And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this? Esther 4:14b

It’s one of the really cool questions in the Bible.

Esther ascended to an influential position in a foreign land through a most unlikely series of events. She subsequently faced a difficult and potentially dangerous decision. Her uncle, Mordecai, encouraged her to overcome her fears and confront a volatile king on behalf of her people. “And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”

Mordecai believed Esther faced a divine appointment, that God worked through events in her life and placed her in a strategic position. God orchestrated a complex set of mid-course corrections and long-term trajectories “for such a time as this.”

A pastor friend used to gaze solemnly around the congregation and say, “No one is here by accident.”

At the time it creeped me out because I thought everyone else knew why they were there and I had no clue why I was there.

Now I think it’s enough to believe there’s a purpose even when I don’t know exactly what it is.

I love the notion that God’s brought us together for such a time as this. Who knows?

See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? Isaiah 43:18

Please leave a comment.

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If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.

I’m thinking I might amend this adage. Perhaps another way to make God chuckle is to claim that I understand the details of His plans.

Yesterday I shared a story over at Rich’s Ride about a Divine Appointment.

I believe that particular encounter in that context was a God-ordained moment. But I feel like I need to curb my enthusiastic certainty. It’s easy to get carried away with trusting my own limited perceptions.

It’s awfully tempting to assume that I know more than I do. If I’m not careful I can imagine that I understand how every occurrence fits into God’s plan. And from there it’s a small step to pretending I can know God’s will in every situation.

I can’t and I don’t and I need to remember that. He’s God, I’m not.

I can’t see from God’s infinite, eternal perspective. I can’t see past my selfish biases and desires. I don’t know how God’s omnipotence meshes with human freedom of choice. I don’t know how He incorporates my mistakes and resistance and feeble attempts at obedience into His promise to work for good in all circumstances.

I cannot possibly perceive the infinite calculations involved in God’s cosmic calculus. I delude myself whenever I pretend I know how specific short-term events fit into God’s eternal vision.

It’s not our job to shape events to conform to God’s plans. He’s already got that covered, and His mission will be accomplished with or without our cooperation. He doesn’t need us.

But His desire always involves relationship. He wants us to experience the joy of walking along and being involved in building His kingdom. He chooses to allow us to work with Him and experience the fullness of fellowship with Him.

Someone once said that God doesn’t usually place answers to prayers directly in our hands. Instead, He places them within our reach and offers to walk along with us.

I don’t know how that works, either. But Jesus knows.

Maybe understanding how God works isn’t my job. Maybe I should spend my time getting to know the One person who gets it.

Please leave a comment.

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Have you ever experienced a divine appointment?

Some of us are old enough to recall Apollo 13 as something besides a movie. The mission launched on April 11, 1970 to complete the third manned moon landing. To outside observers, spaceflight had become almost commonplace. This appeared to be just another routine mission, but Apollo 13 reminded everyone that space exploration was anything but “routine.”

We all know the disaster that occurred when an oxygen tank explosion ripped a gaping hole in the spacecraft. Critical systems were crippled, the moon landing was aborted. I remember watching with everyone else during the following days as an army of engineers and support personnel did about a million things at once to save three astronauts and figure out how to get them safely back to Earth.

Apollo missions included planned course corrections necessary to hit precise navigation targets. Computer guidance normally accomplished these complex adjustments automatically, but the explosion damaged those systems. As the crew rounded the moon and began their return trip, their fragile ship drifted off course. They would have to manually alter their path. Using untested methods and calculations relayed from ground controllers, three men had to hit a tiny moving target more than a hundred thousand miles away.

To save their lives they had to set their ship in a trajectory that would bring them and the target to precisely the same point. Even a minor error would send them to their deaths.

I can’t imagine how impossible it must have seemed to hit a moving re-entry window less than thirty miles across from tens of thousands of miles away. The astronauts had to establish a curved trajectory that anticipated numerous variables and aimed at an empty spot in space. Their skill brought them and their target to exactly the same point at the same time.

I think that’s how God works most of the time. He makes seemingly small course corrections (one-degree miracles) that sometimes send us in directions that don’t make sense. It’s as if we’re headed into empty space.

I think that’s what happens as we do our best to listen and follow. He gently re-directs us and sets us on trajectories that bring us to places He can use us.

The problem, of course, is that we can’t possibly see what He sees. We try to draw straight lines and make simplistic cause-effect conclusions, but it’s not that simple or immediate.

Think of a time when you’ve found yourself in just the right place with just the right people in a setting no one could’ve anticipated, a time when something powerful happened that changed lives in a powerful way. And if you believe in God you know it didn’t happen by accident. It was a “divine appointment.”

Now imagine all that went into bringing those folks to that point, all the small decisions and twists and mistakes that placed people on trajectories that intersected in that tiny window of time. Imagine the endless course corrections, one small moment of each life building on thousands of others, all leading to that divine appointment.

