God in Camouflage

Our church just finished studying the book of Ruth.* One of the great things about this short narrative is that you get to see, from start to finish, a completed work of divine love, guidance,  and redemption. In real time, this usually takes 70 years or more. You can read Ruth in 20 minutes.

In Ruth you experience the invisible hand of God orchestrating events and circumstances, arranging everything to achieve His purposes. But He is God in camouflage. He does not usually reveal Himself, and what we see are secondary causes: people’s choices, famine, the weather. It is only in the big picture that you know He was behind it all.

Through the Flood and the Fire: Three Triumphant Truths - Part 1

Sometimes Bible passages become more than good advice or practical principles. In times of heartache and trouble, God’s word can be a foundation on which to stand when everything else starts crumbling. So let me begin by telling you why Isaiah 43 means so much to me.

In 1998 a tornado nearly destroyed our home. We were trying to sell our house, but in one afternoon the storm did so much damage that we thought no one would ever want it. Both our house and garage were smashed up and our acre property was strewn with the destroyed remains of a dozen trees that had been snapped off in the wind.

In the middle of the night God led my wife to Isaiah 43:1-3. It was incredibly comforting to us both. And the next day, despite the devastation, we sold our house.

God used the same passage in our lives in 2006. Dionne’s “simple out-patient procedure” became a health catastrophe that nearly took her life. In the middle of great pain, she asked me to quote Isaiah 43:1-3. The Lord used His promises to enable to hang on. 

But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior (Isaiah 43:1-3a; my highlights).

The Lord taught us three very simple, but quite wonderful, lessons from this passage. They gave us strength to walk through “the flood and the fire.” In the next few posts, I’d like to share them with you.

Christ's Triumph, Part One

The Promise

When I was still in college, God began to call me to church planting. A few years later in seminary, I tried to get prepared with a research project in which I surveyed all the church planters in our denomination. I asked them various questions about methods they used. The last question was open-ended. What advice would they give me, a future church planter?

One veteran church planter’s only advice was to claim the promise of 2 Corinthians 2:14. But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and manifests through us the sweet aroma of the knowledge of Him in every place. (NASB)

At the time I wasn’t familiar with the passage, but I began to study it. Now, all these years later, the truth of this wonderful passage has been an encouragement to me for over 35 years. I'm hoping you might be encouraged, too, through a short series of posts.

Here’s the background: Paul, traveling from Ephesus, came to the port city of Troas, a place he sensed was ripe for the gospel. But his plans had included meeting his colleague and protégé Titus, who was returning from a trip to Corinth.

Titus failed to appear and Paul was filled with concern, both for his young disciple and for the Corinthian church, which had been dealing with many problems.

Life is like that. Your best plans may be interrupted. People may disappoint or worry you. Challenges you never anticipated change everything.

All these things were heavy upon the Apostle Paul. But that’s when he burst forth in confidence: But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in Christ!

This is both Paul's testimony as well as a promise for you and me. Despite sin, setbacks, stalls, and even spiritual warfare, God leads us in triumph. But the most important thing to know about this promise is that it's Christ’s triumph, not ours.

For next time: The Hero of the Story

The Oranges

At our recent anniversary celebration, our daughter-in-law read the following story, something I wrote a few years ago but had never shown anyone. It’s about three times longer than I usually post on this blog, but in the hope that it might honor Christ and encourage others, I decided to include it. It’s all true.

 He woke that morning, thanking God it was Saturday. His roommate had left with his drinking buddies the night before, so he had their small dorm room to himself for the weekend. Today he had nothing on the horizon except to meet her for lunch.

            He rolled out of bed, showered, and pulled on some old jeans, a T-shirt and his sneakers, the 70’s uniform of the college freshman.

            Breakfast today consisted of a candy bar he bought from the vending machine downstairs in the lobby. Unwrapping it, he headed across campus.

            That first year he didn’t have a car, so he did a lot of walking. Any dates they had were on campus or carefully planned around the city bus routes.

            His dorm was on the extreme northwest end of campus, and her apartment was a couple blocks south and central, right in the middle of campus near the old chapel. He could walk it in his sleep, and usually zoned out as he made the familiar trek across parking lots and behind buildings to short-cut his way to her place. Her kitchen window overlooked the front door, and he knew she would be watching for him.

            You’d have to say they were an unlikely couple. Not that they didn’t have areas of compatibility. Both were bookish and shy. He could be bitingly funny and she laughed at his jokes. Both of them were planning on becoming teachers, though lately he’d been talking about going into the ministry.

            The thing is, though, they were so young. At eighteen he was short and skinny, with long brown hair past his collar. He looked 14. Seven months older, she was slight and pretty, but when her eyes blinked behind her small glasses, you had the sense she was shutting away some kind of inner pain.

            You’d probably have concluded they were together out of mutual neediness. Neither had dated much in high school. He was the resident bookworm and egghead in a small high school where jocks were royalty and smarts were an embarrassment. His dad’s death four years before had set him adrift, and he was still looking for an anchor.