Category: True Story

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God Surprises

My wife, Wendy, says she doesn’t like surprises. It wasn’t always this way. When we were younger, I’d say, “Road…” and she’d say, “…Trip?” and then we’d be off on an adventure. We would jump into the car and go, just for the fun of being together in a new place. With every child we added, however, (six times!), spontaneity became more difficult. Right before adding our fourth child, I secretly planned a surprise for Wendy, and God moved in such a way that none of us will ever forget it.

This was back in 2004, when we were about to travel as a family to China to pick up our first adopted daughter, Darcy, who would be 13 months old. Wendy was neck deep in preparations, and obsessed with constant thoughts for this baby who had been selected for us. Will she be afraid of us? Will she bond with us? What special needs might she have? And on, and on. I felt like we needed to get away for a few days as a couple before going to China, as our lives were about to change forever with the new baby, but I knew she would never agree to a getaway. Another trip to plan? Fuhgeddaboudit!

She’d have to be kidnapped. So that’s what I planned.

Unbeknownst to her, I canceled my upcoming seminar in Boston the next month, and made reservations for two at The Grove Park Inn, in the mountains of North Carolina, for the same days. I would just not tell her that I cancelled my seminar, so that we’d all have to get into the van on the day of our trip to “drop Daddy at the airport.” After all, I had written the details onto the calendar beforehand…I just never crossed them out.

My two biggest problems? What to do with the kids, and how to pack Wendy’s bags with her necessaries without her knowing…

And I had brilliant solutions—BRILLIANT!!!

For the kids, I arranged with two families to meet our family at an exit beyond the airport—after I intentionally drive past and miss both airport exits to drop me off for my flight—and they would take care of the kids, and Wendy and I would continue on from there to Asheville. Little by little, over a few weeks’ time, I squirreled away some of the kids’ clothes to a rarely used closet, and into small suitcases for their sleepover with friends. The slow disappearance of clothes would go unnoticed.

For Wendy, the solution was elegant. I needed to know what makeups and skin and hair products to bring, but also what clothes and shoes would be comfortable for her, and I would have to pack most of her bags at almost the last minute. (It’s one thing to steal children’s clothes from clean laundry baskets over a few weeks, but taking my wife’s favorite makeup before she puts it on, that very last day? The surprise would be over before we even left the house). And now, cue my brilliance:

“Hey, let’s make a checklist ahead of time, for our trip to China, so that we can be sure we have everything we need when we pack.”

Wendy likes the idea of organization, so I thought she’d jump all over that one. Not so fast. Making a checklist required more work for Wendy, and she was sweating out a lot of details with the adoption agency, and the Chinese and American governments, and she was focused on jumping through all the hoops to complete the official requirements and paperwork to expedite the adoption. She wasn’t going to take the time to make up a checklist for her makeup—she was just going to put off making those decisions until the night before jumping on the plane to Beijing.

Cue Brilliant Plan B: “I see you’re busy with a lot of stuff… how about I make an inventory list of the items you might need from your drawers and cabinets, and then you can just highlight the ones you want to take to China, and check them off when you’re packing?”

She seemed to be okay with that. (Honestly, I don’t think she was paying much attention to packing details. In the middle of January, we were still a month and half out from going to China in early March. My Grove Park Inn reservations were for three days near Valentines’ Day)…

I quickly discovered that a plan can be both brilliant and stupid at the same time. I realized this when I opened Wendy’s makeup drawer, ready to catalog her items. Husbands, have you ever looked inside your wives’ makeup drawers? Wendy had hers neatly arranged into compartments, but there was a dizzying array of tools and makeups. And I would have to assign names to them, like “eyelash curler/crimper,” and “eyebrow tweezer,” and “scissor handled tweezer,” and “foundation brush.” I had to catalog lipsticks by color—“red lipstick in ribbed silver case,” and “natural red-brown lipstick in black case,” and list them separate from chapsticks or “moisturizing lip balm…”

Travel size Q-tips and cotton balls and facial soaps and mascaras and makeup removers and facial lotions and skin lotions and six different types of shampoos and conditioners. Hair driers and curlers and straighteners. Feminine products of different shape and size. I catalogued them all!!! It took me a few hours to go through the cabinets, and the resulting checklist was shocking in detail and length. I typed it up and put little blanks beside each item, (for the check mark), and proudly presented it to Wendy.

She was very nice about it, but I could see that the list was way “over the top” for the need it was supposed to fulfill. She set the list aside for “later.” Much later. In fact, I don’t think she ever looked at it again. So much for my brilliant plan to pack Wendy’s essentials. So far, the only one getting surprised was me!

Time was running out, and Wendy’s avoidance to the first checklist kept me from wasting hours in the closet. I had no brilliant plan for packing Wendy’s clothes. I tried to pay attention to what shoes she preferred, the clothes she slept in, the dresses and blouses and pants and accessories, and the jewelry she wore. But I couldn’t pack those things ahead of time, and certainly couldn’t pack the things that she would reach for on the day of the trip. If she reached for particular shoes to get out the door, and I had already packed them, that would be a sure giveaway. And I realized that she would choose different shoes and clothes for a getaway to the mountains in February, and depending on the weather and the type of activity that we would be doing. What a dilemma!

