Seeing God’s Handby Cynthia Saladin |
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God’s Covenant and Relationship God said: “I will live in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and
they will be my people." Paul quoted this covenant from God in 2 Cor 6:16, but
God first stated this covenant in Gen 17:8. It’s found throughout the Bible,
even to Revelation 21:7. Once, a couple of years ago, when Mom and Dad got home from wherever they’d been, they pulled into their driveway. Normally they park alongside the house. But they had a feeling, just an impression, that they should park the car behind the house. So they did. During the night there was a wind storm and two of the neighbor’s big trees fell - right where the car would have been parked. Coincidence? I don’t think so. Not when we pray that God will lead us and
guide each of our steps. Proverbs 3:5-6 says, “ Trust in the LORD with all your
heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make your paths straight.” I take those two verses to heart and
believe them. God doesn’t just do small things in our lives either. When I was pregnant
with my first child, Jonathan, the first ultrasound showed that he was placenta
previa; the placenta was too close to the cervix. My OB said we’d keep an eye on
it, but we might have to do a c-section. At 32 weeks, another ultrasound again
showed placenta previa. I really didn’t want to do a c-section, if I didn’t have
to. And I know many people began to pray about the situation. Mom told me that
John Shavers (a good friend and pastor in New Mexico) said, “If God can part the
Red Sea, He can certainly move a placenta.” I believed that, but I didn’t know
if God wanted to move the placenta. I asked my OB if we could check the placenta
again before the delivery. She agreed and scheduled me for an ultrasound during
the appointment just the week before my due date - the c-section had already
been scheduled for the following Monday. The Friday before, Ron and I went to
the appointment. The technician started the ultrasound and then called my OB.
“Doc,” he said, “you’d better come take a look.” My OB told us, “This is
impossible. The placenta doesn’t move that much this late in the pregnancy!”
Jonathan was born less than 24 hours after that appointment, not by c-section. One of my favorite instances of God’s direct involvement in our lives comes
from my husband’s experiences. He has worked for Southwestern Bell, now AT&T,
for over 31 years, 17 of them outside in installation and repair. He was in and
out of houses, and saw all kinds of people and their pets. At one house, the
owner had his dog chained. A neighbor warned Ron to watch the dog, and Ron
carefully made sure he was outside the range of the chain. But, on one pass, the
dog hit the end of the chain and it broke! The dog started circling Ron, low
down and fast. Ron mentally prepared himself to kick the dog, even though the
owner was present and trying to catch the animal. When it was inches from Ron,
the dog’s entire demeanor changed. Instantly from attacking and snarling, the
dog turned into a cowering, frightened mass which ran to the high fence behind
it and started trying to get away. Ron and the owner looked at each other. Ron
told the owner, “I never touched him!” But Ron thinks perhaps an angel smacked
the dog; that’s how he acted. Sometimes God works directly in our lives to show us things about Himself. He sets up analogies to demonstrate the reality of his nature, His will for our lives, and His incredible love for us. Romans 1:19-20 talks about how God can be seen through the things around us. These things include our spouses, our children, our coworkers, people around us, our pets. This is not a new concept. Paul uses marriage as an analogy of the relationship between Christ and the church. Gary Thomas explores this in his book, Sacred Marriage. His premise is “What if God gave us marriage, not to make us happy, but to make us holy.” Marriage is an excellent example of the idea of seeing God, who He is, and who He is to us, in the things around us. God uses my children to show me Himself. For example, I understand a lot
better the sacrifice made by the Father, of giving His only begotten Son for me.
