Blessed By Bosnia: IS GOD IN OUR CIRCUMSTANCES?

I’m currently working on getting a book published. With abundant blessing, it will be out by December. I cannot take an ounce of credit for it. Seriously! I recall every step of this journey. From the moment I decided to write it to the first writer’s convention I attended, the first publisher’s meeting, and so forth. I remember hearing God speak to me in my quiet time. No, it was not an audible voice. It is hard to explain. It was just an answer – to a question – during a weekend-long silent retreat. I was completely and utterly centered and devoted to God. As usual, my agenda for the weekend was soon abandoned for His. At first, it was just a feeling, then a certainty. I was drawn away to commune with my Father for reasons I was not originally prepared. I came weighed down by micro decisions, while God had something of a more macro nature in mind, more eternal -- my purpose. I realize how arrogant this sounds, as if I know what God wants or what He is thinking. I don't. Like I said, it is hard to explain. All I am certain of is this -- by the end of my pilgrimage, this former math/science geek (me), who barely passed English, only later to be told by a college professor she was a terrible writer, left a monastery as an aspiring one. What!? A WRITER!? Really? What about the decisions I came here to make regarding my son’s education, our church home, finances, our housing purchase? I was looking for some Divine Guidance. Did I hear correctly? A Career change?! Fast forward . . .

At my first writer’s conference about eight months afterward, I was told never to pitch “the voice of God” as the reason for penning a manuscript (or in this case, a fraction of one). I had fifteen minutes to come up with a new angle, since this was the only explanation I had to offer. Fifteen minutes in the ladies room praying for God’s voice to once again “Help me to speak and teach me what to say” (Exodus 4:12) led to a positive experience with a publisher, and here I sit waiting for my first contract, for my first book, from my first meeting.

A message I hear constantly is “God is not in our circumstances” or “God does not care about the minutia of our lives.” “Our faith is in a person, the person of Jesus Christ, not in our experiences or circumstances.” So here is my question ... If our faith is only in the person of Jesus and not in our experiences with Him, doesn't this limit His complete sovereignty over each of our lives? If we are called to be in relationship with Him, shouldn't that mean all of it? The good, the bad and the ugly. If he is not in the circumstances, even the minutia, of our lives, I think this allows us to justify our feeling abandoned by God during times of suffering. So, we praise God for the victories, the answered prayers, but banish the sufferings to “part of life”…”the fall of man?” I believe I can trace both my sufferings and my victories to God’s hand. While I don’t believe God causes my suffering, I believe He allows it and brings good from it. (Romans 8:28) I believe He is in all of my circumstances. I believe He is sovereign and, if it is His will that a tongue tied, non-linguist become an author, He is the only one that can make it happen, as long as it will glorify Him, edify His people and bring His kingdom here on earth as it is in Heaven. Conversely, I believe He will allow the persecution of a nation of people until he has finished His work, giving to those who believe and persevere and do not doubt His sovereignty, knowing in His time the victory will be sweeter for the patience and pain with which it was purchased. What about the flipside? Can non-believers become authors? Can persecutors escape punishment? Sure! Could Jesus have anything to do with that? Absolutely! It took me looking back at half of my life as a non-Christian to trace the hand of God pursuing me the entire time. Not enough evidence? What better example of both author and persecutor than Paul the apostle. Jesus had something to do with that. He was very much in the circumstances of Paul's life.

I have seen this manifest in knee-dropping experiences through the work of the people at the ECC in Bosnia. Their faith in Jesus has never wavered. Their desire to know and be known by Him against incredible odds has stood resolute. Their trust in the Word of God, revealed through tradition, lived out openly in an oppressed and closed society has placed them in dangerous circumstances, caused suffering, yet produced the perseverance offered in the book of James, never once believing they were abandoned by Jesus. With full knowledge that God is a living God, ever-present and sovereign, a God of circumstance, my Bosnian friends never cowered, but prayed, plead and waited for Him to show up in their dire situations, on His time, not ours. And, He did.

It is the end of another mission season. More connections have been made. There are park benches adorning the streets of Capljina, Bosnia with New Testament scripture upon them. “Love your neighbor as yourself,” says one, a concept as foreign and as precious as this region we visit. Still, a message ten years overdue, by our standards. Yet, God has been in this struggle every step. Watch how the scripture will still be there next year rather than vandalized or torn away. God’s timing is perfect. Youth classes were attended. Photography lessons were given, and contacts were made with the local newspaper, a favorable article written. More mayoral approval occurred. A surprise guest at a barbecue, a sign of relationships mending, healing. We can chalk this up to time spent to leverage relationships, invest in people and a city, or we can ask ourselves, “Is Jesus . . . is God in our circumstances?” “Does He care about the minutia of our lives?” “Is He really concerned whether I write a book, or if someone places His Word on a bench in a predominantly Muslim country struggling to break the shackles of hatred and intolerance?” If not, then why do we teach our children to pray at all. Minutia? Our youth are praying for puppies and toys. Why not tell them Jesus doesn’t care about these things?

Because He does care! What matters to us, matters to Him.

Jesus is not just an entity to be believed, but also a person to be known. Because we are called to be in a relationship with Him, you in Him and He in you, He is, by design, in our circumstances, whether we choose to accept Him as Savior and acknowledge His presence is another story.

The next time you are faced with the question “How?” or “Why?” and there seems to be no rational answer, no foreseeable reason, perhaps it is God, the all-seeing, all-knowing, omnipotent, sovereign Father who sees something you just do not see, working in your circumstances.

In the grip of His grace,
Kathy

P.S. A huge "Thank You" to all the 2010 team members and leaders who traveled across the seas to allow themselves to be used by God in such a mighty way, in the experience of missions! God Bless You and all of my readers who prayed for You! Hvala!