Tell Me a Story...

Tell Me a Story...

This entry is shorter than my other posts. This is the first article that I have submitted to my local newspaper for their clergy article section. I liked the material and figured that it would be a good post, even though it is short and I had to deal with the constraints of a word limit of just 500. I hope that you find it enlightening and encourages you to, in whatever way(s) you may choose, to share your story!

  Stories captivate us. No doubt, several of you reading this article may be remembering how, just yesterday, you sat down with family and friends around a table with a seemingly endless amount of food… and in between bites of turkey, sweet potato casserole, and rolls, there was a regaling of stories both old and new. As new fits of laughter broke out at the most recent anecdote about your father and that embarrassing moment of when you were in grade school slips out (thank you, sibling…), you may recall feeling lost in the stories being told. No longer are you sitting down at a dinner table in your family home, but you are transported in mind and spirit, feeling as though you are either in on the action yourself or were experiencing it first hand yourself. At least, that’s what the best stories do… they reel you in hook, line, and sinker.

This experience proves something: stories have power. Stories have been told in all sorts of medium: worlds have been created in novels, superhumans find their way in comic books, and imaginations are stretched at the heroics witnessed on the silver screen. Then, of course, there is the recounting by storytellers, both novice and master, around dinner tables or campfires. What many fail to realize, however, is that we each have our own story, and every story is worth sharing.

There is a reality present within the church in North America: it is in decline. We can blame shifting cultural values, conflicting priorities, consumerism - even traveling sports leagues! - but I’m not sure that it’s any of those external things that are at the root of the decline. Instead, I believe it’s because Christians have not been sharing their stories of how Christ changed their lives. Think about it - if Christians were able to better articulate an answer to the question “Why Jesus?” do you believe that the church would be shrinking across the continent?

The story of Jesus is one of restoration and freedom, and Jesus’ story intersects in some way, shape, or form with the stories of everyone else. If we allow shame to keep us from sharing our part of the larger Jesus narrative, then we will be unable to share how we were freed by Christ from our own shameful past… a past that may well be reflected in the lives of our neighbors and co-workers who claim the title of “non-believer” as their own. Imagine the impact that you could make in the life of someone that you love if you stretched beyond your comfort zone in order to share your story of transformation as a result of Jesus Christ. Imagine that your story is the one that could bring your neighbor to the feet of Christ because they resonated with your honesty, authenticity, and your love for them…

Now go - share your story with someone in your life. It may just be the story that they needed to hear to begin their journey with Christ.


Photo Credit: https://aoshi.bandcamp.com/album/tell-me-a-story-the-fanfic-appreciation-album

Am I Lost?

Am I Lost?

     This past weekend I got to have a first experience. For a number of years now, my mother-in-law has enjoyed gathering bother of her children and their families together for her birthday. The last three times that my wife and kids and brother-in-law and his wife gathered together for Marla's birthday celebration weekend had been at some State Park's cabin. This time was different, though: they had gotten a houseboat! I have never been on a houseboat in real life... I've seen them in pictures and in the movie "Sleepless in Seattle" - then one of the home makeover shows on HGTV redid one!

     Thankfully, my family didn't mind my assertiveness (which is odd, because I don't feel that I usually assert myself in new situations) as I jumped to the helm and steered the boat towards the open lake in search of a place to stay the night! I grasped the basics pretty quickly. Throttle and steering wheel were the least of my worries. What I wasn't so confident about, however was reading the topographical map. Thankfully, my brother-in-law's wife, Kim, was more than happy to help me by giving a second opinion of where we believed we were.

     The next morning, after we had set out from the place we had beached for the night, they told me to just go out along the lake. Once we finally got cell service, though, plans were made to be in French Lick, IN for a train ride and, realizing that I wasn't entirely confident about where we were actually at, I decided to start heading back the direction that I believed the marina to be in. I was afraid that if we didn't head back then, if we were actually lost, then we'd never get to the scenic train ride before it embarked. Realizing that I had let the boat drift and that we were no longer facing the direction that we had headed out in, I began to panic. Thankful for a compass app on my iPhone, I immediately placed it on the navigational panel, and was frantically trying to locate where we were on this topographical map by identifying land features, all the while trying to exude confidence so that the one among us who was starting to feel sick wouldn't stress.

