She quit

"[During this course] and during your life you will have times when you want to respond based on your own experiences or your own wisdom.  Such an approach will get you in trouble."  Henry Blackaby Experiencing God

I've been thinking about how I got where I am today and this quote from today's lesson in the Experiencing God workbook started out with these words which summed it up nicely. The way forward in my life is not a big picture view.  I thought I had that last week, but it wasn't God leading.  There was a lot going on but mostly is was an attempt to deceive.  Truth tells me that the evil one can disguise himself as an angel of light.  Truth also tells me that the sheep know the Shepherd's voice and this sheep wants to make sure I'm hearing right.  Or seeing right.  So I can follow right.

I should have known something was up when I quit singing.  Often times there's a song in my heart because God gives joy.  Even in circumstances I don't like, there is joy and singing.  And then there wasn't.  I also found out in this that the enemy knows God's word and uses it quite well.  God though in His Sovereignty gave me enough questions to make sure that I wasn't completely fooled.  Just partially. Something just didn't seem right and something wasn't.  But what was right was that I decided to regroup and re-do my workbook.  I want to make sure I know MY Master's voice.

I was washing the dishes and looked out the window and thought I ought to go down to the church today and mow.  I got sidetracked and was trimming the weeds in the driveway cracks when I decided that my lawn was not as important as the church.  God comes first.

God should come first and that was today's lesson.  It's not about big picture stuff.  It's about going and doing what God has for us today.  I want to look big picture but that's not what I need right now.  What I need is to learn to trust and obey God one day at a time.

Obey.  There's that big word.  We're Americans.  We're free.  Obey?  Sounds almost prehistoric.  I have free will to be sure.  Obeying God is my choice and it seems to be a no-brainer to me.  I kind of felt pulled to mow the lawn at the church this morning, even though I feel like poop and am getting worse by the minute.  I just loaded up the weed whacker, broom, dust shovel, and off I went.

We keep the trash cans for the church on the south side of the building.  The parking lot is on the west side and you have to walk around the building to get from the south side of the church to the parking lot.  The church sits on the southwest corner of 25th and Jefferson Streets in Ogden, just so you understand the geography.  It's a downtown church.  Those of you that read my Facebook posts know I had an interesting afternoon in downtown Ogden yesterday.  Today would prove to be another adventure, which we'll get to in a minute.

When I got to the church, I was debating on whether or not to actually mow the lawn today.  I will be down on Saturday to ensure the outside of the church is pleasant and inviting for Easter visitors and the lawn wasn't that bad.  I was thinking about putting it off until then, but something just kind of told me, not in words, mind you, but just a feeling, I needed to tend to it today.

As I was pulling a trash can down the sidewalk on Jefferson Street toward the parking lot, I saw what looked like a young man with the sides of his head shaved tear the covers off a book and throw it to the ground.  My first reaction was : "Really, Dude?   Can you see me pulling the trash can down the sidewalk?"   I resigned myself to just picking it up and throwing it away rather than starting a confrontation and then this thought hit me:  "I'll bet it was a Bible".

It was.

I picked up the Bible, the torn covers and a couple of loose pages, and held it in my hand for a minute wondering what to do.  I could still see the young man headed toward the library, so I did what any good Christian should have done.  I ran into the fire!  Literally.  I walked fast at first and then ran.  The boy, as it turns out, was a girl, but I didn't see it until I uttered these words:

"Brother, are you OK?"    Oops. Well, that didn't go well, but it was an honest mistake.

She said "No.", and thats when she saw I had her Bible in my hand.  I asked her if I could help her or pray for her, and she said "NO!"; when she saw I'd picked up her Bible, she was emphatic about not wanting anything to do with me, and wandered off.

Maybe I should have said:  "God sent me to help you." but those words didn't come to mind.  I'm a tall, imposing 50 year old man who isn't gonna make any friends in Ogden by chasing a young girl down the street with a Bible in my hand.  There's just no way that was gonna happen, but what I could, and did, and will do is pray for her.

She quit on God.  I don't know what happened in her life, but whatever it was, it was the last straw for her for today.  She couldn't see in her pain and anger at God that God didn't quit on her.  God sent me.  And I went, gladly.  Sometimes God uses His children to be a blessing or an answer to a prayer.  I don't think the young woman was seeing me as sent by God though.

I stood there until she left the library.  She pretended not to see me and went about her business.  I went back to mine, and then I decided to give it one more try.  There is a park behind the library and I went walking through the park, hoping I'd see the young woman again.  I didn't.  But nothing stopped me from praying for her.  I did.