In the meantime, the kids were awesome… I told them my plans, and told them not to tell Mommy. It was a risk, I know, but I wanted them to be in on the surprise. I wanted them to feel a part of something big and wonderful, and to experience the joy of preparing something happy for someone else, and I wanted to let them know ahead of time that they would also be staying with their wonderful friends. This way, the whole family would have a part of blessing Mommy, and something to look forward to.

(Also, they would probably see me taking extra suitcases down the back stairwell to the garage on that Saturday morning, or doing other strange things, and I didn’t want them asking me in front of Mommy what I was doing, or asking Mommy directly).

Well, the big day arrived, and the kids did their part to get themselves extra ready, and to collect their own toothpaste and toothbrushes. I finished packing my things as Wendy was getting ready, so I could be sure that she was going through her whole routine. While she was showering, and since our closet was separate from the bathroom, I was able to collect her clothes and underthings, sweaters, socks, hoses, and shoes without her noticing. I had reminded her and everyone else what time we needed to leave, and tried to instill some urgency for her to get ready quickly. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that, in retrospect, but I really needed her to get done and out of the bathroom for good so that I would have time to grab all her bathroom necessaries.

When she came out, I asked if she could help get the kids something quick to eat before we go, as we were down to the ten minute mark. I mentioned I needed to get a few more things, and then I would join everyone downstairs, ready to go. So she went. Finally! My heart was beating fast now, as I had very little time to make a lot of important decisions.

Secure in the knowledge that Wendy was done with the bathroom, I enacted another brilliant idea. I would take ALL the items in the bathroom drawers. I opened each drawer and took each compartmented tray out, stacking them up, and I grabbed the hairdryer and a couple of other loose implements to throw on top. I was just getting ready to pick up the trays in my arms when I heard footsteps coming right up to the bathroom door. I grabbed a newspaper and placed it on top of the pile of trays and bathroom items and swooped everything into my arms to face away from the door.

Wendy opened the door and started heading past me to the toilet, and I pivoted around her to keep my back to her. Miracle #1: She didn’t ask me why I had an armful of stuff, and she didn’t see what I had in my arms…

Heading out the bathroom door, I called over my shoulder that we needed to hurry. “I’m going to miss my plane!” (True statement). And I prayed that she wouldn’t need any last makeup after she used the bathroom.

I ran the load in my arms down to the minivan and got the kids into their seats. I had everything taken care of, but I grew concerned that Wendy wasn’t out already to get into the van. I ran back inside… “Come ON, honey—we’ve got to GO!” I yelled, from the foot of the stairs. Anyone in the house would have heard that yell, no matter where they were.

For a few breathless moments, I didn’t hear anything, and then she responded, sounding confused. “I… I can’t find my lipstick!”

OH. NO. She’s looking through her drawers! Not only will she not find her lipstick—those drawers are as bare as the day before we moved in! There is nothing in them!!!

The realization that “the gig is up” hit me, and I burst out laughing, and the only thing I could think to say is, “I got it already!” I was sure she would say, “What?” and want me to explain how all of the bathroom items completely disappeared, but instead, she said, “Oh! Okay!”

I was stunned. Miracle #2: God must have put a holy fog over Wendy’s mind as she stared at an empty drawer, looking for lipstick… and my assertion that I already had her lipstick? Yeah, that’s never happened before, and probably will never happen again. That was Miracle #3, that she didn’t think it was strange for me to have thought ahead for her and brought her lipstick in the van with me.

She has to know something… maybe she’s just playing along, I thought. Just in case the gig was still “on,” I ran out to the car and fished her lipstick out of the back before she came out, and jumped into the driver’s seat. Moments later, she came out into the garage like everything was fine.

All RIGHT, God!!!! I don’t know how You did it, but we’re still going, here! Thank You!!!

I think the kids were about to burst during the twenty-five minute drive to the airport… The next stage of the plan was coming up… I had to make sure I was so deep into telling something complicated to Wendy that I “accidentally” miss the exit to the airport.

Fast approaching the airport exit, I eased the van into the right lane so that she would assume I was going to take the exit until the last second. I launched into some intricate logistics explanation, and I ignored Wendy saying softly that I needed to get over into the exit lane. She interrupted me at the last second, “Jeff, move over!” but it was too late.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I was distracted.” (True statement… I was distracted by all the complicated interactions that had to happen perfectly until just the right moment).

“Okay, fine!” she said, “There’s another exit coming up in a mile… make sure you take that one or you’re going to miss your plane!” So I started talking again, immediately deep into the description again, except this time, Wendy kept giving me directions while I was talking. “Okay, stay in this lane. Okay, the exit is coming up.” I kept talking over her directions. “Okay, get into the exit lane… Get INTO the exit lane… JEFF! MOVE OVER!!!” I kept talking over her escalating demands.

… and… we missed the last exit to the airport.