     So we headed the direction that I believed to be the marina, calling Kim back over to help me double check our location - yet even as we headed Southeast, the direction that the map showed the marina should be relative to where we were (somewhat) certain was our location, I had this nagging feeling. As the rising sun's glare off the lake effectively blinded me from being able to read the map when I looked at it, I panicked even more. Finally, we saw a bridge ahead that there was no way we could mistake on the map, and this also meant that we were close. My own stress levels went down drastically as I realized that we weren't lost after all.

     This got me to thinking, though, how often do we feel lost in our lives, even while we are heading in the right direction? And why is it that we often feel that we are lost in our spiritual journeys, just to look back on those times of confusion and realize that we were good all along? I can't be the only one to think and feel that. Seriously - sometimes we're convinced that we're headed the wrong direction; yet when we try going the way in accordance with whoever we deem to be "the expert," we wind up losing ourselves even more.

     One of the stories from the Bible that has resonated with me comes from the Gospel of John towards the end. Peter and Jesus are walking along the shoreline. Just a few days ago, Peter and the rest of the world had seen Jesus crucified, but they soon realized that the grave couldn't keep Jesus down! Yet during this heart-to-heart, Jesus shows Peter what his journey was going to be like and how far it would take him (as he stretched out his arms, indicating that he, too, would be crucified). Something about this disturbed Peter. He then proceeded to ask Jesus about what John's path was going to look like. This may have been for a number of reasons, but I think it had something to do with wanting to know if John's path would be any smoother than his own - maybe Peter felt that his way wasn't the most optimal for sharing Christ. Then Jesus essentially told Peter, "Don't worry about anyone else - You do You."

     I believe that there are a number of reasons why we feel lost in our spiritual lives:

• Sometimes we see others going about their Christian walk and they make it look effortless, so when we see the struggle in our own lives, it's hard not to think, "What am I doing wrong?"
• It's all new. This whole "Christian walk" or "Discipleship Journey" doesn't have a one-way-fits-all deal, and because of that, it is hard to give blanket instructions to grow closer to Christ that will work perfectly for everyone. So even after we have "the basics" down, we will come across new territory that maybe nobody we know has traversed before.
• Similarly, because we haven't travelled this path before, we may lack confidence and assertiveness in our steps which can lead to doubt.
• Finally, there will be those we come across that flat out tell you that you're going the wrong way. I've heard a lot of supposed disqualifications from Christians, and even pastors, such as, "If you don't speak in tongues then you're not truly a born-again Christian"; a declaration that the Catholic Church is actually a cult; you're not a Christian if you condone homosexuality at all (as well as its opposite - you're not a Christian if you aren't fully accepting of the LGBTQ+ community). This list of supposed disqualifications  that designate you as "lost" goes on.

    I know that your journey looks different from mine - and that's not a bad thing. In some ways, that's the way it's supposed to be. We are all unique individuals that have a different kind of relationship with our Lord, God. Some need God to be the Great Physician while others are needing God to help them know what it is to be human. Many are drawing to God as a Father, while others need God as Mother's nurture.  Recognizing this, I'm not going to tell you that you have to go a certain way. Even when I see another denomination's Christian doctrine more as dogma, I recognize that they are experiencing God in a different aspect / light than I am - and as long as people are coming to actually know Christ, who am I to step in their way?

     I am called to draw closer to Christ and witness in my own, unique way. So am I lost? No... just different.

     Hope to see you at the marina!

Death

Death

  Death is hard. Is that statement really necessary? It seems really obvious… Here is a concept, an idea, a reality that no living thing can escape. Everything from human beings to worms in the ground to the flowers in your garden will eventually cease functions of life and turn back to dust. I know – super morbid.

So we see this fact of life and have experienced it second hand to some degree. One of the true honors that I have as a pastor is when people allow me to come alongside them in their journey of mourning the loss of a loved one. I have the opportunity to sit down with families as they share with me what made their parent / child / sibling so incredibly special to them. Between tears and laughter, they share a pain that I’ve become convinced we were never designed to understand.

