A Heavenly Polaroid

Nothing is coincidental. While we cannot always see the intricacies of our lives, those chance meetings, the decisions that change our paths on a daily basis or the people that move and weave within the tapestry of a lifetime, there is a divine hand in our epic narrative. 

This isn’t a typical Monday for me.  I’m on my last day of the SYMC where the theme has been “Stories of Transformation.”  Today was a field trip for my fifth grade students at the downtown Audubon Center.  It’s the first time in months the temperature has been above 60.  While my students will be looking at the different species of birds and ripping roots out from the ground, I’m trying not to leave my workshop for a pee break because I drank an extra-large coffee.  I’m at a roundtable discussing the multiple roles we play in ministry and our lives (I can’t wait to blog about that subject!)

I’m anxious somewhat.  After this class, we convene for our last general session.  Each session has been worship filled, musically uplifting, and heavy on my spirit.  The best kinds of service are the ones that convict you. 

And this morning brought it back to the garden.  We each have a story, an epic narrative that God has explicitly written on our hearts.  Every epic adventure has been manifested by the choices we ultimately make.  When the spirit interceded on our behalf, the story can truly be lived out in epic fashion.  There’s a song, “God bless the broken road that brings me back to you.”  While I have some theological problems with the message of the song (my sin is justified because in the end, I found my true love), I do believe that God redeems all.  So despite the stupid decisions I’ve made in my life, and sometimes continue to make, there have been people placed in my life whose lives I can speak into simply because of those experiences.  Did I want those experiences?  No.  But the brokenness of my life is helping to transform the healing in someone else’s.  A student, a man coming to bible study, one of our junior high kids and some unseen person I have yet to meet.  In a sea of 2000 people this weekend, you begin to point our familiar faces.  How is that even possible?  Who designs such intricate quilts? 

In one inspiring worship service, we were witness to a photo of the earth from the Hubble telescope.  The earth in which wars have been waged, where people are oppressed and thrown into sexual trafficking, where we crave materials and idols, is nothing but a blue dot in a vast universe. A vapor.  Our lives are a vapor.  A blink.  But within those wistful vapors there is embedded the roots of love that is too powerful to overcome. 

Yet, there are times, when the destructive narratives in our lives threaten our spiritual growth.  This is the portion of the epic of my life that I feel have yet to conquer.  Old sins, guilt, the words of failure I tell myself in the mirror.  None of them are true, but they’re plausible, so those beautiful narratives get stuck in plot changes we try to direct.  In a sense, those weeds grow within our heart, and when we try to uproot them with our own strength, we are bound to rip out something valuable.  So we grow our beauty around those weed patches, trying to overlook them.  We get so busy and we get so frustrated that ripping up our own weeds seems like the only respite.  It’s pride not to ask for help.  We’re the alpha-volunteers, the leaders. 

But what I learned this weekend is that Jesus is the only gardener qualified to pull the weeds out of the garden of our lives.  He’s the only one who has the experience to deliver the ultimate plot twist.

Transformation.  Moving to Texas was my first visible sign of Jesus pulling out those weeds.  Would I have found Jesus in Texas?  Perhaps, but I don’t want to relive a life where there’s a doubt.  Moving out of Zanesville was another.  Later it was changing job locations, the decision to adopt, and then the deus ex machina was that Emmaus walk.  It was like an explosion from an Indiana Jones movie.  You’re awed and floored.  But you want more.  So much more.

And God is happy to keep pouring into our lives.  He doesn’t save us and then walk away.  He’s always creating newer versions. Sequels and reboots.  There’s cross over TV specials when we meet others.  Subplots are explored and revealed. 

I told our youth pastor this weekend that it was such a relief to be around so many genuinely nice people.  How fulfilling to know that there are so many youth pastors and volunteers in all places of America that are pouring truth and love into the lives of children.  Seeing the book cases packed up, people giving each other hugs reminded me that it was over.  It’s another mountaintop that God reveals to us like some heavenly Polaroid, but to remain is selfish and unloving.  We must share our lives.  Our love.  Our witness.