Wednesday, December 3, 2008

God the ultimate Maestro

Recently, God has been showing me how He is working through his people and orchestrating all sorts of events here on earth (major and minor and some which would seem insignificant and go unnoticed in those unattuned). As a musician, it is a touching visual image for me to imagine God on a 360 degree stage at command of an incredible symphony with His baton. Some of the countermelodies are not recognized even by the musicians who play them because they can’t hear all the parts the other instruments are playing.

I’ve been noticing that sometimes people are unaware of how their acts are being used by God—but it is a wonderful encouragement to find out here on earth how that occurred. God is using his people to carry out his plan and sometimes little, seemingly random, spontaneous acts are being directed by God—orchestrated at a higher level. It is an awesome privilege and blessing to be God’s hands and feet here on earth, have His Spirit, and know that you are part of a greater plan that God is carrying out through you. Some people have an amazing ability to hear God’s voice and obey, and other times people don’t always recognize it’s God’s voice, but take action and this action is used by God. For some reason, I had thought that one needed to be doing something intentionally for God’s purpose to be used by God—vs. living out life as a Christian and then Christ in you is carrying out His purpose. Then there is the fact that God is all powerful and can use all people and events for his good pleasure.

Here are a couple examples that have spoken to me as of late. A few weeks ago, a Christian friend gave me a bag of clothes she was passing down for my son, Eli. It was only a handful of items, yet it was exactly what we needed. In fact, the subject of my thank you e-mail to her was, “how did you know exactly what Eli needed?” I looked through those clothes and felt so blessed!! The gift included a couple of sweaters. He had needed some sweaters (and I’d even had bought an “ugly” one at a garage sale recently out of necessity). It also had a hooded sweatshirt jacket –and I had discovered the previous weekend that his only light jacket with a hood was a size too small. There was also a pair of pants and a couple of weeks before my mom had asked what Eli needed and I had told her pants! I was reminded of the words of a favorite hymn, “Great Is Thy Faithfulness”—all of my needs he hath provided. Now I could go buy new stuff for him, but God knows I don’t enjoy spending my time and money that way, am into recycling, etc.—and would rather put extra money into something eternal. Speaking of which, we recently made a donation to a ministry and the handwritten thank you card explained that our gift was an answer to a specific prayer . . . so the blessing keeps on going.

I was telling my friend in Wisconsin this story and she had a “freaky” story to share. She was counseling a friend about her career and highly recommended the friend watch, “Chariots of Fire.” Later, the friend called and asked whether she’d sent her that movie, since it had arrived in her mail without any sender info. No, my friend in Wisconsin had not sent it or arranged its sending. . . somehow God was working through someone else.

I’ve just started a couple books contrasting Christianity with Buddhism. One of the differences between the two is the view of the nature of God—a personal Creator/controller or an impersonal non-being (karma type). I definitely have experienced the personal God and know His baton is moving all around!