Do you know how rare 1 in 8 is? It’s the probability of flipping a coin and getting heads three times in a row. It’s roughly the odds of being left-handed. It’s the chance that you are reading this on your laptop (most probably you’re not). It’s also the precise probability of reaching into a bag of eight folded papers and pulling out the one with your name on it. Seven times out of eight, it doesn’t happen.
Worry not. I too, did not grasp the weight of this improbability until much later.
I was in class 8, way smaller than I am right now (but certainly not in my faith!) We were having nominations for various roles in student leadership. The process was simple: out of eight folded pieces of paper, pick the one with your name and you’re in! No manifestos or campaigns; it was that easy. Before reaching for a paper, I made a silent prayer. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I knew not how to doubt, and of course I picked my name.
Now if you’ve ever flipped a coin, and had the outcome in your favour,you probably never stop to think of the tails. Why would you ,when you can’t even see it? This too was my case.
Of the seven others, surely one of them must have prayed too. Not a rushed, last-second prayer like mine. What if someone had been praying the night before, on their knees, specific, and earnest. And they reached in, unfolded their paper, and it was someone else’s name. I must have been too busy feeling chosen to think about any of them.
But they exist beyond that classroom. In our lives, and perhaps in our mirrors. The one who failed as many times as they tried. The one who prayed the same prayer for years and eventually stopped counting.
Somewhere between my class 8, your “class 8” and now, the “of course” leaves our prayers. We start adding qualifiers: Lord, if it is your will, if it pleases you. Don’t get me wrong; we all should surrender to God’s will. But ask yourself: is it out of honest intentions or as a way of self-protection? A hedge? A way of lowering the stakes and expectations so that if it does not happen it will not hurt as much?
Then there is Gethsemane. Even Jesus, in the shadow of the cross, petitioned for the cup to pass. You can call it the ultimate ‘if it be Your will’. But the cup remained. For Him, the coin landed Tails. Yet, that Tails paved the way for every other “Heads” we will ever flip. The divine No uttered in Gethsemane became the eternal Yes echoing over every grave. It is the ‘new thing’ that springs up in the most unlikely places.
Do you not perceive it?
“ See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” – Isaiah 43:19 NIV
Perhaps that is the question posed to those of us left staring at empty hands. Occasionally, He allows the coin to fall on the side we didn’t choose. He is teaching us to stop tallying our successes and to begin seeking His face in the quiet dark. And, I’m learning, this is a far more profound thing to hold onto than my name on a scrap of folded paper.
~Norys