“JEFF!!! What are you THINKING!?! YOU’RE GOING TO MISS YOUR PLANE!!! I can’t BELIEVE you MISSED THE EXIT AGAIN!!!

The combination of me looking like an idiot, and Mom’s outrage, was too much for the kids. We all erupted with laughter, giddy that the miraculous surprise went the entire distance.

“WHAT IS GOING ON HERE!?!” Wendy was giving me the “you’ve got some ‘splainin to do” look.

I began with, “Surprise!” And then I explained that we were not dropping me off at the airport, but that, in fact, we were dropping the kids off at the next exit, where the Knights and Brights were waiting to receive them… And that I had packed everyone’s things so I could “kidnap” her and continue on to a surprise destination for three days and two nights.

We pulled into a parking lot to meet our friends. They all had big smiles as I told the short version of the story about how it all came together. Dazed, Wendy heard my side of the morning’s events, and how God had orchestrated the final steps of the plan. None of what happened registered at the time as odd, but looking back, Wendy was amazed at the number and size of the clues that were left.

We laughed for the next hour in the car, until we reached Winston-Salem, at all the preparations and the coordination of people and events to pull off the surprise. We stopped at Hanes Mall so that Wendy could look over what I had brought for her, and yes, we needed to go in and do some supplemental shopping. I don’t remember what we had to buy, whether it was clothes, or shoes, or some combination, but it was a small price to pay for the element of surprise.

The Grove Park Inn was amazing. The shingle style architecture, with lots of natural wood and stone, and built in the 1930’s, is one-of-a-kind, and the mountain setting and views were special. The package came with dinner both nights, and breakfast each morning. The best part is that we could choose to eat at their highest-end restaurant, The Horizons, for one of the two dinners.

When we went to Horizons, we were almost the only customers that night, and the waitress encouraged us to enjoy ourselves, and take our time. We ordered the cheese tray as an appetizer, and were both shocked by the size of the tray, and all the different kinds of specialty cheeses and crackers on it. There was some wonderful shrimp bisque soup, and fruit, and salad, and Ostrich medallions, and for the main course, Surf and Turf, featuring Lobster and Kobe Beef Steak! The profiterole desserts were fantastic, too. When I saw what the meal would have cost if it wasn’t included in the package, my jaw dropped. We never would have spent that kind of money on a meal. How wonderful to spend three hours together, delighting in each other’s presence over a gourmet meal—we will never forget it.

In reflecting on our experience, I am struck with some spiritual parallels. God is constantly thinking about you, and me, and all people, everywhere, all through history. And He arranges little secret surprises for us. Sometimes He uses nature. A starry sky, a golden sunset, a friendly animal. Sometimes He brings us a friend, or uses a smile, or help, from a stranger. Sometimes He involves food… a delicious meal or a refreshing snack; or a smell—laced with nostalgia—of coffee, or flowers, or a tobacco pipe. There are simple pleasures all around us.

Sometimes it takes suffering to call the heart home, or pain to find a depth of fellowship with Him that we would have missed, otherwise.

He is constantly inviting us to trade the distracted and harried lives we live for a more intimate, deeply spiritual one. We were created for fellowship with Him, and with each other, and yet we can be in the same space, and look right past, hardly noticing. There are times in marriage when we look right past our spouse, because we are so distracted. We’re “there,” but not “all there,” if you know what I mean. This can happen with a friend, with a son or daughter… with anyone. And it most certainly happens with God.

God’s not asking for a 3 day getaway, or even a 3 hour meal. You can “get away” with Him in the moment, but it does take intention—to wrestle the heart free from the grip of distraction and obsession, and to look with it into the eyes of the LORD.  God surprises, but we have to look for Him to see that the action is His, and to appreciate the love and care He puts into every moment, every detail of life.

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Defining Moment: Good Samaritan Freefall (Part 2)

Lee was hailed as a “Good Samaritan” in the local press for putting his life on the line to help motorists in need. If he landed as a believer in Christ, then He fell into the loving hands of the Father, where there is no more sadness, no more sickness, sin, or pain, forevermore.

If he was not a believer in Jesus Christ by the time he hit the ground, however, no amount of do-gooding during his lifetime could save him when his ice-blue eyes beheld the Lord face to face, even in sacrificing his life for another! For those who do not believe and rely on Jesus Christ as Savior, “It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God!”   Hebrews 10:31.

God has used Lee’s death to change my life, and I pray that God will use this as a wake-up call to people everywhere.  (If you haven’t read “Defining Moment: Good Samaritan Freefall (Part 1)”, you should read that post first, detailing the Lee’s story).  One day, every one of us will fall into the hands of the Living God.  Will you land as a friend, welcomed into eternal glory, or will you land in permanent unbelief and denial?

To the unbeliever, this is another reminder that you just don’t know how long you have left. God knows, and if you think about it, every second brings you closer to the moment when your soul leaves your physical body at your death. I think it would be sobering if we each carried a clock around with us that counted down the years, months, hours, days, and seconds to our own deaths. I once saw a short Christian film called “Clocks” that illustrated that idea.