Tomorrow I’ll post a story over at Rich’s Ride about a divine appointment. I hope you’ll drop in and check it out.

What are your thoughts about trajectories and divine appointments?

I’d love to hear your thoughts and responses. Please leave a comment here.

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I met Kelli several weeks ago. In her early twenties she struggled through a tough battle with cancer. As she endured multiple rounds of chemotherapy Kelli consistently prayed two prayers—that she would be able to resume her passion as a triathlete and that the doctors’ pronouncement that she would never be able to have children would be proven wrong.

The cancer and chemo completely zapped her physically. Years after being declared cancer-free, Kelli could barely walk any significant distance. Doctors confirmed that she was unable to become pregnant. She was of course grateful for healing, but wondered about the answers to her other prayers.

When I met Kelli, sixteen years after the treatments ended, she had just completed her first triathlon. She beat her “dream time” by more than fifteen minutes. Perhaps she was inspired by a special cheering section that consisted of her husband and the two young children to whom she gave birth.

I believe God answers our prayers. I’ve heard very smart people describe those answers as YES, NO, and WAIT. I think there’s another possibility.

I’ve been thinking about the notion of a one-degree miracle. Perhaps God answered Kelli’s prayers immediately with a one-degree miracle. Perhaps her path changed and it took sixteen years to perceive the radical, but gradual, alteration that led her to a place of such great joy.

Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland. Isaiah 43:18-19

God often works like that. God promised a child to Abraham and Sarah when they were probably in their seventies, and they waited nearly twenty-five years for Isaac’s birth. The Israelites entered the land of milk and honey more than six hundred years after God’s promise to Abraham. Simeon served his entire life in the Temple before he beheld the Messiah. God seems to operate in terms of long-term trajectories rather than sudden u-turns.

So if He doesn’t seem to be responding, perhaps the answer isn’t NO or WAIT. Maybe He’s doing the new thing we seek right now, but we can’t see His answer from our limited perspective. Maybe He wants us to trust and follow the path of a one-degree miracle.

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I’d love to hear your thoughts and responses. Please leave a comment here.

What makes a book worth reading?

What do you look for when selecting a book? With so many options, what attributes determine your “to read” pile?

A few weeks ago Mark Batterson asked me to review The Circle Maker. His request got me thinking about how I filter and choose my reading material.

I read a lot, but mostly my input arrives online via blogs (like Mark’s) and articles. I don’t read enough books, so I tend to choose carefully.

I read books that deepen my understanding by offering a fresh perspective. I read to learn new material. Occasionally—not often enough—I read just for entertainment.

Once in a while I tackle a book that challenges my point of view and causes me to re-evaluate how I perceive a core element of life. This sort of book makes me take a step back and ask big questions about my sense of direction. I find myself wanting to disagree and defend my internal status quo, often a sign that I’ve encountered an uncomfortable truth.

That’s my reaction to The Circle Maker.

Batterson presents a view of prayer that shakes some of my foundational assumptions. Powerful stories reveal an unshakable faith in our ability to claim God’s promises in real, tangible circumstances. I found myself constantly thinking “yeah, but” as I encountered tales of impossible prayers answered in improbable ways.

Perhaps the highest compliment one can offer any author is “He made me think.” I absolutely believe in prayer, but Batterson’s story caused me to wonder if my perceptions of prayer are too small, and if that means my perception of God needs to be enlarged.

I’m not sure yet what to make of The Circle Maker. With any prompting to change I need to address two issues. The first is whether it’s a change in the direction of truth—I’m still mulling over my answer.

But the real problem with change is that you actually have to change, and that’s hard. The book’s theme challenges us to Dream Big, Pray Hard, Think Long.

I don’t want to resist just because it’s hard.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on The Circle Maker.

Please leave a comment here.

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Why do you believe?

Cranking my bike along the Mississippi River somewhere in Missouri, I wasn’t ready for that question. I’m not sure how I responded—I think I was more concerned with the next hill than a coherent rationale for my faith.

I’ve thought a lot about the question since then. I’m not sure I have a better answer.

I gaze at the nativity scene on the mantle. God became a helpless child, born to a virgin. The creator enters His creation. Infinity chooses to become finite.

It’s absurd. And I absolutely believe it—every bit of it.

Why?

My personal conclusion is that I believe because I believe. It’s a heart thing, a prompting of the Holy Spirit. I’d like to explain it rationally, but “logical faith” seems like an oxymoron.

Everyone believes in something. Some folks choose faith in science, some choose other belief systems.

I believe Jesus was born in a humble stable more than two thousand years ago. I believe He was God incarnate.

I don’t need a reason.

I believe. That’s enough for me.

Please leave a comment here.

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Are You Too Smart For Miracles?

It was just a casual party conversation. I didn’t know the other guy very well, so the discussion skipped around like a smooth stone on a pond. I don’t recall how the stone skipped onto “religion” but suddenly he said, “I’m just too smart for miracles.”

