Wait For Iiiiiit…

They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. When they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithinia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them; so, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. (Acts 16:6-8)

I keep coming back to "The God Complex" from the most recent season of Doctor Who – the longer it simmers in my brain, the more I discover within its many layers and complexities. I decided to revisit the awful hotel one more time because of a recent Sunday School lesson where we studied the scripture passage above.

Throughout the episode, various characters find "their" hotel room and use whatever faith they have to overcome the fearful thing or situation contained within. Doing so eventually alerts the creature, who kills them after feeding on their faith. The situation is summed up by Joe the gambler, whose faith in luck has evidently helped him overcome his fear of ventriloquist dummies because he is now surrounded by an army of them. He tells the Doctor, "I've seen the light. I've lived a blasphemous life but he's forgiven my inconstancy and soon he shall feast."

"But you've been here for two days," replies the Doctor. "What is he waiting for?"

"We weren't ready. We were still raw."

"But now you're what…cooked?"

"If you like. Soon you will be, too. Be patient."

The message that we take away from both TV and the Bible is this: faith is important, but so is timing. Paul was eager to spread the gospel to Asia and Mysia and Bithinia, but God said no, not now. Not yet. In Sunday School, we speculated that perhaps God was waiting for the people there to be ready to receive the message before he sent someone to give it to them. Or perhaps the messengers themselves weren't yet ready. At any rate, we're led to believe that if someone had gone just then, the message wouldn't have taken hold and God's will wouldn't have been done.

God's timing is a great mystery, and sometimes waiting on him to give the "go" for something is exceedingly frustrating. Patience is not an easy thing, but it is necessary because rawness in this case is detrimental to the overall mission. Fortunately, though, if we have the patience and faith to wait for the right time, we are the ones who will feast on the abundant blessings God has in store for us.

A Good Blaster at Your Side

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible. (Hebrews 11:1-3)

In the Doctor Who episode "The God Complex" that I wrote about last week, when the Doctor finally figures out that the monster feeds on people's faiths and not their fears, he gives as evidence the fact that Rory never seems to be in danger. The Doctor attributes this to the fact that Rory is not superstitious or religious – he doesn't seem to have any kind of faith. I don't think that's true, though. Everyone has faith in something. Take, for instance, two key conversations from Star Wars. In the first, during a meeting of Imperial leaders aboard the Death Star, Darth Vader and Admiral Motti have differing opinions about the best course of action:

Motti: Any attack made by the rebels against this station would be a useless gesture, no matter what technical data they've obtained. This station is now the ultimate power in the universe. I suggest we use it.
Vader: Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.
Motti: Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes or given you clairvoyance enough to find the rebels' hidden fortress…
[Admiral Motti chokes as Vader uses the Force to strangle him from across the room]
Vader: I find your lack of faith disturbing.

In the second conversation, on board the Millennium Falcon, Han Solo has been watching Obi-Wan teach Luke how to use at lightsaber:

Han: Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.
Luke: You don't believe in the Force, do you?
Han: Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other. I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but I've never seen anything to make me believe there's one all-powerful force controlling everything. There's no mystical energy field controls my destiny. It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.

Admiral Motti and Han Solo are both set up as non-believers in these two scenes, but in both cases it is clear that they do believe in something – for Motti, it's technology and the power of the Death Star, and for Han it's also technology and weaponry, in addition to his own wits and skills. Both men put their trust in things seen and handled and personally experienced rather than some abstract, nebulous, god-like "force," like Luke and Obi-Wan and Vader do. In Admiral Motti's case particularly, it turns out to be misplaced trust in the end when the Rebel Alliance manages to blow up his "ultimate power in the universe."

I think I am like Han Solo more often than I realize or would wish to admit. I'm not nearly as cool as he is, but I am hard-headed and independent and want to do things myself. I want to take care of myself; I want to make things happen by myself. I don't have a good blaster at my side, but I do have my wits and my smarts. I would do well to remember that my abilities are insignificant next to the power of God, and that he is in control and I don't have to do it all on my own all the time.

 

Praise Him!

Vindicate me, O Lord,
for I have walked in my integrity,
and I have trusted in the Lord without wavering.
Prove me, O Lord, and try me;
test my heart and mind.
For your steadfast love is before my eyes,
and I walk in faithfulness to you.
(Psalm 26:1-3)

In the Doctor Who episode entitled "The God Complex," The Doctor, Amy, and Rory exit the TARDIS to find themselves in a hotel with outdated décor, bad elevator music coming over the speakers, and corridors that shift when you're not looking. When they look inside various rooms, they find strange things, like people in gorilla costumes, sad clowns, popular-looking girls hurling insults, and the scariest of new Who monsters, the Weeping Angels.

Pretty soon they meet up with a group of other people who also appear to be trapped in the hotel with them, and they learn that it seems to be like the Hotel California – you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. Also, there is a monster roaming the labyrinthine hallways that eventually finds and kills everyone who ends up there. The strange things in the hotel rooms are someone's greatest fear, and there is a room for everyone. The catch is, once you find your room and face your fear, bad things start to happen and eventually, no matter how long you try to hold out, the monster will come and get you. They assume that the monster feeds on fear, and when you find the thing you fear the most, it will cause the monster to come get you, so it's best if you do not find your room in the hotel.

After three out of the four people there are killed by the monster, though, despite everything the Doctor has done to try to protect them, he finally figures it out: the monster doesn't feed on fear, it feeds on faith. When facing whatever scary thing was in their room, they relied on faith to overcome the fear, and that's what attracts the monster. Everyone who has died had faith in one form or another: Rita was Muslim, Joe the gambler believed in luck, and Howie was always trying to convince everyone who would listen that everything was part of one big conspiracy. Things come to a head when Amy finds her room and begins to show signs that the monster will soon be coming for her. The Doctor realizes that to save her and defeat the monster, he had to make her lose her faith, which was represented in her room by her child-self, little Amelia, sitting on her suitcase waiting for her Raggedy Doctor to come back. Ever since that night when she was eight years old, Amy had faith that the Doctor would return, and when he did, through all their adventures, she always had faith that whatever happened, the Doctor would save her, solve all the problems, and make sure everything turned out ok. She had even said as much throughout the episode to whomever would listen.

What a heart-wrenching scene when the Doctor, so gently and tenderly, explained to Amy that he wasn't the all-powerful alien creature that she put all of her trust in. He didn't always save the day, and he had caused death and destruction more often than not. He really was, as he had been telling her all along, a madman with a box, nothing more.

It has been a month since "The God Complex" aired, and it has taken me this long (and a second viewing) to make sense of what was really happening. At first I was trying to puzzle out what it was saying about having faith (or not) and losing faith. I have finally decided, however, that it is about misplaced trust and having faith in the wrong things. Amy placed her trust in the Doctor, and when the Doctor finally recognized this, it took quite an effort for him to convince her otherwise. It was necessary, however, for her to realize that the Doctor wasn't God, no matter how often his "God complex" (as Rita labeled it earlier in the episode) manifests itself.

Fortunately, faith in God is never misplaced trust. When I looked up "faith" in the concordance of my Bible to find a verse with which to preface this post, I noticed something interesting: all of the verses cited as containing the word "faith" used it in the context of humans having faith in God, but more than half of the verses given in the entries for "faithful" and "faithfulness" use those words to describe God and his attitude toward people, not the other way around. To me, that speaks volumes about what we should have faith in: the One whose faith in us never wavers, even when our faith does.