I suppose many people would take advantage of this, however, and put off dealing with the Jesus question until perhaps a few days before death. Many people imagine they can have fun all life-long until right before their death, when they suppose that they’ll finally “make peace” with God.

Perhaps the knowledge that you only had 18 years to live would cause you to want to “live life to the hilt” and engage in risky and sinful behaviors or thrill-seeking. Imagine the irony of finding out that one of your risk-taking adventures was actually the cause of your death.

What a short-sighted way of looking at things! This view totally overlooks the fact that one is spiritually dead until Jesus makes us spiritually alive! Would you really want to live your whole life spiritually dead and miss living what Jesus calls “life more abundantly?”

And what if you had confidence to put God off because your clock said that you still had 10 years, 5 months, 2 days, 14 hours, and 21 seconds left? You assume that you have 10 more years of sentient health, and miss the possibility that you will step outside in a few minutes and be involved in a car accident that puts you into a coma, where you will spend the rest of your clock time until your body finally succumbs… You ended up consciously putting off the Lord in the “now” because you were sure that you still had time and a coming “then,” when in fact your “no” in the “now” is really your final answer!

All you can be sure of is right NOW!

2 Corinthians 6:2. “For He says, ‘In the time of My favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.” I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.’”

Do not wait to truly live, but receive the Truth, accept Him, and begin to live truly this very moment what you believe!

And if you believe, and you have received Truth and Life in Jesus Christ and the promised Holy Spirit, the fall of the Good Samaritan underscores how precious every opportunity is to help people on their journey to understanding Christ and His love for them.

When Lee and I talked that afternoon in November on the sidewalk, neither of us knew that he had so little time left. I had no idea that I might be the last person to ever speak with him about Jesus. I had no idea how important it was that God spoke at that time and in that way through me to someone who desperately needed to hear the truth one more time!

Perhaps the greatest gift to me through this surreal experience was the personal epiphany of the “surrendered moment.” Though I’ve never read it phrased this way, this idea is not new to mankind. God’s people have written in times past about being filled with the Spirit moment-by-moment. But God made a timeless truth new and fresh to me.

This is a reminder and an exhortation that there is an urgency to each moment, and a fullness of His eternal power, that God chooses to deploy through the surrendered thoughts, words, and actions of His people. This is GOOD NEWS! We are not limited in the NOW by our failings and our past. The fullness of God is available to EVERY believer, and He WILL exert His eternal power within our moments when we set our hearts to honor Him and prepare the way for the Living God to live out Christ in us!

It is true: every single person who ever lived will surrender to the Living God at the moment we see Him face to face. It will be, for most people, the first moment of complete and utter surrender. At that moment, there will be no choice, and it will be too late for them to surrender to Him in such a way to be saved for all eternity. This is what God says about that moment:

“For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Philippians 2:9-11. NASB.

Surrender to Jesus is inevitable—unavoidable—sooner or later. Perhaps it is easier for us to comprehend a surrender to an overwhelming presence in that awesome moment on some future date, but we resist the idea of surrendering in the NOW when there is nothing to shock and awe our senses, and the call and activity of God seems more a whisper than a supernova.

God’s arm is not too short to reach from His throne into our momentary troubles, and His power is not diminished in any way by being less visible now than on that great and terrible future day. His desire is to use the broken and foolish things of this world to display His power. Those who know that they can do nothing apart from Him—and in their desperate weakness and desire to see God’s salvation in their moments—they are the ones who will see His wonders from day to day!

Wendy and I didn’t go downtown on that day in November trusting in our own intellect or talents or even spiritual gifts. In fact, we were way out of our comfort zones whenever we would go to be with the homeless people of our city. Every time we went, we would feel so empty and inadequate on the way downtown, and we would pray that God would prepare the hearts of those we would talk with, and that He would give us words to say, and that He would love others through us, because in and of ourselves we had nothing of lasting value to give. We were desperate for God to do something, feeling that we were being poured out like a drink offering, and that there was nothing in our broken cups for us to offer.

But it is precisely the emptiness of the cup that God is looking for in the hearts of His people. He wants those who understand their impotence and emptiness to look to Him, and those are the cups He loves to fill up with Himself and His power, that the glory of the Lord accomplishes what He will because His people made room for the Lord Himself to pour out and to work as He desires!

“Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him.” Psalm 126:5,6.

We surrendered the moment to God, knowing that we cannot make any heart believe, but trusting that God will do something supernatural with that moment that is beyond our reach. And He always does! If you doubt this, refer to Romans 8:28. When you surrender a moment, and it goes by, it may seem like nothing eternal really happened. It may seem like things get worse when we surrender a moment, or that God is not paying attention. We likely will forget more surrendered moments than we remember, thinking nothing significant happened.

But we are measuring with our human yardsticks! Throw away your measuring tape that looks to quantify something that can’t be measured. Why are we so concerned with a specific result? It is God working and not we ourselves, so if God does this or that thing through us in a certain moment, or if He doesn’t, we should never be disappointed with His presence or embarrassed by a lack of specific results looked for! The fact is, God LOVES those surrendered moments. He is most glorified in the times when His children cry out for Him as their only hope; when we acknowledge that without Him, we can do nothing! (John 15:5). And we ask Him to do what in reality we cannot do on our own.