I don’t know that I could willingly give my precious child for some rotten
sinner. That’s God love. Huge! Likewise, loving my child, I have a much better
comprehension of the love my Heavenly Father has for me. I understand better the provision of God, giving me what I need, not
necessarily what I want. Matthew 7:11 says, “If you, then, though you are
evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your
Father in heaven give good gifts to those that ask him?” I understand better how
giving a good gift to my children does not mean giving them everything they
want. It’s better that they work for some things. The concept of delayed
gratification, and its value, becomes more clear in my own relationship with my
Heavenly Father. When Jennifer was born, one of her tear ducts did not drain properly. By the time she was a little over a year old, it was swollen and tender. Ron and I talked to the pediatrician, who recommended a specialist. We made an appointment. He told us how to massage it. Then he told us if it wasn’t better soon, we needed to do surgery. Ron and I were not happy with the idea of surgery, and both earnestly prayed over Jennifer’s eye. Within just a couple of days, the problem was gone - completely. It hadn’t just improved; it was like it had never happened. I remember feeling amazed that God had simply answered our prayer - almost instantly! The Answer is No But just as in a relationship with our children, sometimes God’s answer to me, His child, is “no,” and I don’t have to understand why. It just is. When Jonathan was born, he slept for about an hour at at time around the clock. By the time he was seven weeks old, I was exhausted. I prayed for sleep, believing that God would answer my prayer, but I continued to struggle. I thought of the verse which says, God grants sleep to those He loves.”(Psalm 127:2) So I prayed for sleep. I believed that God loved me. But I wasn’t sleeping. Days and days later, I began to wonder if God really does love me; there’s that scripture! But then I thought of a good family friend who is an insomniac. I thought, “But I know God loves Tommy.” Still wondering about the, to my mind, unanswered prayer, I picked up my Bible. I never just open the Bible and put my finger on a verse. But this time my Bible opened to Isaiah and I began reading. Isaiah 4:11 jumped out at me. “He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.” I don’t know why God said “no,” but Isaiah encouraged me, assured me of God’s love, even if I was still sleep-deprived. God has made it clear in scripture that He’s not a genie who makes all the
bad go away, allowing His people to live in thornless rose gardens for their
remaining time as Christians on this earth. But, again, God gives us the physical to help us understand the spiritual. He
gives us examples so we can get a glimpse into His nature. I remember when
Jonathan was first teething. He was uncomfortable and cranky. About that same
time, an article was published by an pro-life organization which reported the
levels of pain experienced by preborns and newborns. They said the babies
experience higher levels of pain than adults do. So much for the doctors telling
us that the babies don’t really feel the pain - like when they are being
circumcised! No wonder I took home two cranky little boys and one sweet-tempered
little girl. My little boys hurt! And, here, years later, Jennifer still has
nights when she wakes up crying because of the pain in her legs. After a
particularly bad period these last few months, I shouldn’t have been surprised
that she’s grown an entire inch! They are called growing pains for good reason.
But the point is: I suffer as I watch my children grow. I could cry right along
with Jennifer when I’m rubbing her legs in the middle of the night. I paced the
floor as I walked Jonathan, and Christopher, and Jennifer as they were teething.
The pain is a part of the growth process. But God is still right there. He has
promised never to leave us or forsake us. The pain is a necessary part of the
growth process, but God doesn’t let us endure it alone. He’s walking the floor
with us. We may not understand why we’re going through something painful - anymore than babies understand why they’re hurting, but God does comfort us - if we have eyes to see. In 2001, a month before Christopher was born, Ron had a painful boil on his cheek. He went to the dermatologist, but he still had to suffer through the boil. So that Saturday evening, we opened our Bibles to Job. We were both struck by the scriptures, “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” (Job 2:10), and “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him” (Job 13:15). We talked over this idea at length. The next morning, I got a call that my older brother Bob was in ICU in the Casper, WY hospital - he’d had an asthma attack and was on life support. Mom and