It seems to me lately that God chooses to do some things
simply because He really likes the person asking.
Caroline and I were talking about this last night. She was telling me how, while reading through
the Old Testament, she was blown away at God’s patience with the
Israelites. There was one story that
stood out to her. God had finally had
enough of His people, and He told Moses that He was going to wipe them all out
and make him, Moses, into a great nation instead. In this story, Moses pleaded with God not to
do that, but rather, as an act of testimony to the surrounding nations,
continue to have patience with His people.
In my mind, which I freely admit is not always the most
theologically correct place to ponder the nature of God, I see Him listening to
Moses, not because Moses had convinced God of something He hadn’t considered,
but because God really, really liked Moses.
The desire of Moses’ heart was something that God took into
consideration. Would God have been just
in starting from scratch? Sure. His chosen people had forfeited their end of
the covenant more than enough times for God to be Just in starting over with a
new people. But He listened to the
desire of Moses’ heart.
Recently a dear friend of ours asked us to come and visit
her in Indonesia (a country we have been considering moving to after
school). We knew that we didn’t have the
money to make that kind of trip, but our friend said “I’m going to start
praying that the money falls in your laps.
But you have to promise you won’t get mad when God does it.” We agreed that if the money fell into our
laps unexpectedly, we would know that God wanted us to use it to go to
Indonesia this summer.
3 days later my school gave me $2,000. A week after that they gave me another
$2,000. That’s $4,000 in 10 days.
My favorite part of this story is that our friend told us
she prayed about it twice, and it went something like this: “God, I’m not
saying you have to, I’m not even saying you should. I’m just saying, you could if you wanted to
and it would make me really happy if you did.”
So we’re going to Indonesia this summer. Because God really, really likes doing things
for people He’s in love with.
Loved this fresh take on the Old Testament story! The last sentence is a really effective summary of the point you started with, without sounding too repetitious. You might consider putting a "teaser" up higher to weave the Indonesia theme in from the beginning - maybe just a mention about you and Caroline talking about going to Indonesia around the same time she mentioned the Bible story, etc.
ReplyDeleteYou have a very nice way of telling life stories with a God-centered message without seeming preachy, a rare gift.
ReplyDeleteFrom a writing standpoint, the only thing I would suggest you change is to move the words of your friend's prayer to the same paragraph where she says she plans to pray for you. This is in part for the sake of unity, but moreso it is due to my own personal distate for stories that refer to themselves as stories: "My favorite part of this story . . ." Not everyone feels that way, though, and there is something honest in youor desire to declare how much you like her humility in her prayer. Your call.
Stephen, this is great. What a cool story!
ReplyDeleteThe writing is solid and the subject matter well-handled. One small quibble: the title doesn't really make sense to me. I mean, it didn't clue me into what followed and looking back it still doesn't exactly fit in my mind.
Otherwise, I love it. Indonesia, how exciting. :)