It was my fifth 18-hour work day in a row, and I stopped to wonder: am I ever going to get to work on the leaf idea that God had given me? Am I ever going to become a professor like God said I would? Am I actually hearing God when making my plans for my future? Am I ever going to graduate? Will I go to Germany? Will I ever meet the husband God has planned for me?
The questions came to a crescendo, amplifying and building on themselves, drawing affirmation from one another to fight against the hope inside me.
Everyone comes to experience this middle at some point in their lives. Where it is not an exact chronological middle, nor an exact sequential middle, but a middle where your doubts overpower any faith that had remained in your mind.
A middle when you just don't know what to believe anymore.
A middle where your questions overwhelm you, and you are left stranded in a sea of uncertainty.
My middle came swiftly, and out of nowhere. What an attack of the mind! It arrested my thoughts and I, a follower of Jesus the Christ, found it very hard to believe in anything that I felt I heard from God.
And then my laptop shuts down. My dad calls.
"Minu have you eaten today?" "No dad, not yet." "Well eat something! How is it going?" "My laptop is dead...it just short circuited or something." " Well you should take it to Best Buy."
Charger connected? Check. Outlet working? Check. Battery charging? Check.
"Sure dad, I'll take it to Best Buy tomorrow."
I took my work to another lab computer and finished it at 6am, sending it off to the parties who would give me feedback on the work, letting them know I was taking off the rest of Monday given the 90 hours I worked the past five days.
After a nap on Monday, I decided that I knew better than my dad, a computer genius, and that I would go to the store I bought the laptop in and ask them for help first. The person helping me told me my laptop was not even in their system! We were both confused, as I had bought the laptop from their store. Since I wasn't in their system, I was asked to pay $50 to ship the computer and then wait two months for it to come back. I declined and walked out.
Tired, I went to the food court as I felt God reminding me to eat some food. As I ate the falafel wrap and sat in a rocking chair, I remembered how God had brought my phone back to life (
story can be found here). I pressed my finger into the power button and said, "God I pray that this computer will work in your mighty name!"
Aaaand nothing. More middle thoughts flood my head.
It wasn't that I was obsessed with my laptop and was destroyed that it wasn't working. It was more the exhaustion and the fact that my faith was on thin ice. I felt that my prayers were meaningless, and that I had been hearing God wrong this whole time.
My dad calls. "Minu did you take the laptop to Best Buy?" "No dad not yet. I'll do it now since I'm nearby."
Dejected, I walk into Best Buy and let the front desk guy know I had a laptop in my bag in case he wanted me to put a sticker on it. "No that won't be necessary. Just go over to Geek Squad and they can help you out."
I walked up to the Geek Squad desk and let them know about the laptop short circuiting. "Did you charge it all night? Did you try power cycling? Did you try it for 15 seconds instead of 30?" Yes. Yes. Yes.
"Well then Joseph can help you out."
Joseph takes my laptop and connects it to store charger. He asked me the same questions, and I answer that I've tried all the power cycling and charging techniques I knew about.
He takes his finger, and presses down on the power button for 15 seconds.
It turns on.
"HOW DID YOU DO THAT???!! I TRIED THAT ALL DAY AND NIGHT!! HOW DID YOU..."
Joseph looks me dead in the eyes. "Yeah. But did you believe?"
I look around wildly.
"Excuse me?"
"You did all those things. But did you believe?"
More than ever, I felt the conviction of the Holy Ghost fall upon me. All my doubts came to the surface and I confessed to Joseph as if I were confessing to God, "You know what? I didn't. I didn't believe. I did not believe. I did everything, but did not believe."
"You need to believe," Joseph says, and hands my laptop back to me.
I'm grinning ear to ear. I look around and no one seems to have noticed this exchange.
"Are you a pastor or something?"
"What? No I'm just playing Pokemon go," Joseph says, already walking away.
And so my middle got challenged by the question, "Did I believe?" And so my middle ended with me answering, "Yes Lord, I believe in the dreams you have given me. I believe the ideas you have inspired me with, just as I believe in You."
Later that month for my sister's birthday, we visited a worship service. A lady I had never met before comes up to me to say that God just wants me to believe. On the way back, my car starts and the radio delivers the end of a sermon, "...and sometimes, we just need to sit down and believe in God's promises."
Now many of you may be going, "Face palm! These are just coincidences, Minu!"
I want to say the
Pharisees had the same option back when Jesus wasn't found in the tomb. They had the choice to look at the series of events and to either disregard them as coincidences, or to believe.
What defines a believer? The definition starts with a person (
of any race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, nationality, social status) believing that Jesus died and on the third day, rose from the dead. What a story to end all stories. What a narrative that ends the end if one were to lend their ear to the truth that Jesus died and rose again. The Easter story gives ALL people all of eternity-
IF they choose to believe in Jesus the Christ.
I believe the Easter story. And this laptop story? Well, it confronted me when I was in my middle. It didn't matter that I busted my butt working long hours (while enjoying God's presence near me while doing experiments but still) in the lab and doing all that I could with my own strength. Nothing I tried with the laptop mattered. It was an object lesson in showing me that no matter what I do, my actions will be meaningless if I don't have
faith.
When I was afloat and without hope, the laptop story renewed my
faith. I don't know who Joseph was, nor the woman at the church, but I do know that God was speaking to me through them. I pray that anyone else out there experiencing such a middle is able to feel the full weight of this one question:
Did you believe?
And in Jesus name, may the power turn back on in your lives as you answer His call, and you choose to believe.
Mark 9:23English Standard Version (ESV)
23 And Jesus said to him, “‘If you can’! All things are possible for one who believes.”
