On The Road
We went through a few surreal days in Charlotte, NC, in the middle of a gas shortage. The few gas stations that had gas also had long lines. It could take hours to fill up; a clerk in the grocery store said a man pointed a gun at him and demanded that he let him get in front of him in the gas line. A waitress in the Cracker Barrel said she wondered how she could to continue to get to work if the crisis continued.
The shortage spread further and further into the state, and the news reports said it would take weeks to get back to normal. County offices elsewhere in NC were closed because people couldn’t get to and from work. For a few days, we wondered if we would be able to get to our scheduled meetings.
Pressures have eased, but we hear that gas supplies are still erratic.
Is this fuel shortage a hiccup in America’s history, or is it the shape of things to come? I just heard of a man in Galveston who has now been without power for two weeks. He’s decided to move.
The issue here isn’t survival or even safety; it’s business as usual. If the infrastructure around us is collapsing, we can’t get our work done. With no power, the computer won’t work and there is no way to recharge a cell phone. How could most of us do business without electricity?
Many of the people who lived through Katrina still haven’t gotten back to normal. Elsewhere it’s floods or droughts, ice or heat, a fallen bridge or a failed power grid.
What about faith? Many of us will find that as we listen to God’s voice, He will show us how to thread our way through the impossibilities around us and fulfill what He has given us to do. We will be the person whose flight is on time when others are stranded in the airport for days, or will find the one gas station that is open when all the others are closed. These graces will be part of our testimony.
Some of us will stumble into a prayer life that will bring reversals to the crises. The storm is coming, we speak the word, and the storm subsides. Or we will pray, and the power grid will suddenly be restored.
Psalm 91 says that if we are in the secret place, a thousand fall at our right hand and ten thousand at our left, but the plague will not touch us. Some of us will learn to stay in the secret place and will be the one person in 11,000 who can get through the storm, the shortage, or the power outage.
How do we contend for the kingdom? No matter how much upheaval we face, the promises of God will not collapse. We are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.
The faith route will take us to a place of God’s intervention. It glorifies Him when His people look to Him and find His provision and faithfulness amidst impossibilities.
But sometimes, in spite of our prayers, we still can’t get to the meeting on time…we still don’t have electricity to keep the computer charged…we can’t go on with business as usual.
The parable of the sheep and the goats gives us a pattern we can follow even when we can’t get to the meeting. Wherever we see one of God’s people hungry, thirsty, unclothed, imprisoned, or sick, we have a ministry opportunity to them and to the Lord Himself. If upheaval keeps us from getting to the meeting, it may be because God is teaching us to see the ministry opportunities all around us in everyday life.
So contend for faith – this will be the theme of the online school this month – and always look for opportunities to minister the love of God. If you can’t make it to the meeting, be a good Samaritan and look for someone who is bleeding and dying on the Jericho Road. This may be more important than business as usual anyway.