{"id":238,"date":"2009-08-10T10:18:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-10T10:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/thinplaces\/2009\/08\/long-time-coming.html"},"modified":"2009-08-10T10:18:00","modified_gmt":"2009-08-10T10:18:00","slug":"long-time-coming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/08\/long-time-coming.html","title":{"rendered":"Long Time Coming"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>God refuses to work alone. God insists on working through human beings. So often, I wish God would agree to our cartoon image and intervene with dramatic action, lightning bolts, booming voices from the sky&#8230; Instead, he wants us to be &#8220;the body of Christ,&#8221; the hands and feet and eyes and ears that communicate (through word and deed) the love and compassion of God. <\/p>\n<p>This pattern goes back to Jesus. Sure, there were direct miracles, healings and walking on water and calming the storm. But there were others in which Jesus refused to be recognized. When he changed water into wine, for instance, it was the servants who poured the water. There was no &#8220;shazaam!&#8221; no calling attention to himself. When he fed the 5,000, he gave the bread to the disciples and told them to distribute it. When he raised Lazarus, he invited others to participate: roll away the stone, unbind him. Even after his resurrection, he committed the message to Mary&#8211;go and tell the disciples what you have seen. <\/p>\n<p>So here we are, 2,000 years later. The world is still a mess most of the time. And I desperately want God to fix it all with a loud boom. But God says no. God says, &#8220;You do it. By my power. By my grace. By my love.&#8221; God promises to be with us. But God won&#8217;t do it alone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>God refuses to work alone. God insists on working through human beings. So often, I wish God would agree to our cartoon image and intervene with dramatic action, lightning bolts, booming voices from the sky&#8230; Instead, he wants us to be &#8220;the body of Christ,&#8221; the hands and feet and eyes and ears that communicate&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":88,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-down-syndrome"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Long Time Coming - Thin Places<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/08\/long-time-coming.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Long Time Coming - Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"God refuses to work alone. God insists on working through human beings. So often, I wish God would agree to our cartoon image and intervene with dramatic action, lightning bolts, booming voices from the sky&#8230; Instead, he wants us to be &#8220;the body of Christ,&#8221; the hands and feet and eyes and ears that communicate&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/08\/long-time-coming.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thin Places\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-08-10T10:18:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"amyjuliabecker\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Long Time Coming - Thin Places","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/08\/long-time-coming.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Long Time Coming - Thin Places","og_description":"God refuses to work alone. God insists on working through human beings. So often, I wish God would agree to our cartoon image and intervene with dramatic action, lightning bolts, booming voices from the sky&#8230; Instead, he wants us to be &#8220;the body of Christ,&#8221; the hands and feet and eyes and ears that communicate&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/08\/long-time-coming.html","og_site_name":"Thin Places","article_published_time":"2009-08-10T10:18:00+00:00","author":"amyjuliabecker","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/08\/long-time-coming.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/08\/long-time-coming.html","name":"Long Time Coming - Thin Places","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-08-10T10:18:00+00:00","dateModified":"2009-08-10T10:18:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/08\/long-time-coming.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/08\/long-time-coming.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/2009\/08\/long-time-coming.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Long Time Coming"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/","name":"Thin Places","description":"Amy Julia Becker on Faith, Family, and Disability","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/4dde10eee38770361dc9b46a9413776b","name":"amyjuliabecker","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/222\/2222023dcae76abe6e896a3cf80e9836x96.jpg","caption":"amyjuliabecker"},"description":"Amy Julia Becker writes about theology, disability, family, and culture. Two major life experiences have shaped her writing and her faith\u00e2\u20ac\u201dcaring for her mother-in-law as she battled cancer and welcoming her daughter Penny into the world after she was diagnosed at birth with Down syndrome. Both experiences expanded and enriched her understanding of what it means to be human and to receive each and every person as a gift.\u00c2\u00a0 A graduate of Princeton University and Princeton Theological Seminary, she is the author of Penelope Ayers: A Memoir, and the forthcoming A Good and Perfect Gift (Bethany House). Her essays have appeared in First Things, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Christian Century, ChristianityToday.com, and Bloom, among other online venues.","sameAs":["http:\/\/amyjuliabecker.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/author\/amyjuliabecker"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/88"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/thinplaces\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}