One night long ago, I was with a dad whose baby was on the brink of death. The doctors came and said there was nothing more they could do. They encouraged the dad to say “goodbye” and to “let go.” But he would not.

“Bill,” I said, “its okay to let Tommy go to God. We are people of faith. We are people of the resurrection. The doctors know what they’re saying, and you need to accept it. There is no hope.”

I’d seen this sort of thing many times before. I had it all figured out.

But Bill refused to give up. He went into the NICU and knelt beside the isolette where his little baby lay dying. I saw his lips moving in prayer.

Not long after that, a young doctor came along and said, “A thought just came to me about what might be the problem. I want to try one more thing.” They wheeled this ashen colored tiny baby out of the nursery and brought him to the operating room.

Two hours later when they wheeled him back, he was bright pink, screaming at the top of his lungs, and very, very much alive. Tommy is in his 30’s now.

You see, it’s not all up to us. There is a God who loves us, and who is all the time at work shaping the future of our lives.

And sometimes – just when you think you have it all figured out – just when you come to believe that you are the general manager of the universe – God comes along in ways that defy human convention. He speaks the word of life. The earth trembles. God’s power trumps human reason.