I remember my grandma Cassiday. Both of my grandfathers had passed away before I turned 2, and my maternal grandmother passed away when I was in the 5th grade. Grandma Cassiday, though, I remember spending New Year’s Eve nights with, her living with my family my senior year of high school, and eating Pizza King pizza from across the street while working on the jigsaw puzzle that was always on the card table beside her dining room table. Then, while I was living in Kentucky and going to seminary, she got sick. I was married in December of 2009, and between the cold and her health, she was unable to make it to the small town of Keithsburg, Illinois where Eva and I made our vows.

      It wasn’t too long after that my parents informed me that she was in the hospital and likely wasn’t going to make it. And then, on a spring day, while Eva and I were sitting in the car in a parking lot in Lexington after being to a new pizza place, my father told me over the phone that my grandmother wanted me to officiate her funeral. The quote might be wrong, but I believe the phrase, “Of course, Ben will do the funeral, right?” I wasn’t even a pastor yet, never done a funeral, honestly hadn’t been to many at all… and it took me close to a week to give my parents my affirmative. It was painful. This had been my only grandparent that I had been able to develop a relationship with built on my own experiences with her instead of simply stories from back in the day.
Eva and I hadn’t been in our second apartment for long. I remember sitting down on our couch which was truly too big for the living room space it was placed in struggling with finding words to say for the homily. Then Eva sat down next to me, seeing me struggling, and sharing with me some of the wisest words I had heard: “I don’t think we were made to understand death.” As I pondered this statement, I soon realized how right she was (and no, I’m not surprised!).

      I find that we were not designed to understand death. We were made in God’s image. In the two creation accounts that we are given in the first two chapters of Genesis, we don’t see where God made humanity with an expiration date. He didn’t tell Adam and Eve after they had been formed to go out, plant a garden, then after so many years, dig a 6-foot hole in the ground to bury theirselves in. We don’t see that kind of morbid detail in humankind’s blueprint. Instead, God made mankind in God’s own image. Last I checked, God doesn’t die because God is eternal. So we were made in God’s image, yet we die… how is this possible?

      Take a moment and think on the nature of God. More directly, recognize that God is triune – that there is this three-in-one aspect to God that is really hard to nail down. Within God’s self, you see the aspects of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all in relationship with one another. So, God’s very essence is relationship. When we were made in God’s image, it didn’t mean that we were given 10 fingers, 10 toes, 1 nose, 2 eyes, etc… It wasn’t that since Adam was first in the creation account that God must be a man… To be made in God’s image means that we were made with the capacity for relationship. God made us to be able to love and be loved in return. So this process of the soul part of us reaching out and touching others’ souls as we form bonds with each other is a holy thing. As we truly love each other we emulate aspects of God’s love. Since this is the part that makes us made in God’s image, this is the eternal part of us. We were not made to be isolated! This is why it can feel like a piece of is lost when someone close to you passes away – because in a very real sense, a piece of you is lost as you are no longer able to express and grow that relationship.

Jesus says in John 14 that we should not let our hearts be troubled because even though he was going where his disciples could not follow him at this time, he assured them that he was preparing a room for them in God’s house. Then he assures them that he would be coming back for them – they would not be orphaned. This is huge! For us being made in God’s image then experiencing the severing of our relationships is devastating for us. Yet Jesus here is promising that this relationship with the disciples would not be severed. This is not the devastation that they had experienced first hand before, but rather, hope in the face of the most powerful force up until that point: death.

“Where, O death, is your sting?” We read in 1 Corinthians 15:55. What we find in Christ is that the sting of death of being separated from God and others has been removed. Yes, we will die here on earth. We shall shed our mortal coils, but that’s not the end. Jesus shares with us that he is going before us to prepare a place, so that when we do follow him after life (when we die) we will still live as we participate in and practice our relationships.

