The Two

Sometimes I am so blind.

And that's not because I wear coke bottle glasses and have serious optical deficiencies, it's because I lack perspective to see what God is doing outside of my immediate circumstances. I am blind to the way the sovereign Lord of the Universe sets plans in motion in places, people and times far away from my here and now, that will have, have had and are having profound impacts on my life and circumstances. I see failure, or abdication, or abandonment and God instead sees the loving trajectory of his will for my life.

This transition that Joanna and I have been walking through of late has been a time of refinement for us. It has been a time when we have seen both the grand, sweeping arc of God's plan for entire congregations being bent and shaped around a plan for us (I can't even begin to describe how humbling that is) yet at the same time we have been stretched to trust God in the smaller (yet crucial) details of things like money, housing, timing, employment (for Jo), schooling for the kids and the like. God has demonstrated to us undeniable evidence of his involvement in our journey, and yet we fret and fear and waiver in our hope when everything we want is not taken care of in the way, means and timing that we want it.

I feel like the foolish spies who were dispatched into the promised land to survey the place God had prepared for his people. Spies that had witnessed the plagues in Egypt, who had seen God crush the armies of Pharaoh in the Red Sea while the children of Israel walked on dry land. Spies that had seen the presence of God come upon Moses, who had followed the pillar of cloud and pillar of fire, who had eaten manna in the wilderness and drank water from the rock. And yet, when they were on the cusp of reaching their destination, the very promise that all of these signs and wonders had been pointing to, they saw giants and lost their nerve.

As Jo and I draw nearer and nearer to our new life and ministry in Winnipeg this summer we are starting to see the giants. We are starting to wonder if the God who has done so much through this process is going to see us through the last leg of the journey. We are starting to lose our resolve. We see giants and it frightens us.

But when you read the account of those spies something encouraging jumps out at me:

Then Moses and Aaron fell facedown in front of the whole Israelite assembly gathered there. Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who had explored the land, tore their clothes and said to the entire Israelite assembly, “The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good. If the Lord is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us. Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will devour them. Their protection is gone, but the Lord is with us. Do not be afraid of them.”

Numbers 14:5-9

While the whole nation is grumbling and complaining and talking about going back to Egypt because they had made a huge mistake, two men stood before the assembly and declared that they were willing to trust in the God that had brought them this far. They declared that they were prepared to believe in the promises God had made even when there were giants on the horizon. Only two out of twelve, only two out of the whole assembly were willing. It only took two.

Well we are two. Jo and I may not be many, and we may not be powerful. We may be completely unable to engineer the events to happen that we need to happen right now (mostly revolving around the timely sale of our house) but the God that has led us this far has promised to bring us into the land he has given us and will not abandon us. So we are committing to trust him. So we are committing to be those two. The land that the Lord is calling us to is exceedingly good. If he is pleased with us he will lead us into it. God help us not to be like the then.

If you think to pray for us at this time, pray for us to be the two, and to trust in the God who provides for those whom he calls. I don't want to be blind to his blessings.

That's all for today,
Chris