The Remarkable Ways of God
Recently Martha and I sat down in a Nashville restaurant to enjoy a quiet meal together. Across the room was family of five: mother, father, and three young children, probably between the ages of 5 and 11.
I found myself irresistibly drawn to the family. It was strange, unusual, almost weird. For some reason, my eyes kept going back to them, almost staring at them, and yet not wanting to be rude. At last I began to wonder why my gaze seemed always to return to this normal-looking American family. I began to ask myself, “What is different about them? Why do I keep looking at them?”
“It’s the way they are all treating each other,” I finally answered myself. “They are so kind, so gracious with each other, parents to children, children to parents, children to children.”
With that disclosure I turned to my meal, still with occasional glances in their direction.
My “family in focus” had entered the restaurant before us and soon were preparing to leave. I watched.
Then my question was answered. The child whose back had been to me was a developmentally challenging child.
“Oh yes, that’s your way, isn’t it Lord? The things that are very difficult so often form our lives if we allow them—if we allow it to happen—if we yield those unwanted intrusions and hardships to be surrendered to Him Who uses all things to shape us into His likeness.”
I excused myself from Martha and walked across the room to catch the father before he reached the front door of the restaurant.
I told him about the way I had been drawn to them, about my internal dialogue asking myself why, how I had concluded that it was the way they were treating each other, the tenderness and obvious love so carefully expressed within the family and to others. “Then you rose to leave,” I said, “and I knew why I had been so captivated by you. The Lord has used this precious daughter of yours to chisel you and your family into a fine work of divine art. It’s quite remarkable to see. I’m sure this is not the way you would have chosen it, but I’m also just as sure that you would not want it any other way today. You’ve been well formed. Blessings to you.”
I walked back to join Martha, again pondering the profound ways of God, remembering again also the words of Paul to the Romans (5:1-5), that passage I call “God’s Character-Building Formula:” “Suffering produce perseverance and perseverance character.”
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The Eagles’ Wings’ East Coast Conference was again an intense time of worship, praise and inspiration this year. Robert Stearns gathers worship leaders from across the nation and people come even from other nations to participate in the passionate worship, the challenging messages and the transforming ministry times.
I found myself in another of those involuntary gazes. This time it was one of the guitarists on the worship team. There was nothing special about him. He was not one of the most up-front of the worship leaders, but I kept watching him. There was this holy haze around him. The team was composed of fine musicians and worshippers and I could have been captivated by any of them and their obvious devotion to the Lord, but this young man was drawing my attention.
Most of this was at a subconscious level, and I soon was so drawn into the Presence of the Lord, that my feelings got lost in the evening.
The next day at the hotel swimming pool, I saw this young father with his two children. He was a usual father in the pool with his sons. I went on into the workout room and absorbed myself in the business of upkeep on my temple, and was about to leave the area, when I saw him again.
I engaged him in conversation, began to inquire about his heritage, how he came to the Lord, about his family. I found that this young man’s father had had an accident at age 9 that had cost him eyesight in one eye. As a teenager, he had another tragedy that blinded him in the other eye. He later married and he and his wife had six children. My new friend was one of the six. His father had never seen his own wife or any of his children.
“There it is again!” I thought. “This man has grown up in a household with the kind of “suffering” that ruins some, but it has forged him like the tool of a fine workman. By growing up with a blind father, the Lord has shaped this young man into a compassionate, loving, tender, humble man of God.”
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I don’t know what is going on in your life that causes you pain or suffering, but of this one thing I am certain. God wants to use it to make you a better person. He wants to bring you to a place where you actually are grateful for it and can say with Paul, “Not only so but we rejoice in our sufferings, because we know…”
Be praised Adonai Yeshua, our Messiah and Lord.
Don Finto