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Wednesday, May 04, 2005
The student ministry trip had gone haywire from almost the minute we left.
We were off to the Gulf Coast for spring break. Me and 14 teenagers, and we were going along smoothly when the passenger side rear tire blew out. No problem. It's just a tire.
Except the reality that the jack on the borrowed vans didn't belong to that van. A kindly stranger stopped by and happened to have one that fit and helped us out. Very peculiar.
I checked my watch. 11:30 AM.
Then, about two miles down the road, the rubber came off the tire, but the steel belts kept rolling. We got off at the exit and the gas station told us there was a tire store about 2 miles down the road. Turns out, it was an old van and the store didn't have tires that fit it...but the owner had a truck he took some tires off of yesterday that might fit. Sure enough, it did. Sure enough, he was going through the same Bible study curriculum our class was heading down to the coast to finish.
Watch check. 1PM. We've lost an hour and a half of driving time and I'm hacked about it.
The kids got me in a better spiritual mood as they were talking about how cool it was that a guy was right there to help us out when the first tire blew, and how the guy had tires for us and even discussed what God was teaching him through the same study we were on.
"God's taking good care of us so far, huh?"
(*yeah, whatever*) "Sure. Yeah. God's looking out for us."
We then come up on a massive car wreck involving several cars and an 18-wheeler that had obviously happened very recently as the police cars hadn't arrived yet, but we heard ambulances in the distance.
"Hey, Brent...how long have we been on the road since we left the tire place?"
"An hour and a half."
"Wow. If we hadn't stopped for an hour and a half, we'd have been right smack in the middle of that accident, wouldn't we? Man. God's REALLY looking out for us!"
Dead silence in a van full of teenagers. For an hour.
After an hour I grabbed my notes out of my notebook and I literally threw them out the window.
The kids asked me what I was doing that for.
"Seems to me that God is trying to teach us all something about Who He is...and I can assure you that none of what's happening was in those notes. Let's just see what He has for us." I simply came to the realization that God was going to reveal Himself to us in other ways that week. Since we were at the coast, I felt like the ocean could give me a pretty nice object lesson.
We got to the beach and woke up for the first Bible study.
I had them stand on the beach, facing the ocean.
Then I read Psalm 19: 1--6:
"The heavens are telling of the glory of God;
And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.
Day to day pours forth speech,
And night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
Their voice is not heard.
Their line has gone out through the earth,
Adn their utterances to the end of the world.
In them He has placed a tent for the sun,
Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber;
It rejoices as a strong man to run his course.
Its rising is from one end of the heavens,
And its circuit to the other end of them;
And there is nothing hidden from its heat."
After that, I had them individually yell at the ocean: "I AM NOT OF THIS WORLD."
See, there's something very telling about nature. It reveals God and who He is. They tell us of God's glory. The universe is telling us that God is there...
And, getting in nature, staring at the stars, standing on a beach, taking a walk in a park, sitting on a dock...whatever...helps us see how God reveals Himself.
All day and all night His creation reveals Him...
So we need to get out in it more. For today, share with us a time when you felt as if you truly were not of this world because you were in His creation, watching Him reveal Himself.
Brent 4:13 AM
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