Will it make a difference in her life?  I don't know.  What I do hope is that when she calms down, she'll think for a minute about a stranger who picked up her Bible and chased after her and offered to help. She didn't want mine.  Maybe she will want someone else's.  Maybe, and I'm praying that it's so, she'll remember a total stranger cared enough about her to want to help.  What happens is that it's up to what God is doing in her life and how she responds.

Today that young lady quit on God.  It's nothing new.  It happens every day.  I could have, and there are a lot of people that think I should have, quit on God a long time ago.  I don't blame God for my problems.  Mine are caused by me.  I opened with a quote from a book I'm reading and it affects my problem to a tee, because I'm guilty of it.   I'm also innocent of it because today I didn't respond according to my own experience, which would have told me to mind my own business.  I went after, and up to a total stranger and offered to help.

God didn't cause my problem.  I'd be willing to be that God didn't cause the young girl's problem either.  All too often though, we blame God for stuff we do ourselves.  We quit on God for lots of reasons.  Someone hurt us.  Awful things happen to us.  God allows this or that to happen in our lives for reasons we don't understand.  I have a friend of mine who went through something horrible and I have no explanation to offer him about it that would ever bring comfort to him for the loss of his child.  There is no explanation I could ever offer him.

We quit on God because of science. We quit on God because His Word doesn't fit our wants or needs.  All too often these days Christians are called haters because we refuse to condone sin.  There's a big difference between condoning sin and loving sinners.  The first one I can't do.  The second one I'm supposed to do.  But it's that choice thing.

We make God out to be what we want Him to be and not what He is.  When we do that, we're aiming for disappointment when God doesn't come through. Ever find yourself there?  I think sometimes people count on God to do something they want and when He doesn't, they get so angry or hurt, the natural response is to just deny His existence.  I think too that the way the world is these days, it's easy to doubt God is still in control of His creation.  He very much is.  But we see sometimes only what we want to and try to explain in human terms what God does supernaturally.  It's easier to explain a miracle than to believe in God.

I don't know what caused this girl to rip the covers off her Bible.  Unless someone else comes into her life and points her back to our church, I probably never will.  I have it though and if she doesn't claim it I'll keep it as a reminder of those that become so despondent that they just quit on God.

God doesnt' ever quit on us though.  He knows He's going to lose most of us.  But he blesses and loves us anyway.  He brings people into our lives that share the Good News (like me with you!) and to remind you that, in the words of a Facebook meme I shared the other day, He loves you whether you like it or not.  God provided for that young woman in her moment of need.  He sent me.  She didn't see it.  He will send someone else.  God is good like that.

When we take the time to see what God is up to in our lives, we might be amazed.  He's been right there with me through mine.  He's helping me to understand that I don't need the bigger picture and He's more interested in getting me through the day, one day at a time than to show me what's gonna happen at six o'clock on Friday.  At six on Friday, I'll find out.

And I can tell you this, which I know for a certainty:  That young woman quit on God.  God didn't quit on her though, because I'm praying for her and hopefully even though I was rebuffed, I made her feel for a split second that someone gave a damn about her.

Had the young woman given me a chance to help her, I would have talked to her about her problem and found her some help.  I know of lots of places in Ogden where people can get help.  I would have told her that quitting on God wouldn't help, but try to make her see that often God lets us get to the point where only HE can solve what's wrong.  I'm there.  I can't change things in my life.  I need God to give someone some reassurances that what happened before, when I applied what I opened this post with, won't happen again because I'm more interested in loving and caring for her than I am about myself.  And that she is, uniquely, her and not anybody else I've ever known.

I didn't get that chance with this young woman; to show her that God does in fact love her and proof of that was getting me right where I needed to be when she was where she was.  God does things like that, too.  I couldn't force her to accept my help, but God sent me to offer it.  Standing there and doing nothing wasn't an option.

I'm sharing this story with you today in the hopes that you'll look at your own relationship with God.  Do you believe in the God of the Bible or your version of what you think God ought to be?  Are you mad at God?  Do you doubt His existence?  Did some church person or religious group offend you to the point where you said if that's God's people, "No, thanks!"?

God loves us.  This week we celebrate just how much He does and the cost His Son paid for that love. Christ died on the cross for our sins.  My sins.  Your sins.  The sins of the girl who tore the covers off her Bible today.  In her pain, she desecrated God's Word.  And even in that act, God loved her enough to make sure one of His children was there to minister to her.

Like I said.  Today she quit on God.  But God most certainly didn't, and hasn't quit on her because now I'm praying for her.  I hope you'll join me.