Dad traveled out and two days later, made the difficult decision to disconnect Bob, because he was brain dead and deteriorating. I lost my older brother when he was only 37. Ron and I talked about our conversation, our Bible study in Job. We are convinced that it was not a coincidence. The boil wasn’t a coincidence either. Exactly three weeks after Bob’s death, Christopher was born. As I was being admitted in the hospital, the nurse was taking down all the family history and I told her about Bob’s death. She stopped what she was doing and said that she had a teen-aged daughter who was asthmatic, and would I mind if she shared the story of Bob’s death with her daughter. I gave my consent. Later, the nurse told me she’d been having trouble getting her daughter to take her asthma medication. After she’d shared Bob’s story, her daughter told her, “Mom, I promise I’ll take my medicine like you want me to.” Another coincidence? I don’t think so. I think it was an appointment set up by God, to give me comfort in the loss of my brother and to use the event as a witness to someone else. Bob’s death brought home very clearly the idea that Christians also suffer
pain and loss despite being Christians. For some time after that I struggled
with trusting God. I know He loves me, but what will He allow to happen in my
life to grow me? I have found myself very anxious at times - knowing that God
loves me, but wondering if I think I can endure as much as God knows I can
endure. I believe God set up several appointments for encouragement, times when
His hand was so plainly evident in the situation. Almost a year ago, Jonathan came down with a bad cold and I suspected he had an ear infection. I made an appointment with his pediatrician in St. Louis and bundled the children into the van. We’d gone only about fifteen minutes when the dash light came on in the van. At the next stop light, I dug out the owner’s manual to see what it meant. It was indicating a problem with the transmission. I called Ron. He told me to call the Ford dealer and see what they had to say. The service manager told me I’d probably make it to St. Louis and back to Union. So I continued to the pediatricians where Jonathan was diagnosed with a double ear infection. We picked up his antibiotic at the pharmacy next door to the pediatrician and headed for Union. I decided to go out Interstate 44. Even though there’s always a lot of heavy traffic, especially truck traffic on 44, it was the most direct route to the dealer. The last five miles on the interstate, I could see a cloud of moisture spraying out behind the van. When I took the exit ramp, and the engine shifted into a lower gear, I heard something give. We limped along for about five miles, barely making it up the hills. But when the light turned red and we had to stop, that was it. The transmission was dead. Somehow I managed to push the van to the side of the road. Then I called the service manager. He said he’d send a wrecker and someone to pick the children and me up. When we got to the dealership, the manager apologized that he hadn’t been
correct in his estimation of making it all the way back to Union. I thought
about the fact that most people probably take out their very bad day on him. In
spite of facing the cost for a new transmission and worrying over a double ear
infection, I looked at him and said, “It was such a blessing that the
transmission didn’t give out while we were on the interstate.” When Ron and I were talking about the transmission, Ron told me about a time
many, many years ago when he’d had some work done on the steering column of his
pick-up. When he picked up the truck from the mechanic, he drove up to his
friend’s house - driving on Interstate 70 in very heavy traffic. When he took
the exit ramp, he felt something give. He had no steering ability whatsoever.
The mechanic had forgotten one cotter pin. The entire steering assembly fell
apart. Ron had to have the truck towed! If it had fallen apart while he was on
70, it would have caused a terrible accident. Ron and I married in June of 1993 - the year of the flood in St. Louis. It was a summer that changed Southwestern Bell forever. Suddenly, the company was forcing everyone, and especially those in installation and repair, to work long hours of overtime. They handed out repair jobs without sufficient time to do the work and came down hard on employees who didn’t give 120%. One hot, humid summer day, a terrific thunderstorm descended on St. Louis. Normally, I don’t get too excited about thunderstorms. I usually chuckle to myself as I recite Grandad’s old saying, “The thunder rolled, the clouds look big, the lightning flashed and killed a pig.” I don’t know why that saying amused us so much as children, but now I often find myself amused by our delight over it. So it was unusual on that hot summer day for me to become so fearful