Tag Archives: Circumstance

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Amos 9

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“I’m still giving the orders around here.” Amos 9:9a (MSG)

I’ve spent the last three days on site with a client I’ve served for 16 years. I know many of the employees. I’ve coached many of them since their first days of employment. So, when I go on-site and walk into the lunch room it can be a bit like a reunion.

Yesterday my colleague and I ran into one of the client’s senior managers. He’s a good man and we worked very closely with him for a long time before he was moved to different part of the organization. We’ve rarely seen him in recent years. He informed us that the company had uprooted him and his entire team and were moving them to a different office in a different part of the city to work with a completely different organization. It was a bit of a shock to hear the news. It was a bold and radical move on the part of the corporation, and looking into the man’s eyes we could tell it was even more shocking to him at this stage of his career.

“But,” he said without flinching after he shared the news, “I know God is in charge. It will all work out. I just keep trusting God’s promises.”

To hear his declaration of faith in the midst of upheaval was an inspiration to me in the midst of my own daily journey. I was glad we ran into him. It was a divine appointment yesterday.

It easy in the midst of rapidly changing circumstances to feel like God is distant, but He is not. He is still giving the orders around here. Like the old song says, our part is to trust and obey.

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Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Isaiah 60

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Time. "I am God. At the right time I'll make it happen." Isaiah 60:22 (MSG)

Time rules our lives. We wake to it, eat to it, work to it, play to it, and sleep to it. We rarely stop to ponder how time affects every area of our daily life and perceptions. This is especially true in an era when we place increasing demands on time, and in turn feel the effects of time's increasing demands on us. Faster. Quicker. Efficient. Productive. More in less. Overnight.

This pressure of time, I believe, makes it increasingly difficult to follow the command to "wait on the Lord." That patience is a fruit of God's Spirit in us is quickly lost on us.

God exists eternally beyond time. He has the ability to see each individual circumstance in context of the whole. God sees purpose in our painful moments. He walks each leg of the journey with us even as he stands with us at the finish line.

Chill. At the right time, He makes things happen.

Creative Commons photo courtesy of Flickr and DaDaAce

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Isaiah 47

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One phone call away. Ruin descends— you can't charm it away.
Disaster strikes— you can't cast it off with spells.
Catastrophe, sudden and total— and you're totally at sea, totally bewildered!
Isaiah 47:11 (MSG)

The phone call came on a warm summer evening. I was in the basement (where it was cool), watching television.

Pack something quick. Get in the car. We're going.

Grandpa and grandma were on a walk. There was an accident. They were struck by a car. We don't know anything more. Let's go.

There are scenes from that night that are indelibly etched in my memory. I remember the long drive to northwest Iowa. In pre-cell phone days there was no instant communication. You drove. You waited to find out. You agonized. You prayed. I remember hearing the nurse at St. Luke's hospital say that my grandma was dead. What a strange concept for my ten year old brain to grasp. I'd just seen grandma weeks before, and now I'd never see her again. I remember seeing my father cry for the first time and my mother comforting him. My vision of parents expanded that night. I saw humanity in them that I'd never perceived before.

I learned an important life lesson that warm summer evening. It was not anything that any person said. Experience was my teacher. I learned that we are all, every one of use, just one heartbeat, one breath, one teenager's momentary distraction, one unexpected phone call from tragic, life altering circumstances beyond our control.

It's good to know who holds the future.

It's good each night that I lay my head on the pillow and can thank God that the phone didn't ring that day.

Creative Commons photo courtesy of Flickr and qole

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Isaiah 5

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Daily at the crossroads. When I expected good grapes, why did I get bitter grapes? Isaiah 5:4b (MSG)

I don't presume to know why things turn out the way they do. My eyes have seen showers of blessing fall on the righteous and the unrighteous. I have witnessed both drink from the cup of bitterness. I have known blessing, and I have experienced bitterness. My eyes can't see all ends. My mind can't fathom all of God's designs or perceive the intricate interplay of good and evil in each event. I regularly find myself at a loss to explain. No matter how long I ponder, such things are beyond my reach.

What I do know is that daily I stand at a crossroads and choose my path, no matter what my momentary circumstances. One path is the way of bitterness, self-centeredness, and blame. The other is the way of gratitude, humility and perseverance. I know both roads well. I've spent considerable time on both. Depending on which day you cross my path you may have happened to see me on either.

More often now I choose the latter. The steps are more difficult and the path normally ascends at an uncomfortable rate (The former choice provides such an easy descent!).  Yet, the place I end up is always more wholesome for me and everyone around me.

Creative Commons photo courtesy of Flickr and elzey

Chapter-a-Day

Chapter-a-Day Micah 4

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Metamorphosis. "On that great day," God says, "I will round up all the hurt and homeless, everyone I have bruised or banished. I will transform the battered into a company of the elite." Micah 4:6 (MSG)

Change is constant along the journey. Change is a substitution, an outside-in exchange of conditions. Change is swapping out one circumstance for another. There is a change in scenery. There is a change in location. There is a change in terrain.

Transformation is something much more intimate. Transformation is metamorphosis. It is a substantial re-forming from the inside out. Transformation is the transfiguration of the very structure and substance of being.

You can have change without transformation, but there is no transformation without change. God tells us quite plainly that He in the transformation business. He makes old things new. He makes broken things whole. He makes dirty things clean. He makes dead people live.

I don't want mere change. I want transformation. That's what this journey is about.