2 Chronicles 16:9, “For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him.” God is actively looking to prove Himself strong through those who are surrendered.

Surrender is not something that was meant for people only after they die—surrender is meant for God’s people constantly while they are living, and surrender reveals in those moments the promised “Christ in me.” (Galatians 2:19-20, and Philippians 1:21). As we string together a surrendered moment with another one, we begin to see and understand the abundant life, and to discern the supernova within each whisper, to realize a crumb of a moment might feed thousands, and to take a step of faith—ruby red slippers or not—trusting only in the strength and love of our Scintillating Savior.

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Defining Moment: Good Samaritan Freefall (Part 1)

At a particular moment on a sunny-but-brisk Saturday morning in November 2009, I was about to be shaken to the core by a man I had never met and might never see again.

I had been serving monthly at that time among the homeless people of our city with my wife, Wendy, not because we felt gifted for or attracted to this kind of ministry, but because we had a growing hunger for God, and a willingness for Him to use us however He desired. I can see looking back that God led us with little bread crumbs of “yeses” to a land that might as well have been Oz to us, where its people struggle to meet basic needs between skyscraper shadows. We emerged from our cocoon in the suburbs, fresh and rested from a night in our warm bed, spreading our wings to meet with stranger-friends of the inner city.  In the meantime, they had slept on cardboard or under bridges, or not at all, huddled against life storms, derailed and forgotten like boxcars left to rust.

Before I go on about how my world shifted on its axis, I think it important to say that the LORD puts out little bread crumbs each day, disguised as “almost nothing” moments. Jesus linked the sustenance of bread to action when He said His food is to do the will of the Father. He would take a little nothing moment, a leftover crumb, like talking to a woman at the well, (John, Chapter 4), and turn it into something very significant, so that within hours, many believed in Him because of that woman’s testimony about Him in that moment, and many more believed after seeking Him out and hearing for themselves. And the half-life of that moment of simple conversation echoes throughout eternity, not just because it was written down in the Bible, but because Jesus followed the Father’s lead, and lives were changed when He asked for water. I suspect that we miss the opportunity to do the big things that we imagine we’re going to do because we ignored the little crumbs that would have opened the gates to it. We ignore the seeds of trees while looking for the forest.

The crumb that opened the gates to Oz for us happened months before that fateful Saturday—such a little thing, really. Wendy and I used to meet regularly with friends over coffee for fellowship and encouragement in the LORD at a Borders Bookstore, and we noticed a group of Christians that would come and have a Bible study together at one of the long tables there on the same nights that we would go. One evening, I had a notion to go and introduce myself and encourage them. These people were warm and exuberant about God—we were friends instantly—and my little “yes” to go and speak led to another little “yes,” to sit with them on their next study. That’s where we learned about their “Matthew Ministry,” patterned after Matthew 25:31-46. They served the poor on Saturday mornings in our downtown, distributing clothing, toiletries, food, water, and other necessities to whomever walked up. And with another “yes,” we agreed to go and see how we could serve, too.

The deep intention of this ministry is to go the extra mile to connect in a personal way and minister spiritually with each of the people who come. We often had a chance to support, encourage, share truth, and pray with our new homeless or drifting friends, sharing the love and truth of Jesus. We shared bread crumb moments, and trusted that God could take them and accomplish more than physically feeding 5,000+ people with bread and fish, just as Jesus did more in speaking to the crowd than He did in giving them physical nourishment.

On a Saturday in early November, at Moore Square in downtown Raleigh, I was approached by “Mankind.” Lee was his name, but his friends called him “Mankind,” since he was about 6’4” in height, built like an NFL lineman, and because they thought he resembled the wrestler, “Mankind.” His blonde-dyed hair set off his steely blue eyes—cold in color, but rendered warm by the gentleness of his face. He explained that he was going through some rough times, living out of a car, holding down a new job—but there was hope in his eyes that we didn’t often see out on the sidewalk hardscape… he was reuniting with his ex-wife and daughter.  For about forty five minutes, he was an open book, sharing pages of his life with me as we talked about his past, present, and future. Neither of us knew the secret that he only had a few more days to live.

I asked him if he knew the Lord. He didn’t put an exclamation mark on it when he answered, “I’m  an atheist.” We talked about Jesus Christ. I asked him, “What makes it difficult for you to believe in Jesus?”

His eyes got that far-off look, as if he was looking back through time, and he said church people he had known were so hurtful and hypocritical.  As I listened to Lee open up his wounds for inspection, I was asking God to give me ears to hear him, and to give me words that were true and right that would speak to his heart’s cry.

I heard myself say that Lee should ignore the bad behavior of self-proclaimed Christians in forming a true picture of Christ. Many who call themselves Christians don’t actually know Jesus themselves, believing in “Churchianity” instead. Many believers are not following Jesus in their daily lives, or are ignoring or misunderstanding the life that Jesus is calling them to live.  We uphold a standard of thought and behavior, and righteousness, that is higher than we are able to reach ourselves. But there is grace and acceptance for those who recognize their need for the Savior, and who receive Him and HIS righteousness. And God loves all people, whether we receive or rebuff Him. And God loved Lee; He wanted Lee, “Mankind,” to turn to Him.

