I’m not often one to wrestle with doubt. I don't know if it's the accumulating years in ministry or simply because I’m getting older, but with each passing year, I’m more aware that one of my spiritual gifts must be faith - a gift that came not through my own strength, but through his kindness. The older I get, the more suffering I’m exposed to, the more I’m invited into someone else’s brokenness, and the more I bear witness to my own, the more and more I’m sure that it’s only by the grace of God that I believe in and hold fast to God.
In face of disappointment, devastation, or disease, I’m not left asking if God is real or if he is good.* I’m not left doubting his existence or his character, but I am often asking where he is and what he might be up to. There are seasons when I need more evidence that God is still moving and working and holding all things together. He is. I know he is. I know what is true and I know that truth doesn’t change regardless of the circumstances around me or around the world. But there are seasons when I need more than the quiet assurance of faith that God is who he says he is. There are seasons when I need to open my eyes and pay more attention to where he is moving in my midst.
This is one of those seasons.
As war wages in Ukraine and as people I love navigate chemo and loss and hope deferred, I’ve been on the lookout for God and all the micro and macro ways I see him moving around me. I’m keeping a list. I need the mental and physical reminder that God is in control and because of that, I can trust him. I can grieve and feel and pray, but I can also rest and trust.
At the top of my list right now is God’s intentionality in leading our church to study the book of Romans in the midst of navigating our merge with another church. Over the past several months our church has processed and prayed through merging with another local church in the area, and as of five weeks ago, the vote was cast in favor. In many ways, this merge is like a marriage — exciting and full of wonderful potential for how God will move, and a bit complicated navigating how two people will become one.
Romans is about a lot of things, but one central thread is that Paul urges two different groups of people to live in unity as one church, founded upon the good news of the gospel. The Lord led our Bible Study team to choose Romans before the merge was even a conversation. Long before our people would begin praying about the possibility of two churches becoming one, God had been preparing us through his Word. The fact that we’ve been sitting in Romans has been such a reminder that God has gone before us. This whole thing was his idea. It was his idea for the Roman church and it is his idea for Scofield Memorial Church and Eastside Community Church.
I needed to be reminded. To be reminded of the fundamentals of the gospel and that no matter our background, our upbringing, or our history - the ground is level at the foot of the cross, and as our Eastside Kids like to sing, “everyone needs Jesus.” I needed to turn to Romans 12 the week both congregations voted to become one, and begin thinking about how we might live as one and love one another, in light of all that we know to be true about God and his gospel. I needed to be reminded that agreeing on the essentials is all that really matters, and the call of the believer is to welcome those in the family of God. To be reminded that the God of endurance and encouragement has made a way for these two churches to unite for our good and for his glory.
All of this and more has been overwhelming evidence that God cares for his children. In a season of changes and challenges and suffering around the world, I asked the Lord for eyes to see where he was moving, and in his kindness he has shown me glimpse after glimpse, reminder after reminder. That he cares for me. That he is working and moving and reigning here and now and everywhere, even when it’s hard to make sense of all that is going on around me. That he has begun this good work and he will, in fact, bring it to completion.
That’s just one thing on my list.
I’m curious what is on yours.
Where do you see God moving in your midst?
If you look around, I’m confident that he’s up to something.
*And if that is you, if you are plagued with doubt and questions about God’s character and existence abound, there is so much grace for you, my friend. Ask him your questions, bring him your doubts, I’m confident that he can handle every one and meet you with patience and tenderness in the midst of them.