve been asked about by a listener. “Pastor John, hello! My name is Amy, and I live in Lincoln, Nebraska. As I read the Bible, I see that there are times when we ask God for things wrongly, and he mercifully just says no. We see this in James 4:3. And there are times when we ask God for things wrongly, and he says yes. That seems to be the case in Psalm 106:15. Can you explain this verse and Israel’s ‘wanton craving in the wilderness’ in Psalm 106:14? I presume it’s for food. What about this prayer is evil? Why do you think God responded by giving them what they wanted? Why also the ‘wasting disease’?

“I’m confused here, having a hard time understanding the principle, one I find in other texts — namely, in Psalm 78:29–31.” Yes. And I (Tony) am going to add a pair of other texts into the mix here too, and interject them — 1 Samuel 8:7, 22 — because those are verses we just looked at in APJ 2029. “So, can you explain this,” Amy asks, “and tell me whether this should inform how we ask for things today and what we ask for? Are we liable to have a wrongfully asked prayer get answered by God for our own undoing?”

When I lived in Tennessee for a year, I discovered that there were two hiking routes up the back of Stone Mountain. One was about twice as long as the other, but the short one was really rugged and steep. Now, suppose I had a nine-year-old son with me — I didn’t at the time, so I had to imagine this, but I tried both of them myself, and I know what would happen — and we hiked the mountain, say, once a week on Saturday for fun, for exercise. And suppose every time we got to the fork in the path where the two hiking routes diverged, he complained and he complained and he begged and he begged to “go the short one, Daddy. I want to go the short one, because the other one took so long.”

Now, there are two ways that I could seek to teach my son to trust me for my wisdom in this life. One is to say, “No, that’s not a wise decision. We’re going to do the one we can do. So, we’re taking the long route. It takes longer, but we can do this. We can handle that, and you need to learn to trust me.”

“The sinful prayer for a king becomes the means by which Jesus enters the world as king.”

But there is another way. You might choose to teach this kid a thing or two. You say, “Okay, let’s do it.” And halfway up, he’s utterly exhausted. He’s looking at these rocks in front of him, looking like a straight-up cliff, and he’s saying, “I can’t do this, Daddy.” I’m saying, “Yes you can, and you will. You prayed for it; you got it.” That’s the wasting disease, right? This rock face and his misery. And the point is to teach my son, one way or the other, “Trust me, son. You need to trust me. I know what I’m doing when I make decisions in this family.”

Sinful Prayers, Sorrowful Answers

Psalm 106:13–15 says,

[Israel] soon forgot [God’s] works;     they did not wait for his counsel.But they had a wanton craving in the wilderness,     and put God to the test in the desert;he gave them what they asked,     but sent a wasting disease among them.

God had met every need since Israel left Egypt. But these people grumbled again and again and again against the Lord. They were hungry for meat. Psalm 78:19 says, “They spoke against God, saying, ‘Can God spread a table in the wilderness?’” That was how they tested the Lord. They doubted him. They challenged him.

This prayer for what they craved was not a humble expression of trust, which is what good requests are. It was a skeptical expression of anger. God could have kept supplying their needs, the way he was doing all along. That would be a lesson: amazing grace and provision. “Learn to trust me. Trust me.” That wasn’t working. Or he could teach them a lesson this way: “I’ll grant your doubting, challenging request, and misery to go with it.” Lesson: “Trust me; don’t doubt me.”

“God is amazing in the way his providences twist our sins, so that they actually can work for our salvation.”

So yes, I think God does that today. It’s never right today to forget God’s works and then fail to wait for his counsel. It’s never right to think that we know what’s best and become demanding and challenging to God. He just might give us the car we demand, or the spouse we demand, or the rising stock price that we demand, or the child we demand. And then five, twenty years later, those answers might come back with great sorrows in our lives.

