Fairview-University Medical Center sits on the south side of the University of Minnesota campus next to the Mississippi River.  A few days back my two younger brothers and I walked a half-mile from our hotel to the world-class transplant center.  Later that day my youngest brother donated one of his kidneys to my other brother whose kidney disease necessitated the transplant.

            Immediately across the street from the hospital is a University of Minnesota residence hall complex.  Students on one side of the street, some tossing a Frisbee, others jogging and a few sitting in the grass talking appeared to be the epitome of health.  On the other side of the street several patients slowly ambled along the sidewalk.  Attired in pajamas and bath robes, they walked stocking-footed, often still attached to an intravenous line.

            In his new book “Rumors of Another World -- what on earth are we missing?” (Zondervan, 2003), Philip Yancey considers true reality.  He argues that life’s main challenge is struggling to embrace the reality (the belief) that all around us two worlds coexist on planet Earth.

            Those worlds constantly are interacting and sometimes colliding.  All humankind is engaged in the battle to comprehend the visible and invisible world.  For me, the transplant center in Minneapolis momentarily brought the two worlds into sharp relief.

            When the book of Hebrews says that faith “is being certain of what we do not see,” we see the two worlds come together.  The Apostle Paul said “We fix our eyes … on what is unseen.”  Throughout the Apostle Paul’s writings the invisible world seems to have been more of a reality to the Apostle than the visible world he lived in.  “Set your minds on the things above, not on earthly things,” he said.

            Often I merely pray for the faith just to believe in the reality of the unseen world.  I have to choose to believe, and feel that my faith rarely resembles the certainty described by the Apostle Paul.

            For writer Yancey, the reality of evil actually strengthens his faith in the invisible world.  He challenges doubters to consider these poignant words in the book of Ephesians: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against rulers, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

            I have pondered those words, sometimes unable to swallow the notion of a world ruled by invisible spirits.  And yet, as I daily try to reduce my world to a manageable place, my instincts to control the world around me repeatedly fail to account for the evil I see.

            Sitting in the Fairview-University Medical Center I watched very sick people come and go all day long.  One very cute but frail Downs Syndrome child caught my eye.  Completely bald, I couldn’t tell if the seven-or-eight-year-old was a boy or a girl.  An Intravenous line attached to a pole on a wheelchair was stuck in a vein in the child’s pasty-green neck.  A clear plastic tube under the child’s nose provided oxygen.

            Watching the miserable child I remembered Yancey saying that “only a malevolent force from supernature” could have done it.  Twice the child slipped out of the wheelchair and plopped onto the floor, causing me to wince.  I said to myself, “Explain that to me.”

            “Forces beyond our control,” the experts say.  Indeed, the New Testament writers couldn’t agree more and they never hesitate to identify them as evil forces.  Yancey is clear: “We are incomplete beings awaiting a complete experience, fragmented beings awaiting unity.  Establishing contact with the unseen world while on this earth begins that process.”

            The two worlds are interacting and colliding now, even though we do not always recognize it.  In fact, most people have no idea how their actions in the visible world affect the world beyond their vision.

            “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven,” Jesus told a group after they had returned from a mission of praying for the sick and feeding the poor.  Their efforts took place in the visible world, but Jesus, who saw with supernatural insight, realized their actions were having an amazing influence on the invisible world.

            Praying for the sick or worshiping God is not “exclusively supernatural or natural, but both working at the same time,” Yancey said.  Maybe if Jesus stood beside us and said “I saw Satan fall,” we would be emboldened and have a better idea of the impact we can make on the invisible world.

 
Don Follis is an Urbana pastor and member of Vineyard Christian Fellowship in Urbana, Ill.  His column appears on Fridays.  Copyright © 2003 by the Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette.