Dear Faith Family,
"Wow, God must really care." That's how a back-alley conversation with a neighbor ended earlier this week. Our "alley neighbor" is Matt. Christine is his mom, who often helps her son with his continuous home projects. Most of my run-ins with Christine happen in the alley as we take out the trash, just as we did a few days ago.
We've had brief "faith" and "life" conversations over the years, little encouragements and comments about Jesus and the true, the good, and the beautiful. But nothing super "deep." So, when I walked out with two handfuls of trash and saw Christine closing her trash lid, I wasn't surprised to see her, but I was a bit surprised by her direct question: "Do you ever find yourself at the end, feeling lost? What do you do when it feels like too much?"
Christine knew enough about me to know she could ask me such a question, though it certainly took courage to verbalize it. She also knew enough to think I might have something to offer her in response. She could not have known, however, that she asked her question on a day when I, too, was feeling at my end, lost, and overwhelmed.
In the milliseconds between hearing Christine's question and offering some response, I could sense a tension arising. Out of habit, I wanted to offer her our faith's good and true practices: praying, remembering, and feeding on God's faithfulness. At the same time, I sensed a tug to not just say the good and true, but to reciprocate my neighbor's vulnerability and courage.
Praise the Lord, I gave into the nudge to be open. Sharing a bit about my day (and heart) allowed me to share some of the practical practices from the day. Christine appreciated the practical—at least, she said she did. But my "counsel" wasn't what compelled Christine's concluding pronouncement. Christine recognized something in our interaction, not so much something specific from the conversation but simply in its happening.
"Look at what God's done," she said as we began to depart the alleyway, "he sent us both out here to the trash at the same moment on days like today to meet us. Wow, God must really care."
Until that moment, I presumed I was the one giving in the conversation, giving witness and wisdom as a tool in the Spirit's work. Suddenly, I realized I was actually the recipient of the same grace that was meeting my neighbor. "Wow, God must really care," indeed.
Christine's revelation shared with me would be a great subtitle for the Book of Acts. The stories we've read and will read reveal that God must really care, not just about a few here or there but all and everywhere. Care revealed not only in specifics of the conversations and interactions throughout, but in their happening:
"The church...started out as something that happened,
and that experience of happening, of divine occurrence,
is the one thing that’s most evident in the book of Acts..."
(Eugene Peterson)
I am praying that we will know more and more "that experience of happening, of divine occurrence" in the stories of our faith family's beginnings in Acts and in the stories of our daily lives. Whether next to trash cans or over the water cooler, at the dinner table or in the coffee shop, while in the middle of a mundane task or in an intentional conversation, may you share with others in the revelation: "Wow, God must really care."
Love you, faith family! God bless.