for Ron. I didn’t know where he was working; whether he was inside or outside. I just knew that I was so afraid for him, to the point where I was on my knees for what must have been about 30 minutes, crying and beseeching God for His protection on Ron. It wasn’t until Ron got home that we put the details of our days together - and thanked God for His protection. Ron had been climbing up and down poles and ladders all day. Even though the guys are not supposed to go up the telephone poles during a thunderstorm, sometimes they do - and especially given the climate that summer where so much work had to be done - yesterday! Even though the thunderstorm was right over the top of him, Ron thought he’d just go up and he’d be right back down again. Then something stopped him. He decided to just wait for five minutes. Less than a minute later, lightning struck the strand that his ladder was leaning on. You will not be surprised to hear that the children and I pray for Ron
several times every day. In 2002 we broke ground and began building our home. Once the walls were up
and it was in the dry, I began making almost daily trips out to the house from
St. Louis. Part of the reason, of course, was that Dad was staying at the house
while he and Tom, Ken and Larry put up dry wall. One morning though, I was in
the house by myself with Jonathan, who had just turned three and Christopher,
who was 18 months. We were upstairs. I needed to caulk between the trusses to
help provide a barrier to heat and cold. I was keeping a very close eye on
Christopher and talking with Jonathan. Suddenly I looked up to see Jonathan step
between the studs of what would be the upstairs bathroom wall and fall onto the
stairs. He couldn’t have fallen any farther. He landed, face down, on the bottom
step. I scooped up Christopher and rushed down to pick up Jonathan. Carrying
them both, I sat on the floor with the wall at my back and immediately told the
boys we had to pray - before I could even look at Jonathan’s potential injuries.
We did pray. When I looked at Jonathan, there was a slight welt on his chest and
a spot that would be a bruise on his forehead. But other than being scared, he
was fine. He could have broken his neck. There could have been broken ribs or a
broken arm. But he was fine. When Dad walked in a couple of hours later, I told
him what had happened - and told him, “I think he must have landed on an angel.” More recently, I had become very anxious about terrorism and the potential for how bad it could get in our country. I have a good imagination. I can imagine not only terrorist, but gangs of people taking whatever they can get as basic systems break down, infrastructure like water, electricity, food, and roads are crippled, and police are not sufficient to curb a now lawless society. And it’s really not me that I am so worried about; it’s a lot harder to think about my children being ripped from my arms, tortured, suffering unspeakable things before being murdered. I told you I have a good imagination. And I was letting my imagination run away from my faith that God will never leave me or forsake me, that He will not give me more than I can stand. Over the course of several months, I was really consumed with anxiety. Meanwhile, God was quietly preparing an object lesson before my eyes. We have a large garden. We grow a lot of vegetables, lots of tomatoes and green beans, peppers, cucumbers, etc. I do a lot of canning. But my garden is not the well-cultivated show place that my neighbors up the hill have. There are four gentlemen, in their 70s, who come out on Tuesday and Friday (and sometimes more frequently) and spend all day tilling and cultivating and working in the garden. They have an electric fence around it to keep out the squirrels, deer, raccoons, etc. My other neighbor is retired. He has all day to putter in his garden. He tills, brings in truckloads of manure, mulches, and has a beautiful garden every year - which he also surrounds with an electric fence. I don’t have the time to put into my garden that way. My three children and the many other activities in which I’m involved preclude me from spending the hours I really should devote to my garden. But during the summer of 2007, their gardens shriveled up and quit. I canned quarts upon quarts of tomatoes and green beans - and started giving away green beans by the bucketful - in July! Both sets of neighbors came to me and asked if I had extra because they didn’t have what they needed! Suddenly it hit me! God blessed my garden, completely out of proportion to
what was happening in the other gardens around me. I felt like God was showing
me that He can bless my family and me right where we are. I don’t need to worry
about the terrorists or marauding gangs. Jesus Christ is my shield, my Rock, my
hiding place. (Psalm 119:114; Psalm 18:2; Psalm 32:7) What can man do to me?
