Monday, April 1st, 2013click here for past entriesWhat has God been doing lately?
“Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? (Isaiah 43:18-19). More than once in the Scriptures, those who believe in God and in Jesus Christ are both amazed and astounded by the things that God does. They didn’t really expect the resurrection of Jesus, and yet, there he was – talking with them and eating with them and preparing them for his ascension into heaven (Luke 24). Later they are even more astounded that the hated Gentiles would be included in God’s plan of salvation. Yet, they could not deny the fact that God had poured out the Holy Spirit on a bunch of Gentiles in the same way that they had received the Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 10:44-48). It seems that God is always doing new things in the Scriptures, and believers are always left trying to catch up (cf. Acts 15).
As far as I am aware, there is no point in history where God suddenly stopped doing new and surprising things. It still happens. The only question is whether we are paying attention enough to see it.
A few examples come to mind that I have heard about. A young girl in Eastern Europe who has never been taken to church has visions of heaven and paints them. A three year-old boy visits heaven and comes back to tell the story (Heaven is For Real by Todd Burpo). He asserts that Jesus looks just like the paintings that this little girl has done. A woman who has been told that she will never leave the hospital suddenly recovers, stymieing the doctors. Many people had been praying for her. We just never know what God is going to do next!
Kelly Fryer, who does a lot of writing and speaking in North America, is a consultant for congregations and churches who are looking for renewal. She points to two questions that every congregation needs to ask: 1. What is God doing? and 2. How can we help?
What she means is what God is doing right here and right now. In other words, what is God doing right here in Winnipeg? What is God doing in the neighbourhoods in which we live? What is God doing in our workplaces and in our schools? What is God doing in this community, and how can we help?
I invite all of you to ask these questions in the coming weeks. I invite you to look for evidence of God’s activity in the newspaper and online and in the news and wherever you get your information from. I invite you to share with me anything you come across that is evidence of God’s activity right here and right now.
If I don’t hear from any of you, my conclusion will be, not that God is not doing anything, but that either we are not paying attention or nobody reads this newsletter J. And really, would you rather be part of God’s mission in the world or some other mission that we have invented for ourselves?
As much as we might like everything to be just as it was 50 or 60 years ago, that’s not going to happen. We live in a changing world in which God continues to be at work, sometimes even doing a new thing. May we know God well enough to be able to recognize the Holy Spirit at work, and may Christ continue to be made known through us and among us.
In Christ,
Pastor Lynne Hutchison
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