Twists of Providence

That could sound fatalistic, but here’s the twist. There’s a twist of providence in this peculiar way that God disciplines us by giving us what we ask for and then misery to go with it. We can see this twist if we look at the other example that I think you mentioned, Tony, at the beginning, with regard to the demand for a king. The twist is that they should not have demanded a king the way they did, and yet God gave them a king and then made their ungodly desire serve his eternal purposes of grace. That’s the twist. And it’s so hopeful for those of us who have made stupid decisions and have asked for terrible things — or asked for things that seemed good, and we were all wrong in the way we asked for them. God can work this for good.

The Sin

So, here’s the way it worked. In the transaction in 1 Samuel 8:5, the elders of Israel say to Samuel, “Appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.” Now, that’s the sin: We want to be like the nations. But it says in 1 Samuel 8:6–7, “The thing displeased Samuel when they said, ‘Give us a king to judge us.’ And Samuel prayed to the Lord. And the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Obey the voice of the people . . . for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.’”

And then Samuel seems to give them one more chance to change their minds by telling them all the miseries that the king is going to bring into their lives (1 Samuel 8:11–18). The king’s going to take your sons and make them soldiers. He’s going to take your daughters and make them perfumers and cooks. He’s going to take your fields and your vineyards. He’s going to take your flocks. And then it says in 1 Samuel 8:19–20, “But the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel. And they said, ‘No! But there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations.’” And then in 1 Samuel 8:22, God says, “Obey their voice and make them a king.”

Now, here’s three hundred years later. This is Hosea, the last prophet who prophesies before Assyria destroys Israel. Here’s Hosea 13:10–11: “Where now is your king, to save you in all your cities? Where are all your rulers — those of whom you said, ‘Give me a king and princes’? I gave you a king in my anger, and I took him away in my wrath.” So, God answered their request, and it did not go well for them.

The Twist

And I pause and say, “But wait. Wait. There is something else going on here.” In Psalm 2:6, God says, “I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill.” God set his king on Zion, his holy hill. And Isaiah 9:6–7, “To us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder. . . . Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom [forever].” His kingdom forever. In Luke 1:32–33, Gabriel says to Mary, “The Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

Here’s the upshot, the twist. The sinful prayer for a king becomes the means by which Jesus enters the world as king to die and rise and forgive the sins that they brought upon themselves by asking for a king. I just think God is amazing in the way his providences twist our sins, so that they actually can work for our salvation.

So, the twist of providence is this. If you are, today, in a situation of God’s discipline in answer to an unbelieving, angry, misguided prayer, don’t despair. Don’t despair. Repent, accept your sin and your guilt, turn to Christ’s mercy and blood, and ask God to twist this situation into something good and God-honoring. I have seen him do this in my life. I have seen him do it. I know he can do it in yours.

The more joys and sorrows I live through personally and see in those around me, the more convinced I am that Christmas — over any other season — tends to make life’s sweet things sweeter and hard things harder.

For some, this Christmas will bring a burst of excitement as we fill our homes with lights, carols, and generations of those we love. For others, each day will be a feat of endurance as we trudge through reminders of lack, or memories of loss. Given Jesus’s assurance that in this life we will have trouble (John 16:33), we likely will experience Christmases of both kinds (if we haven’t already).

Those facing a dark season of disappointment and pain can find comfort in God’s promise to draw near to the brokenhearted and save the crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18). Meanwhile, those anticipating a bright season of gratitude and cheer can reflect the compassion of our God by drawing near to the brokenhearted around us.

“Christmas — over any other season — tends to make life’s sweet things sweeter and hard things harder.”

The Savior we celebrate this Christmas sees our tears (Psalm 56:8), draws near (Psalm 145:18), and is with us always (Matthew 28:20). Likewise, we reflect his lovingkindness as we remember the sufferers around us, invite them in, step into needs, and remain steadfastly present through it all.

1. Remember the Sufferers

For those of us in a vibrant Christmas of gladness, it may be easy to forget harder seasons we’ve had in the past. Those now enjoying the constant closeness of a spouse may forget how lonely it was to be single at Christmas, longing for marriage. Those now settled into their ideal home may forget the restlessness of a vagabond Christmas spent in transitory places. Those now in a place of financial stability may forget the stress of a Christmas spent anxiously trying to pay bills, feed a family, and sacrifice to scrounge up a gift.