When it comes to our days here on earth, this thought gives us varying degrees of comfort. In the United Methodist Book of Worship’s Service of Death and Resurrection I use when I preside over a funeral, there is a line in the Greeting of the liturgy that goes, “We come together in grief, acknowledging our human loss.” When we separated from God (for that’s what sin is, a voluntary separation in relationship), death was introduced as humanity (Adam and Eve) chose their own way apart from the author and source of life. This very much makes our loss a human loss. Yet our God is so good to us that through the forgiveness offered in Christ Jesus, death isn’t the end for experiencing a relationship with God. That experience will be different for sure, but the part of us that is truly made in God’s image will live on.

So, is death hard? Certainly. Is death the end? Not so much. As we acknowledge our human loss, “May God grant us grace, that in pain we may find comfort, in sorrow hope, in death resurrection.”


Photo credit: YouVersion Bible App for iOS

Baptism and Babies

Baptism and Babies

     Matthew 3:13-17 is an incredibly memorable part of scripture. Jesus comes down to the river where his cousin, John the Baptist, is baptizing people in the Jordan (because... you know... he’s JOHN THE BAPTIST... it’s kinda’ his thing...) to represent their repentance of their old way of doing life and committing theirselves to God. In essence, it was a symbolic gesture of individuals saying, “Moving forward, my life will be different from the sinful way in which I had been living.” This was obviously a choice that was being made by these individuals who had (hopefully) given much thought and consideration into this action and wanted this very public and very visual demonstration of obedience to God.

     And then Jesus came along - the guy without sin - asking his cousin John the Baptist to baptize him. “But Jesus, I’m not even worthy to tie your sandal - if anything, you should be baptizing me!” was the response that John gives Jesus. John recognized that what he was doing was baptizing folks with plain old Jordan River water, while Jesus would baptize with a holy fire - the Holy Spirit! Yet Jesus insisted, and what we see this event of baptism being is the starting line of the Son’s ministry, for the Father, empowered but the Holy Spirit. It was an appropriate way to mark the beginning of his life’s focus not changing, but becoming even more focused on his calling.

     “What does this have to do with babies, Ben?” Before going any farther, we need to talk about what baptism is. 1 Peter 3:20-22:

“20 In the past, these spirits were disobedient—when God patiently waited during the time of Noah. Noah built an ark in which a few (that is, eight) lives were rescued through water. 21 Baptism is like that. It saves you now—not because it removes dirt from your body but because it is the mark of a good conscience toward God. Your salvation comes through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22 who is at God’s right side. Now that he has gone into heaven, he rules over all angels, authorities, and powers.” 

Did you catch that? In verse 21, it says that “[baptism] saves you now — not because it removes dirt from your body but because it is the mark of a good conscience toward God.” I have heard the argument from Christians before that if you are not baptized then you are not saved, because salvation comes through the cleansing waters. Reading this carefully, however, we can come to realize that the power of salvation does not come through the waters. The waters are merely symbolic of something that is happening within you - a right way of thinking, a redirecting of one’s attention toward, our Heavenly Parent. “Your salvation comes through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is at God’s right side.”

Baptism is an outward sign of an inward grace.

     In the United Methodist Church, we have come to understand that baptism is not what saves you, nor are you condemned to an eternity in hell if you don’t get baptized. Instead, baptism is a public and visible display of showing your community that you believe in the salvation that Jesus Christ provides. Hence one of my favorite phrases in Methodist theology and doctrine, “Baptism is an outward sign of an inward grace.” Baptism is visibly acknowledging that the Holy Spirit is already at work in your life, so let’s celebrate this fact in the community!

     Because baptism has so long been held up as part of the “necessary salvation checklist” in many denominations, it has also been associated as something that is unable to be done without the person making that decision for themselves. This is a very logical argument - accepting the gift of salvation is a choice, and if baptism is a necessary component of salvation, then the individual to be baptized must make that decision for their own spiritual well-being. But, this is saying that without baptism the Holy Spirit cannot work in your life and Christ can’t save you, which many Christians when they look on their lives before accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour, must openly admit is false: The Spirit WAS working in their lives EVEN BEFORE they knew it was God! They were already experiencing God’s grace even if they were unable to accept it. This is called Prevenient Grace in fancy theological terms.