I encouraged Lee to re-form his opinion about Jesus by going to His Word, and reading for himself what Jesus said and did.  The Bible is the most accurate picture of the Savior.  His image burns true and bright on the pages of scripture, no matter how imperfectly we, as Christians, reflect that light.

Toward the end of our time together, I gave him a Gospel of John booklet from the Pocket Testament League, and I challenged him to read it and learn about Jesus in His own words and actions. If only he and I could hear the secret whispers, “Mankind will die in 21 DAYS!” He listened to me intently and earnestly, and at the end, he let me pray for him, that God would reveal truth to him, and he actually asked me to pray for his ex-wife and his daughter and her other child.

We gave him a warm winter coat that fit perfectly; clothes and other items for his family. I felt that I had made a new friend, and that here was a man close to turning toward God in Heaven. I couldn’t help wondering if he had met the LORD before, when he was young, and then run from him? I looked forward to seeing him in the coming weeks.

When he turned to go, I didn’t realize he was close to the end of a skydiving free fall, and he needed to pull the rip cord fast. I had told him about believing in Jesus, even helped him put his hands on the truth with the Gospel of John, and gave him instructions on pulling the rip cord through talking with God and repenting—turning to God and placing his full trust in Jesus and what He has already done for him—but he put it off. I watched him walk away, his new burnt-orange colored coat falling back into the milling Saturday morning crowd. That jacket wasn’t padded enough to save him, and the ground was rushing up at him faster than any of us could imagine.

John and Linda, our friends in Matthew Ministry, broke it to me at Bible Study. “Did you see Lee on the news?”

“No! What happened?”

Night had fallen on November 29th. Lee was driving on the I-440 Belt-line on his way to pick up a Christmas present for his daughter when cars up ahead collided at high speed next to the concrete median barriers. Lee put the brakes on his home-on-wheels, jumped out into the time-ticking fray in split-second sacrifice, and ran to a crash victim by the barrier. Oncoming traffic deflected and scattered at speed, dodging cars and people, and one car peeled pell-mell through an opening toward the barrier where Lee was helping a young motorist. Like deer in the headlights, pinned in place by fear with nowhere safe to run, they did what probably most would do in the situation: they hopped behind the waist-high concrete barrier, assuming in the darkness that there was solid ground in the median beyond it. At that one spot, however, the beltline is actually a bridge, and the safe and solid ground they sought was 70 feet below the road level. They fell.

The 18 year old landed in the water and miraculously had no major injuries, but Lee landed on the rocks and probably died instantly.

I was stunned to hear it. He had been so full of this life and hope, and suddenly he had neither.

Lee knew all of the essentials about Jesus from our previous conversation. I had prayed for him that he would come to know Jesus, and he had been given the Gospel of John. Did he read it? Was he changed by the truth? Was he a believer when he went over that railing? I don’t know.  No matter what belief Lee held when he hopped over the railing, there is still a chance that Lee is with God in heaven! As long as there was still life and breath and conscious thought, Lee still had the chance to turn and believe.

How long does it take for belief to happen? It’s instantaneous, isn’t it? Belief in Christ is instantaneous. One moment, you’re not believing, but then, you believe! And at that moment of belief, God forgives you of all your sins (past, present, and future) and puts the Holy Spirit within you to seal you as His own child, and to empower you to live in Christ as a new creation. All that happens instantaneously, at the moment of faith, because Jesus Himself has done the work to provide salvation already. A simple agreement in the soul confirms the efficacy of the work He did for us.

Lee had two seconds of falling before he hit. Maybe he pulled the rip cord at the last second and called out a believing “JESUS!” in his heart and was saved? (He didn’t have to recite the “Sinner’s Prayer” as many suppose; the thief on the cross didn’t say the “Sinner’s Prayer,” either, and yet Jesus recognized his saving faith). A physical parachute deployed at 70 feet from the ground is useless. There isn’t time for the chute to open and slow the fall. But a spiritual parachute deploys immediately and is 100% effective. Even if he was a still a stone cold atheist when he hopped over the barrier, it is possible he landed a 100% believer in Jesus Christ, falling from the jaws of death at the gates of Hell into the hands of THE WONDERFUL—the LIVING GOD!

If only it is so!

Be sure to read the continuation of this post:  “Defining Moment: Good Samaritan Freefall (Part 2).

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Lost TV Remotes

It’s not natural for us to count on GOD in everyday, mundane circumstances—matters that seem to be below Him and not worth bothering over. Not long after finding the diamond, (read this first:  The Lost Diamond),  we had lost the remote control for the TV, (again), and I looked and looked everywhere, feeling along all seams of the couches. I searched the room thoroughly for about twenty minutes.

