There are times in life when God’s involvement is much clearer than others, for one reason or another. I had one of the moments while sprawled out in the floor of some Peru missionaries’ house. Waiting at their house for the hour of my flight home to draw near, I was lulled into sleepiness by Hebrew homework, so I laid down on their floor. There is something about odd situations like laying on someone else’s livingroom floor that make a person think. My thought was, ‘How in the world did I get here? I’m laying on the floor of some people I’ve just met who are fanatically religious enough to live in an impoverished foreign country while raising two small children.’
There are many ‘reasonable’ responses to my musings, but in case you’ve not yet caught my sense of wonder at the situation, I’ll try to make it a little clearer. Have you ever remembered where you thought you’d be at this point in you life? Most of the time I don’t have any clear vision of where I’ll be, but most of life is normal enough that it fits in my broad scheme. For instance, I’m in seminary in Memphis. Going back a number of years, I’d not have guessed that for my future, but in many ways it figures and I’m not all that suprised to find myself here. There are an infinite number of such examples. It was something else, though, to picture what I must look like laying in a floor in Lima, Peru thousands of miles from home. Just imagine one of those movie camara shots that zooms in from an astronaut’s-eye-view. There is the earth, then the western hemisphere, then South America, then Peru, then the sprawling Lima metropolis, then the barrio on the inland side of the hills, then the neighborhood, then the house, then the living room, and there lays a gringo! All you can say is, ‘How did he get there!?’ As a highschooler I could never have imagined this situation. It’s so random and so out of the ordinary. Perhaps it is a sad commentary that it takes random and unusual to really open my eyes, but I saw God at work. I saw him directing my steps, providing needed relationships, preparing the way for our work, and on, and on.
As outrageous as it was to be in that place in that moment, I had to chuckle at God. It is fascinating and exciting to see what he does with a willing participant in his project. He can take people to the most unexpected places and use them in unthought of ways. What a ride.
Greg & Meg 