     So when we begin to see that baptism is acknowledging that God is already doing awesome things in a person’s life — surrounding them by people that love them, offering protection and health, etc… — then we begin to realize that baptism is more of a celebration that God loves us and is doing great things in our lives already. And when the community affirms that God is at work in someone’s life as opposed to the point at which they receive “their ticket to heaven,” then babies being baptized doesn’t sound so crazy at all, does it? As a matter of fact, it even makes sense within the context of Jesus stating “‘Allow the children to come to me,’ Jesus said. ‘Don’t forbid them, because the kingdom of heaven belongs to people like these children.’” (Matthew 19:14) and helps give us a context as to why entire households were baptized. Even Peter in Acts 2:39 shares that the promise of the Holy Spirit was for not just the parents, but the children as well!

     When one is baptized in the United Methodist Church, there are vows to be made: “Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil power of this world, and repent of your sin? Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you to resist evil, injustice, and oppression, in whatever forms they present themselves? Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior, put your whole trust in his grace, and promise to serve him as your Lord, in union with the church which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races?” If they agree to each of these questions, they then say, “I do.” When baptizing an infant, however, it is the parents (or legal guardian) that is asked these questions on behalf of the child with the intention that, even though they cannot speak for themselves as of yet, they will be raised in an environment where they will learn what it is to follow Christ, reject evil, injustice, and oppression, and be taught what it is to put their trust in Christ. Then, when they are old enough, they will have the opportunity through a process called Confirmation to affirm and take upon theirselves these vows which were made for them at a young age.

     Then it is the congregation’s turn to make a vow – not only to renew their own baptismal vows, but promising to take this new brother or sister in Christ and raise them up in Christ’s love. The act of baptism is a way of bringing the community of Christ together and reaffirm that the Spirit is moving in and amongst everyone’s life. Is baptism something that guarantees that someone gets to Heaven? No – but if the congregation and parents are serious about helping to raise this child to follow Christ, then the likelihood of them knowing that the Spirit is at work in their lives drastically rises along with the possibility of them accepting Jesus Christ.

     This was obviously a brief overview of infant baptism (albeit longer than I intended), and there is so much more to it. So instead of thinking of this post as a complete defense of infant baptism, think of it instead as the beginnings of a conversation. I tried to briefly point out that there is a Biblical precedent for it as well as share that there is more than simply sprinkling water on a baby’s head and calling it “good to go!” Baptism, being the deeply communal act that it is, requires an action that all christians, regardless of age, must practice: loving one another like Christ loves us.I believe that is where much of the confusion stems from: because baptism has been regarded by so many for so long as directly related to salvation, it has become an individualistic action as opposed to one that the whole community of Christ is a part of.

     If you are at church one morning or in a lake, pool, ocean, horse trough, etc… and you see someone being baptized – whether it be an infant or adult baptism – I encourage you to recognize it for what it is: an acknowledgement that the Spirit is already at work in transforming their life, and your role as a disciple is to foster their growth in Christ.

     God Bless.

Being Lost

Being Lost

Luke 15:11-32

So, there’s this story that Jesus tells his followers about a wealthy father and his two sons. His oldest son always followed the rules, respecting his dad, getting his chores done, and was content with living his life in this way. His younger son, however, experienced a great deal of discontent – and for what reason, we are not given.

One day, the younger son decides that living on this farm that his father owned was no longer good enough for him – that it was time that he struck off on his own. We are led to believe that, for whatever reason, he actually really hates his dad. This is believed because he demanded that he receive his inheritance from his father right then and there before striking off on his own. Demanding your inheritance from your parent who is very much alive is equatable to telling your parent to, “Drop dead, I want nothing to do with you. I’m taking what’s rightfully mine and I’m leaving!” The older brother’s jaw must have dropped to hear this from his brother’s mouth. Then, if his jaw hadn’t hit the floor, it certainly did when his father actually complied with the request! The younger son then took what was given to him and moved to the city.

