A few weeks ago, I stupidly agreed to accompany a community musical here in town. I didn't get half of the music until several days ago, and I've been frantically trying to learn it ever since, at least in the spare moments that I can find between my already overloaded schedule. By last night, it was clear that I wouldn't be making the deadline, and I gave up and tried to enjoy a game night I held at my apartment.
And then everything else came crashing in, too, and after a brief conversation with a couple friends at the end of the night, I realized just how much of a failure I am at all things Christian-like. Although I was worried about the musical, I was more tortured by questions of what it means to love those around me, and what it means to point them to Christ in the things I do.
It may not seem like a big deal, but this question as well as some good ol' fashioned worry kept me from sleeping peacefully and all but destroyed my day today. I was shaken and anxious and stressed and defeated.
And then on the way home from the island, a friend called and asked me to join him and another friend at Chick-fil-a for dinner. I was going to not go, because I planned to go home and practice piano all night. But then I threw my hands in the air and decided that an hour or two of practice standing up by my un-weighted keyboard in my living room may not be that useful anyway. So I went.
What you have to understand about this particular dinner is that I don't always...jive...with the guys I was going to be eating with. We're all very different people and it makes us clash like crazy. Sometimes I find myself disagreeing simply because it's one of them making the statement, not because of any inherent flaw in the statement.
And yet, as we discussed things of God and the future of our small groups and what it means to follow Jesus and serve Him and love the people He's place in our lives, I was blown away by the God who binds together the three of us in perfect unity despite our imperfections and personality incompatibilities. God used tonight to speak into my heart the simple truth that He can speak through the simplest of conversations, that He can bring together people with nothing else in common but Him, and that in Christ we are one. I'm thankful for that, so very thankful. I'm thankful that God places people in my life who do not see life from my perspective, because it stretches me and forces me to consider things more carefully. And often the perspectives of others show me just how wrong I am.
We're often so weak. Our perspective is hopelessly limited, we are blinded by our pride and by our ambition. We want to be important and have our accomplishments recognized. Tonight God reminded me that where we are weak, where we are flawed, God is there made strong.
I went to church. For the first time all day I was weightless. I put my burdens in the hands of Jesus, trusting that the One who led me to that crazily improbable appointment at Chick-fil-A can move mountains in the lives of my hurting friends, and that this same God cares about my participation in this silly musical that I never should have signed up for.
Tonight I had faith the size of a mustard seed and I called on God to make Himself known among us. He promised that our faith, if only the size of a mustard seed, would move mountains. Mountains of rebellion, mountains of unbelief, mountains of cynicism, mountains of broken hearts, mountains of disunity, even mountains of crazy-hard music. He'll move it all, if only we will look to Him.
I'm gonna hold Him to that.
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