Faith's paradox

Living a life of faith doesn't equate knowing it all, understanding it all, being on top of it all or even seeing it all in the here and now.

I'm right now caught up in a paradox: a very dear member of my family is facing the struggle of his life, being up against an enemy that has downed many a man stronger than he. The enemy's name is cancer.

The paradox I'm facing is this: I believe in a God who is termed the Almighty. It follows, quite naturally, from this that my God can, potentially, do the impossible. Where human effort reaches its utmost limits - unable to work the desired change or manipulate natural processes to effect a certain result, God can bridge the gap between the possible and the impossible. And yet:

For months I've been praying for change, for healing, for an end to this family member's physical and mental torment. So far there have been few signs of improvement, in fact, things seem only to accelerate in the wrong direction. So what do I do in the midst of this paradox, this apparent denial of the sovereign power of my Almighty God?

I keep on embracing faith's paradox: facing up to physical reality, facing up to the fact that the cancer is still there. And yet I stubbornly refuse to give up on the hope offered by the Scriptures and by recent reports of supernatural healings.

And so I pray, because I really have no other option.