I’ve learned to smile and nod at statements like that. There’s a time and place to respond, and this was neither. So we skipped to another topic and the moment passed.

But his pronouncement stuck with me like a pebble in my shoe—and before you make any wheelchair jokes, pebbles in my shoe ARE still irritating.

Can we be “too smart for miracles”?

We’ve cheapened the word. Miracle doesn’t mean inexplicable or highly unlikely. Outcomes we can’t explain are usually just that—unexplainable, at least at the time. It’s easy to scoff when every extraordinary event is characterized as miraculous.

An improbable end to a football game isn’t a miracle.

Sight restored by mud made from spit. Five thousand people fed from an armful of supplies. A man with withered legs stands straight and strong, healed by a single command.

These things simply can’t happen. The probability isn’t small—it’s ZERO. No science can ever explain water turned to wine.

And then there’s Christmas. A virgin becomes pregnant and gives birth to a boy who turns out to be God. The infinite I AM chooses to enter His creation. Uncontainable God confines Himself within a human body. Love purposely assumes tangible form.

No way to explain it. Literally, totally impossible—unless what we see isn’t all that is. Unless God exists.

I know really smart people who don’t believe in God. I know really smart people who do. Faith isn’t a function of intelligence.

I wonder if I think I’ve got God figured out. Am I so eager to explain God that I lose sight of His unexplainable nature? Do I confine Him within a box that “makes sense” to me?

Instead of concocting a clever response for a party conversation, I want to acknowledge that Jesus is beyond my understanding.

I don’t want to be too smart for miracles.

Please leave a comment here.

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Live in the present.

That’s the conventional wisdom. How often have you heard that advice? Looking back leads to regret, looking forward results in worry. TODAY is all we have, it’s what we can control, it’s the only place we can live.

Pretty good guidance, right? Except—living exclusively in the present can lead to an awfully shallow existence. How to we learn if we ignore the past? How do we prepare if we ignore the future? I pondered this dilemma a few days ago as I wrote What Would You Change? and my latest newsletter article about anticipating Christmas.

My friend Jon Swanson is currently doing a wonderful Advent series over at my second-favorite blog, 300wordsaday. His reflections reveal Advent as a wonderful solution to my dilemma.

Advent is the practice of using the days prior to Christmas as a time of preparation. We remember the stories and the characters that surrounded Jesus’ birth, and we look forward to the hope He promised.

What’s cool, though, is that there’s no sense of reliving the past or rushing into the future. The whole point is to savor each day by bringing greater meaning to the season. The recollection and anticipation of Advent actually calls attention to the precious nature of each moment.

That makes a lot of sense to me. I want to live in the present as fully as possible. That means learning from experience, preparing with hope, and treating each day as a treasured gift from God.

How can you use the experience of Advent to focus on today?

Please leave a comment here.

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Rich’s Ride provided countless rewards and a few challenges. One significant test arrived in the form of a question.

A Christian disability-advocacy group invited me to a meeting. I began as I often do with a small audience, by asking what they wanted me to talk about. After a short pause, a lady began the discussion with a statement/question I’m still processing.

“You’re doing this amazing project that inspires everyone, especially people like us. Can you tell us how you’re able to function so well in an able-bodied world?”

Before reading further I invite you to ponder those lines for a moment. What stands out for you?

Her question still challenges me on several levels, but one phrase honestly stops me cold: an able-bodied world.

What’s your immediate reaction? Do we live in “an able-bodied world”?

If so, I’m an interloper; I don’t belong. An able-bodied world might tolerate me, even make allowances for me, but I’m at best a resident alien. A guy who’s paralyzed below his chest cannot claim full citizenship in an able-bodied world.

This was a Christian organization, and they assumed God created the world for people who meet some arbitrary physical, mental, and emotional standards. I guess those of us who fall short ought to stay out of the way and feel grateful that we’re allowed to hang out on the edges.

I’m not blind to reality. I want to figure out how to follow Jesus in real life, and it’s clear that I face a unique set of physical challenges. There’s no point in pretending.

But words have incredible power to shape our attitudes. Description becomes perception, and perception becomes reality. I hope you’ll leave a comment here with your thoughts on some questions that challenge me.

• What are my unspoken assumptions about who belongs and who doesn’t?
• Where do my words and behaviors marginalize others?
• Where’s the line between being realistic and simply catering to my own comfort zone?

Do we live in “an able-bodied world”?

 Relentless Grace

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If you’ve been following along the past few weeks you know that I’ve been pondering one particular scripture as I crank along the Mississippi River.

Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past.
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you
not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland. Isaiah 43:18-19

I’m finding that I see more deeply as I continue to reflect upon these words. A couple of days ago I noticed something in the last two lines. Read them and then consider these words of Jesus.

I am the way… John 14:6a

Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.” John 4:10

Do you see it?

Several centuries after Isaiah recorded God’s promise to make “a way” in the wilderness and “streams” in the wasteland, He sent Jesus—the way, the living water.

What are your thoughts?

Please leave a comment here.