Only then did I ask God about it, and He showed me, (after another twenty minutes) not one, not two, but three remotes within the bowels of our couch. Apparently a cavity opens up within the couch when the recliner leg pads are extended outward, and over the years the original TV remote control, (and two universal replacement remotes), had been swallowed by this Bermuda Triangle compartment, and held captive—despite a couple of re-locations.

I told my family how God had led me to the remotes, and how I searched for Him, and how he set the remotes free from their captivity. We all had a good laugh. It is all too easy to explain away the move of God, however, especially in practical situations where a little more diligence, a little more wisdom, a little more skill is applied, and lo, the desired result is achieved. Nevermind, God! I found it!

Two days later, God provided another living demonstration for us. My son, Nick, had gotten a toy plastic Nerf gun, complete with sponge darts. The “weapon” was capable of rapid firing a number of rounds in three seconds. Anyway, he was having fun shooting these off in the house, but then he lost one of his darts.

He looked all over the area for it, and I started to join in the search. After looking around a bit, I told Nick that he should ask the Lord to show him where it is. I reminded him about finding the diamond, and finding the remote controls a few days before. He laughed at me, and said something to the effect that it wasn’t that big a deal and that God wouldn’t do that, anyway.

I turned my head in the next instant and saw the dart across the breakfast nook nestled into a shoe along the baseboards. “Look, the dart is right over there in that shoe.” Nick was happy to have the dart back, but didn’t really believe that the finding of it was helped by the Lord. Nobody likes to admit being wrong, and there is always a secular explanation to these kinds of minor miracles, but I reserve the pleasure of seeing the Hand of God all about me, even if others would explain Him away.

Maybe you’ve asked God, and your diamond is still lost, and maybe your TV remotes keep disappearing forever, and perhaps even your Nerf dart is completely invisible to you, but one question burns to be answered as your life flows and ebbs: have you sought the Lord more diligently than all the “important” items or successes that seem beyond your sight and reach?

Have you invited Him into the commonplace crannies of your daily life? Or has your search for these things, and your frustration with God over losing or not getting them, actually turned your heart in other directions, away from the God Who Sees You? Perhaps you could undertake to search for Him in your life, and consider that He may not appear or act the way you think He should? Like the diamond in the parking lot, He is the stone of greatest importance, invisible to the myriad casual passersby, but uniquely accessible and valuable to the one who looks diligently for Him.

Your lost diamond may stay lost, but make sure you find HIM.

“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew 6:33. NIV 1984.

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The Lost Diamond

A few years ago, we received a distressed call from our close friend, Barbara. Her daughter, Saki, recently engaged and within about a month of her wedding, had lost the diamond from her engagement ring some time during the day. She had been collecting her and her fiance’s possessions from each of their families’ homes, and delivering them to their new apartment that day, in multiple trips. Late in the afternoon, she looked down at her ring, and panicked when she saw that the setting was empty. Can you imagine, the symbol of your future husband’s promised love, gone, before you even wed?

The ring was vintage jewelry that her fiance, Austin, had specially picked, and the diamond was beautiful and of significant size.

But even a large diamond can seem very small when it is lost in the wide world, and it could be anywhere: her parents’ minivan, her parents’ house or gravel driveway, Austin’s parents’ house or driveway, or the new apartment or parking lot, to say nothing of a store or gas station. Not only that, but she had parked in different spots during the day to make deliveries from the van, and she had to walk varying distances along the sidewalk before turning up the pathway directly to their specific apartment building, and up and down the staircase to their second floor unit. Sometimes she even cut across the lawn to save the time and distance of staying on the sidewalk…

Several families dropped everything to go over and search for the diamond at the apartment complex. It was the one place that Saki kept coming back to, during the day, so we all converged there with prayer in our hearts, and high hopes that the diamond would be found. Saki reasoned that the jewel probably got dislodged or loosened when she was taking things out of the van or placing things in the apartment. Of course, the jewel could have fallen loose at one of the parents’ homes, but given that she had spent more time at the apartment than anywhere else that day, it became the focus of the investigation.

It seemed an impossible task, searching to find the missing diamond in front of the apartment complex with about a dozen other friends that had come right over, shining flashlights in the dark, and searching across the asphalt, under cars, along the sidewalk, through the grass, up the flight of exterior building stairs, across the landing, into the apartment, and through the carpet into every room.

Have you ever shined a light across asphalt at night? There are millions of shiny, reflective, sparkly stones, like the quartz and mica that are ubiquitous in the mixes here in North Carolina. Everything that sparkled looked like a diamond, but nothing we scrutinized actually was.

We looked for hours that night, and many of us came out the next few days and searched long in daylight. As desperation started to set in, I even thought of using our Dyson to vacuum the lawn where Saki had cut corners on her multiple shortcuts! We could suck up any loose lawn debris and then open the vacuum compartment over a sheet to examine the contents of its gullet little by little. The neighbors were already suspicious about what was lost, but can you imagine hearing a machine outside and looking out the window to see a grown man vacuuming the lawn?

“You there—what are you doing?”

“Oh…just doing a little tidying!”

I decided against vacuuming.