Now, we don’t know what exactly went on in the city for the younger son or how the money was spent, only what big brother will later on speculate. Given the meaning of “prodigal,” however, we can infer that he was reckless with his money and certainly didn’t follow Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University financial course. His resources were used up around the same time that severe food shortage hit the country. Like what many others were likely experiencing, he hit some dire straights. Things got so desperate for the younger son that he hired himself out to a pig farmer to feed his animals. A Jew, debasing himself to the point of becoming unclean by being with pigs. He became so hungry that the slop he was feeding the pigs was beginning to look awfully good… then it hit him: he was never in want when he was in his father’s household – even the family servants were never in need of anything. If he could only go back home, but surely that bridge was burnt and damaged beyond repair, right?

The younger son resolves himself to return to his father, but instead of being reinstated and recognized as his son, he is determined to be content with being only a servant since he effectively removed himself from the family. The young son is practicing his speech all the way home, expecting a cold welcome. Imagine his surprise, then, when his father, seeing him crest the hill, came running out to him, embracing him and calling for a party before he can deliver his prepared speech! The fattened calf was slaughtered, a robe fetched, and the family ring placed upon his finger. The father, not caring about the insult given him or money lost, was going to celebrate his lost “prodigal” son returning home!

Big brother was not so forgiving, though. When he learns what all the commotion was about upon returning from the fields, he refuses to join in on the celebrations. If we stop and think about it, we can see why he is so mad. As a result of dad giving his younger son the inheritance early, the estate had been cut in half, which meant that the overall earning potential over the subsequent years would suffer – by taking his inheritance early, the younger brother had also lost his older brother’s potential wealth! Putting money aside, however, the older son saw this as rewarding irresponsible behavior. “I’ve done everything right, Dad! I’ve followed your instructions, always been obedient, and not once did you celebrate me for following the rules! Then my little brother comes home after wasting all of your money on God-knows-what, probably prostitutes, and you throw a massive party for him!”

“But son,” the Father says to his eldest progeny, “You’ve been with me the whole time – what’s mine is yours, always has been! All you had to do was ask!” This is where we begin to see that maybe the younger son wasn’t the only one that was lost… just the more obvious one.

How many times have you followed the rules and expected some “Universal Law of Fairness” to kick in? How many times have you been disgusted by those who messed up and didn’t follow the rules, but still seem to have everything handed to them on a silver plate? I know that this has been me on a number of occasions, even as a young child. I remember a first-grade field trip to the zoo, and the parent chaperoning my group had purchased us a treat – well, this was against the rules, and I was sure to voice this out loud! Instead of accepting the graceful act of love which was presented to me and my classmates, I decided to call her out for her nice deed! How many times have you not been able to accept a gift of grace and love given to either you or someone else because of “the rules?”

It’s easy for us to pick on the younger brother in this story. After all, it’s easy to see where he was out of line – he told his dad “I wish you were dead, now give me my money!” Blatantly out of line. We’re even finding ourselves beginning to side with big brother as the story unfolds – “He did this to you, and you’re going to throw him a party!?!?” Then the Jesus hits the listener when the father tells his son that he’s been a part of experiencing the love all along. We realize then that following the rules for the rules’ sake is dangerous because it keeps us from fully opening ourselves up to and experiencing the love that is already freely given to us.

All of our rule-following won’t save us, and we find that the case happens to be just the opposite – if we concern ourselves solely with keeping the rules / laws / regulations, then we will wind up more lost because we will have blinded ourselves to the love which God already freely gives us. Therefore, let us celebrate when others realize that love in their own lives, whether they finally realize that being a stickler to the rules as they see them are not what’s important after all or they have finally come to their senses and repent of their wasteful and selfish way of life!

Let us be a part of the party. Let us open ourselves up to the experience of God’s love no matter how “prodigal” we may be.

photo credit: lost-man.jpg found at https://bestcatholicgifts.com/the-parable-of-the-lost-coin-moral-lessons

Where is God?