As we consider our past trials and the encouragement and promises we clung to most, we are quicker to identify with and comfort others in their affliction with the comfort we first received from Christ (2 Corinthians 1:4). The memory of our sufferings often softens our hearts toward others in theirs.

Some of the most meaningful care I’ve ever received has come from the thoughtfulness and intentionality of those who consistently checked in on me through periods of hardship — especially prolonged ones. We too can follow up on prayer requests shared in small group weeks prior, text our friends when their grief crosses our minds, bake cookies for a neighbor spending Christmas alone, or write a note of encouragement to a struggling coworker. We might even call a family member on an especially hard day in the Christmas season. In doing so, we assure the struggling that their sorrows aren’t overlooked.

Jesus came at Christmas to be a merciful and faithful high priest (Hebrews 2:17). We can likewise be merciful, faithful people who keep the hurting on our hearts and express it, thus reflecting how he keeps them on his.

2. Invite Them In

Grief can be lonely — especially in a season so centered on togetherness. But this season is built around the welcoming of Immanuel (Matthew 1:23) — the God with us always, whose life and death invites us into unbroken fellowship with him and a love from which nothing can separate us (Romans 8:38–39). As Christ has welcomed us, so he commands us to welcome one another, that God might be glorified in this reflection of him (Romans 15:7).

“Our God sets the lonely in families. We can be one of those families this season.”

In both instinctive and inconvenient ways, we can welcome the lonely into our enjoyment this season. We might ask them to join us in picking out a tree, invite them over to watch a Christmas movie, save them a seat with our family during the Christmas Eve service, or welcome them to our Christmas lunch. Our God sets the lonely in families (Psalm 68:6). We can be one of those families this season, open-armed with others as God our Father sent Christ our brother to be for us.

3. Step into Needs

Oftentimes, others’ troubles are so great and their adversity so devastating that we (rightly) perceive the ways God must intervene to counsel and restore as only he can. But even as we pray for him to do so for the hurting this Christmas, we can look for small, immediate opportunities to step into tangible needs, as just faint echoes of the Word made flesh at Christmas to feed, heal, and provide for those he dwelled among (John 1:14).

Maybe he’ll lead us to buy Christmas gifts for the children of parents who were just laid off, shovel snow for a neighbor with debilitating pain, or drive an elderly church member to visit grandchildren. And when we are at a loss as to what would be most beneficial to those struggling around us, we can humble ourselves to ask them — seeking what would actually be best rather than trying to serve in ways that might inadvertently burden them. God knows what we need before we even ask (Matthew 6:8), but we are not him.

We likely can’t solve others’ greatest problems, but we can meet peripheral needs to reflect the Shepherd who sees and offers to meet their deepest ones.

4. Remain Present

We spend a lot of time at Christmas talking about presents, often forgetting the root of the word as presence — a precious gift and ministry we can offer the sorrowful around us. As we pray with the grieving in silence because truth has already been spoken and we can’t think of anything left to say, as we sit with the fearful in hospital rooms waiting on an update, as we hold the hands of those crying in our living rooms, we can trust the Holy Spirit to intercede for us with groanings too deep for words (Romans 8:26).

Our God is continually with us (Psalm 73:23). We can’t (and don’t need to) be omnipresent with others. But we can offer the comfort of (even our silent) presence as a small demonstration of the steadfastness of his.

Reflecting the Light of the World

Given both the joys and sorrows around us this season, we would do well to begin in prayer, asking for a tender heart moved by the afflictions of those around us, for God to mend what only he can, for discernment in how he can make us vessels of his healing mercy, and for willing spirits to be used as such.

The first Christmas was a sunrise from on high (Luke 1:78–79) — our merciful God coming to give light to us in darkness and guide our feet into the way of peace as we walk through both the sweet things Christmas makes sweeter and the hard things Christmas makes harder. The baby we celebrate this season was sent to bind up the brokenhearted (Isaiah 61:1) — both our brokenheartedness and that of those around us — and we reflect the Light of the World this season by carrying on his ministry with the compassion, wisdom, and faithfulness found in him.