A week ago I took my 9-year-old son to have his arm checked one last time. Last spring he broke it, playing on a trampoline with his buddies on a Sunday night, at our fireman friend’s house. That unexpected accident hard providence led to so many x-rays that I think our little boy will glow in the dark for some time to come; the break was near his elbow in an area with a growth plate, so the orthopedist wanted to be extra-sure the healing was properly taking place.
When the accident first happened, we went to our pediatrician first, as the routine is that you need a referral to a specialist. We got the original x-rays done, then waited for the confirmation from the pediatrician that yes, there was a break, and only then were we told we would have to find an orthopedist near us in our insurance network. I prayed and looked at names online, and picked one because the doctor’s first and last names were the same as two of my children. My methods are very scientific.
Though I didn’t know what I was doing when choosing the doctor, God did.
Steve took our son to his first appointment where he got his cast. When they got home, Steve was tickled to tell me that the doctor had nine children. When my turn came to visit the orthopedist, I noted the Focus on the Family and Creation Illustrated magazines in his waiting room. At our most recent visit, the doctor shared with me about the mission trip he just took to Kenya. God had sent us to a Christian doctor.
Leaving the radiology building after the x-ray last week, we saw a man waiting in his truck in the parking lot, reading a Bible. We also noticed a bumper sticker with a Christian message. Lately, God has been impressing upon me that His people are everywhere. That thought has been not only comforting me, but making me almost giddy with joy.
As I write this, I’m sitting in the lobby of a pentecostal church which has a woman minister. Before you wonder what wrong turn I took when I left that parking lot, I should explain that I’m here because my girls are practicing for a Christmas concert with a community ladies’ chorale, and this is where the rehearsals are held. But the pastor (sigh, I do have trouble calling her that!) was leaving with her two young children and stopped to visit with me before she left, and we had a lovely conversation about the state of the world and the confidence we both share in God’s provision for us during these uncertain times. We hugged when she left and I think we both felt encouraged from our discussion.
God’s people are everywhere.
Just this afternoon, Anna and I drove with a friend to the other side of the county, and we went to an apple farm to get some fruit. The first folks I saw at this busy place were familiar faces. It was a young woman (hi, Charlotte!) I’ve known since my oldest children were small and she was a teenager, when we lived in the Bay Area, there with her husband and their young family. She used to babysit for me and taught Hans his first piano lessons. We went to the same church in those days, and now they live within an hour from us and attend a reformed church where we have several friends. What a blessed providence to see them today, to have a few minutes of sweet conversation and encouragement from that meeting.
God’s people are everywhere.
I explained the concept of the now and the not yet to a young friend recently, the idea that right now we have all we need from God from the moment of our salvation, yet we look forward to the not yet when we will truly possess what we already have. Paradoxes are nearly impossible to understand, let alone explain, but if we can just grasp and accept their existence, it gives us a much deeper appreciation for the greatness of our God. One of those paradoxes is that His strength is made perfect in our weakness. Many Christians are concerned they are facing an uncertain future, not knowing if there is going to be a time of want due to economic suffering, if there will be a time of persecution due to political oppression, or if there might even be a total loss of freedom due to a tyrannical do-goodism that we are hearing more than just whispers of from those who are taking the reins of power.
Yet Christians do not face an uncertain future. Of all people, we know that our future is secure. We know who is on the throne, and no man put Him there. He, however, puts men where He wants them to be, and His people are everywhere. From the first to the last, God has ordained His plan and He will make it come to pass, and it will be perfect, and His people and His church and His kingdom will be perfected in every circumstance, every trial, every meeting, every parting, every step of the way. He is so good, He does not leave us to face this life alone. Not only does He give us His Spirit to teach and comfort us, He gives us one another for encouragement. Perhaps you need encouragement right now, as you look at what seems to be a bleak landscape. Or, you may need to be an encourager to those around you who are facing what truly is a bleak landscape because their perspective focuses on a limited view. When you stand on God’s shoulders, the view is much better.
It’s time for hope, and I am filled with it right now as God has mercifully reminded me so often lately of His sovereign hand in my life. I know there will be times when I need the encouragement I’m now trying to offer you, and I know that in His goodness and love for me, our Lord will provide what I need when I need it, as He has faithfully done since He plucked me out of my darkness and not only saved me from my sin but gave me an inheritance that is beyond comprehension. That has not changed, nor will it ever, as He has promised never to leave me nor forsake me. My joy in Him will not be taken away, no matter what else is taken away from me.
I don’t have a crystal ball that tells me what is going to happen and neither do you. We have something much better in the Word of God, which never changes. There we see that our hope is still the same, and so is the job we have as long as God gives us life, and breath, and all things. That job is to serve Him faithfully in whatever circumstances He gives us, and that is possible in His strength. Let us encourage one another not to grow weary in well-doing. Let’s continue to speak the truth to one another in love, but also let’s keep our eyes open for other believers around us who are brothers and sisters in Christ and who will be needing to see your light shining in the darkness, especially if things continue to get darker. You may even find yourself being encouraged by them, too, even though you don’t see eye to eye on all the details.
Last year at the Jamestown 400 celebration, Anna and I enjoyed a talk by Dr. Paul Jehle (you can find it at Behemoth.com, called “The Providential Nexus of Plymouth and Jamestown,†a talk which is not only appropriate for Thanksgiving, but for these times), who compared the settlements of Jamestown and Plymouth. The Jamestown folks have a reputation which is partly undeserved, for being money-grubbing and lazy adventurers, while the pilgrims whose sacrifices we remember this week are considered the more pious lot who based their settlement on Christian principles. The northern colonists, who were known as Separatists, had some contempt for their southern neighbors whom they considered rather worldly and compromisers because of their association with the Church of England. In 1622, though, the Massachusetts Christians suffered severe hardship—their colony was almost wiped out from sickness and lack of food. They were in dire straits and praying for help, which God sent by those from whom they would least have wanted it: the Jamestown colonists sent a ship with supplies which sustained them and helped them survive that suffering.
We need each other, and God’s kingdom will benefit as we work together in humility and obedience to our Lord and King. Pray in faith, as the pilgrims did, and see in what amazing ways God brings His purposes to pass.
The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer…The believer feels no shame, as though he were still living too much in the flesh, when he yearns for the physical presence of other Christians. Man was created a body, the Son of God appeared on earth in the body, he was raised in the body, in the sacrament the believer receives the Lord Christ in the body, and the resurrection of the dead will bring about the perfected fellowship of God’s spiritual-physical creatures. The believer therefore lauds the Creator, the Redeemer, God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for the bodily presence of a brother. The prisoner, the sick person, the Christian in exile sees in the companionship of a fellow Christian a physical sign of the gracious presence of the triune God.
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together
