Interactions with God #36
I had been in NH only a few weeks, having spent most of my time trying to recover. Recover? From what? Well, when God puts you through a trial, especially one that makes you really question God, you need some time to just adjust. The adjustment is simply the letting go of your preconceived ideas of how and why God does things. We really like to think we have God figured out. We don’t…and we never will. Oh, you can know God, His heart, His ways, what He likes, what He doesn’t, to some degree. Especially, if you spend a decent amount of time in His word and in prayer. However, we can never really “know” God’s plan. Sure He could reveal it, but as far as I have seen, that is something He rarely does. Generally, it is enough to simply trust and obey.
Seeing that we often feel that our life is going nowhere or that we may be going in the wrong direction, God does do things to show us that we are not alone and we are heading in the right direction. This interaction He has done many times, but this was the first moment I really noticed it.
I had gotten a job, my first job in NH. The job was to sell radio ad time for a local Christian radio station. On its own, this is not an easy job. But the working environment didn’t help much either. It WAS a Christian station, wouldn’t it be a great place to work for a Christian? No, not so much. It was a rather disappointing lesson - the format of a station does not reflect the management or owners of that station. Much the same way a bracelet, t-shirt, church attendance or pastor profession does not signify a real relationship with Jesus Christ. Yes, this is a really sad truth, but Jesus did warn us of such things.
So, the job wasn’t easy, and the management wasn’t all that pleasant. Not really the point of this interaction though. The driving around that I was required to do was.
I had been listening to Christian radio since the change in 1984. I listened to worship, contemporary Christian music, but mostly, I liked to listen to the teaching. I wanted to know as much as I could. After the events in Houston, I was a wee bit more discerning on what I would accept. But what I noticed most, while driving around to cold call on potential customers, was that they all seemed to teach the same topic, every day.
This was happening with radio teachers from different stations, at different times and from completely different ministries. The topic on that day might be a message on Peter struggling with his faith after the denial. This exact topic and message would be taught by three, or four teachers on different stations throughout different times of the day. I seriously started to consider that these guys were talking every morning about what they would all teach. Considering the different locations of each of these ministers, this did not really seem likely. More than that, these “coordinated” messages were exactly what I needed to hear that day. I began to realize that God, in His infinite control of all things, was the orchestrator of these perfectly timed and coordinated messages. He did this all to show me that HE was watching and working in every detail of my life.
Since then, I have noticed this same thing with not just Christian teachings on the radio, but He will even do the same thing with secular radio, TV and random discussions with just about anybody. He will use pretty much anything and everything to get His point across to us. All we need to do is keep an eyes or ears open for it. THE God of the entire universe uses the very universe He created to speak to us. Yes, He will always use that wonderful still small voice in our hearts as well. Me, I don’t care how He talks to me, I just want Him to always do so.