For several more days, Austin and others looked over and over for the diamond. He was beginning to talk about ordering a replacement stone, since the wedding was coming up, though we were all still praying that God would show us where the diamond was lying. Hope, in the meantime, was dying.

On the following weekend, I wanted to go just one more time to look for the diamond. My wife, Wendy, was leaving home to shop with our daughter, Tess, and I suggested that they could drop me off at the parking lot of the apartments so that I could search while they shopped. Wendy was skeptical, but I insisted, so I grabbed my rain jacket, (since it looked like we were going to get some rain), and we headed over to Austin and Saki’s place.

By the time we got to the apartment, however, the sky had gotten very gray, and a storm was threatening through a ceiling of dense, dark clouds, with rumbling thunder in the distance. I was resolute. I told Wendy that she could leave me there, and that I would be alright.

“You’re crazy! You’ll be soaked from head to toe by the time I get back,” she said. She wore me down, convincing me that searching for a diamond in the rain would be futile. The water would make everything slick and glossy-looking. I knew, however, that a hard rain could wash the diamond down a stormwater drain forever, so I insisted that I should at least get out and look, “just for a minute!”

As I got out of the van, I was doubtful, and felt a little sheepish. “I must be crazy,” I mused. (To think that the diamond could be found in one minute after so many had looked for hours upon hours—it was crazy! And it was probably resting at a completely different location—perhaps at one of the parents’ houses—but still I felt an inexplicable optimism that God could show me right now). Closing the door of the van, I prayed to God one last time. I said in my heart, “God, you know all things—you know where this diamond is! If it is ever going to be found, please show me where it is. I can’t do this on my own…”

As I crossed the drive lanes to a parking spot we knew was one Saki had parked in, I was praying, and the thought popped into my mind, “Could the diamond look different from what I am expecting, sitting on the ground? Something perfectly round when viewed directly overhead…”

This was my thought as soon as my eyes started scanning the pavement. Within five seconds, I spied a round, quartz-looking stone nestled in a cranny in the asphalt—too perfectly round among a sea of natural pebble bits—and I knew instantly that it was the diamond!

Photoshop recreation. The diamond was upside-down in a cranny of the pavement. For some reason, it appeared whitish, and not shiny, but it was perfectly round. God gave me a thought, “Round,” and I looked down, and there it was. In a sea of imperfect stones…

 

Can you imagine what I felt? The exhilaration of experiencing God, (and it had to be Him), as He drew me to the spot and gave me eyes to see what I needed to see? In my heart I was “walking and leaping and praising God!”

The diamond was upside down in a cranny of the pavement, and didn’t appear clear and transparent, but rather looked whitish. I suppose it was reflecting some of the matrix around it—I don’t know—I didn’t stand there examining the setting. If I had any sense of posterity at that moment, I would have whipped out my phone and taken a picture of it as it sat waiting for me in the pavement.

Bent over and trembling with adrenaline and excitement at experiencing a miracle, I pinched the diamond from its niche, leaped over to my van a few feet behind me, and threw open the door. With a flourish I stuck my arm across the driver seat to wave the diamond in front of Wendy’s face and yelled, “I’ve GOT it!!!” I was pinching the diamond so hard between my thumb and forefinger that it could not be seen…

Wendy, supposing I was playing some sort of sick joke, said, “Jeff, that’s not even funny!” She was already annoyed at the delay and this was no time for humor.

So I placed the diamond on the plastic island between the front seats, and the three of us leaned in to look at what simply could not have been real. I think I held my own breath as if the whole thing was a dream until someone else could pinch me. Wendy and Tess blinked in disbelief, again and again, inching closer, as if to reset their eyes and turn the faceted jewel back into a piece of broken glass handed over in jest. After a few breathless seconds…“Ohmygoodness!!! Is that really IT?” More pauses. I couldn’t speak. I just looked on, dumbly, fighting the tears of gratitude to the LORD for what He had done. “What!?! I can’t believe it—I thought you were joking! I was about to get really mad!”

What a celebration ensued! What an incredible miracle— how it all unfolded… how we had to search diligently, with great patience and, yes, with faith.

In a way, I’m glad that God didn’t show us all immediately where the diamond was… we would have been tempted to think, “well, of course it’s right there under our noses. Nevermind, God, we found it!” No, instead there was this beautiful struggle, this constant fellowship of going back to God and counting on Him to come through, no matter what the odds.

And whether the diamond was to be found or lost forever, the main thing is that we sought and found the Lord, who is precious beyond all the wealth of every kingdom. The diamond that is, even now, set within Saki’s ring, is a symbol to me of searching for and finding God. He is the greatest treasure, but oftentimes we don’t recognize Him in the setting. We’re looking for something more dazzling, not imagining that He can appear common, or lie waiting quietly in the most mundane parking spot. Or worse, we assume that He’s not around, because we’ve given up looking for the impossible. We don’t seek Him with a whole heart, because our hearts doubt that He will deliver us this time, anyway.

I will never forget watching the LORD deliver at the last instant, in the shadow of a storm, meeting me between two painted lines on the barren asphalt.

“Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.” Jeremiah 29:12-13. NIV 1984.

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