An Act of God and an Earthquake

Today is chapter two in sharing pieces of my story. In the first chapter, I described how I moved from thinking that I was a true follower of Jesus to beginning to actually become one. Let me again remind you that my purpose is not to shed light on me, but rather, to point us to God. The one who created us in his image and continues to pursue us.

I committed my life to Jesus in the summer of 1986. For the next nine years, I grew in my head knowledge of what walking with Jesus meant, but it truly hadn’t made the short trip down to my heart. If you read my first chapter, you also know that I said because of my speech impediment it would take an act of God and an earthquake to move me anywhere near public speaking.

As I continued to grow in my knowledge and understanding of faith and of God, I also was continuing to be content in being my own captain and walking out my well planned out path. Overall, life was good. My wife and I, along with our two daughters, were plugged into a local church. We are active in the life of the church and growing in our faith. However, for me, it was still more knowledge than experiential.

Then… in 1995, my wife and some friends encouraged me to attend that year’s Promise Keepers event at RFK Stadium in DC. A group of men from our church were planning to attend the conference, so, sounded like fun to me. Oh my, little did I know what I was about to get myself it to. That opening Friday night of the conference, 52,000 men stood, singing Amazing Grace, and the stadium was shaking from our collective voices. Oh crap. An act of God got to me this conference, and now, an “earthquake.”

I experienced something that night that still gives me goosebumps. God was softening and tenderizing my heart, and even though I didn’t have the words then, he was helping me begin to move my faith from simply knowing about Jesus to actually knowing Jesus, from knowledge to experiential.

On the bus trip home, I shared with a few men, one being our church’s pastor, that I didn’t know why, but I sensed God asking me to step out and be a lay leader. In our church, that was the person who welcomed people to a worship service, made announcements, and read that day’s scripture passages. At the time, I was the church board president and knew that ten or so people were on that rotating schedule, thus I would have more than two months to weasel my way out of speaking in church.

Whether what happened next actually happened as told to me, or I was “set up,” I do not know. That next morning after getting home from the conference, I walked into church and was greeted by our pastor. He looked as tired as me. What he said next changed the trajectory of our life completely. And it screwed with my well laid out plan. “Dave, Chuck is scheduled to be lay leader today, but he broke his glasses and cannot read without them, so would you fill in for him?”

Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down this train. Today? Me? Not so sure. I agreed to try this lay leader gig, but my plan didn’t include anything like this. Ignoring my self-centered self-serving will, I somewhat reluctantly said yes. I told my wife the plan, hoping she would help me manufacture some excuse, only to have her grab my hand and say, “you got this.” Comforting indeed, but not quite the answer I wanted.

So, as I prepared to do this “what was I thinking” thing. I was wheeling and dealing with God. “Okay God, I am stepping out in faith, doing my part, so your part is giving me perfect speech today. That’s the deal. Got it?”

I somehow bumbled my way through and as the service was ending, I looked out into the audience, only to see my wife and many others with tears streaming down their faces. “Oh no, did I do that bad?”  

As I questioned God as to why he didn’t keep his end of our bargain, I heard what I now know was his still small voice, say to me, “I kept my end of the bargain, I was with you up there on that stage, and this is just the beginning.” I wasn’t quite sure I bought “I was with you,” but, whatever. And if I had known then what “this is just the beginning” would come to mean, I would have checked out of Hotel California right then and there. What was happening, even though I did not understand it at the time – God was drawing nearer to me because I was first drawing nearer to him (James 4:8).

In my story that is still being written, it is God who is the protagonist, and me, simply an actor in the story, one who is learning from, and following, the play’s lead character. You have a similar story! A story unique to you! God wants to draw ever so close to you. Are you drawing yourself close to him? Don’t wait for an earthquake. Do it now!

The next chapter will see God continuing to reveal more and more of his plan, much of which comes in unexpected and surprising ways.

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