“The Lord said, ‘Go out and stand at the mountain before the Lord. The Lord is passing by.’ A very strong wind tore through the mountains and broke apart the stones before the Lord. But the Lord wasn’t in the wind. After the wind, there was an earthquake. But the Lord wasn’t in the earthquake. After the earthquake, there was a fire. But the Lord wasn’t in the fire. After the fire, there was a sound. Thin. Quiet. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his coat. He went out and stood at the cave’s entrance. A voice came to him and said, ‘Why are you here, Elijah?’” 1 Kings 19:11-13

  I firmly believe that people are searching for God. The reasons may be different – some are searching for peace while others are searching for healing, others may simply be looking for the first semblance of direction in their lives – but people are constantly seeking out God. This very well may be the reason why when a natural disaster occurs, there are those who are quick to give God the credit for “punishing those sinners” while nonbelievers are asking the question, “Where was God when that earthquake / hurricane / fire happened?” Even nonbelievers jump to that question of where God is because maybe (just maybe) there is a part of them that still hasn’t given up that search for a higher being, even when their search has landed them in skepticism and doubt.

Then there are those moments in our lives where we can’t help but to feel that we are lost and in need of God’s presence, so we seek God out. We’ll go on retreats or begin serving in the church - not so much to be the hands and feet of Christ so much as just wanting to experience God in a more tangible way. We even get it into our heads that, “And in this way I will experience God!” And sometimes we do recognize God in the midst of storms in our lives – but if we are really paying attention, we will recognize that God is indeed in the midst of the storms, but not the storms themselves.

In the Scripture passage above, Elijah is on the run. God’s other prophets have been killed and he was next. He was the sole survivor of God’s prophets because of the Baal worship that had taken over in the Promised Land. He felt abandoned and alone. Then God spoke to him and informed him to go outside of the cave he was hiding in, for the presence of the Lord was about to pass by that place. “Trust me, Elijah, you’re not going to want to miss this!” Then this destructive wind came along, followed by an earthquake, followed by fire, and you can just see Elijah out there, experiencing these storms and the destruction they undoubtedly caused, begging to see God’s presence in the storms – likely expecting that God was the storm! Yet even though Elijah was looking in all the places that he was certain God would be in, God wasn’t there.

Then Elijah heard it… a thin, quiet voice… asking this question for the second time, “Why are you here?” Maybe we can rephrase the question: “Why are you looking for me in the storms? Did you think I was the storm?” I really want to know which was more surprising to Elijah in that moment: the fact that God’s display wasn’t the massive, awe-inspiring power of nature that he just witnessed on display, or that the most powerful being in the cosmos was in this small, still voice…

A fellow pastor in my area recently returned from his second trip to Israel. He had been there about 20 years ago, and during his touring and seeing all of these holy places, he was convinced that he would experience God in these Christian landmarks – and he returned disappointed. On this second trip, he had been thinking that maybe it was a maturity thing and, over the past few decades, he has matured and grown closer to God. After his return, aside from baptizing in the Jordan River, again he returned without really clearly feeling the presence of God like he had imagined in these historic Christian landmarks. If anything, he has felt God more clearly in our small town in southern Indiana.

I think there is a profound truth behind this experience of my friend’s. We often times expect that we will experience God as a result of God always doing something to us. All too rarely do we at large consider that maybe, just maybe, we experience God’s presence as a result of God doing something with us. Those moments that really drive us as Christians are those moments that we realize that we are doing something as the hands and feet of Christ. We feel the presence of God when are praying with brothers and sisters, as we are working together in collecting food for the hungry, or helping those in our community with bills that they otherwise would not be able to cover just to keep the lights on for their family. Sometimes, those actions are so seemingly small and minuscule that it’s all too easy to overlook, yet it is in these acts of love that God is found.

This isn’t to say that God can never be found in an earthquake or massive fire… it just doesn’t seem to be God’s modus operandi. After all, we’re talking about a God that, in order to restore a relationship with us, came to earth in the least flashy way: as a baby to poor folk, promptly became a refugee, then grew up in a small town called Nazareth upon returning to Israel. We weren’t saved by a warrior on a white steed but by a teacher of peace riding a donkey – pretty low-key in comparison to what the Jewish people were expecting a savior to look like. So sometimes, God’s miraculous healings come through doctors and nurses at the hospital, and the way in which your marriage was saved was a neighbor who was more than happy to watch your kids allowing you to go to counseling or reconnect during date night.

Certainly, God is present in our lives – but rather than being the storms or showing up in the most grandiose of ways, may we recognize that God walks with us through the storms.

[Photo credit: Shutterstock. Words overlaid with “Over” for iOS]