(Psalm 118:6,7) I just need to keep my eyes on Him. In December 2007, the children and I came home from Walmart with much more than we had intended. A couple of young ladies were giving away black lab puppies. We got two - two very similar sisters, at least at first glance. They are both black, very similar in size and markings. But they are so different in temperament. I know them so well now that I don’t even need to have the light on the living room in the evening to know which dog is which. Their mannerisms are so distinctive to me. Being a little over a year old, they have lots of energy. They can flat out run! I try to take them out for a run every day. Ron mowed around the perimeter of our upper pasture, and three times around is 1.2 miles. That takes me about 22 minutes, and I had been doing that every morning. They’d get so excited. As soon as I opened the door, they’d be out and almost out of sight before I could get off the porch. It doesn’t take long for Velvet to come back and check on me. When she does, I give her a treat and snap the leash onto her collar. Pretty soon, Ebony comes to find out where Velvet is. I give Ebony a treat and switch the leash to her collar, letting Velvet go. Every so often, I switch the dogs. Velvet stays close. She wants to know where I am and often comes over to try playing tug of war with the leash. But when it’s Ebony’s turn off the leash, she roams hard and fast and often out of my sight. Eventually she comes back, but it appears that she’s more interested in seeing if maybe she can get Velvet to go running with her than in being with me. At first, I had a really hard time trying to decide which dog I like better. But I know now - mostly because of those daily walks. Velvet keeps her eyes on me. She wants to please me. Even when they are both running free at the start of the walk, she comes back to check on me very quickly. Even when Ebony is enticing her away, Velvet often looks back at me like she can’t decide who she’d rather be with. She has definitely decided that I’m her master. Ebony is a very nice dog, very smart, very sweet. But she is not that interested in a close relationship with me - at least when we’re outside. She is interested in running and getting Velvet to run with her. Even in the house, it is Velvet who sleeps at my feet. I have to be careful when I get up from my desk because Velvet’s often right there. It’s interesting because it’s a self-perpetuating cycle. Because she’s right
there, she’s the one who gets to lick out the mixing bowl when I’m making
cookies. Because she’s right there, she’s the one who gets the pat on the head
when I stand up. Because she’s right there, she’s the one I talk to. Our
relationship continues to grow stronger because she’s often so close to me. I
know you can see the analogies. We need to keep our eyes on our Master. We
should desire to be close to Him, in His presence whenever possible. The
more time we spend with God, the stronger the relationship grows. We can see it
- especially when the spiritual reality is played out in a physical relationship
right in front of us. I want to focus again on the idea of seeking God. I take my dogs for a walk almost daily. In the past five months, there have only been a handful of days when I didn’t go out with them, even when it was really cold. At first, as I walked, there was no evidence that anyone had been walking along that swath that Ron cut for me. But now, a path is developing. I laugh at the strong consistency of my walking habits. I choose to walk in the same spot, out of a swath that is 20 feet wide, so consistently that you can see a path emerging. That path is like Psalm 105:4 which says, “Seek His face always.” It literally means to “beat a path to.” The path doesn’t emerge after walking through the grass once or twice or even twenty times. The path around our upper field is only now emerging after five months, and in some stretches it is still not evident. God wants us to seek His face so often that it’s like beating that path to Him. It’s continually. That’s why I believe all of these coincidences and incredible instances in my
life were not really coincidences, but events in which God shows me how
very much He cares for me. He’s interested in my complete investment in the
covenant: I will be to them a God and they will be to me a people. In other words, God wants us to have invested our minds in God’s trustworthiness to the extent that it’s no longer head knowledge, but true heart knowledge. When we believe, fully, thoroughly that God has our best interest at heart, then no matter what happens, we put our life in His hands - and leave it there. In February 2007, we had a very warm day, after a series of cold days when the children hadn’t been outside. After a morning of schoolwork, I told the boys they needed haircuts - outside. I trimmed Christopher’s hair first. When I finished, he asked if he could ride his bike while I cut Jonathan’s hair. I said yes, but that I wasn’t going to be very long. Then we’d do a little more school work. He quickly grabbed his bike and rode on the porch, headed towards the ramp down to the sidewalk. The porch was wet. He was going too fast. His wheel lost traction. As his bike slipped out from under him, Christopher was catapulted into the logs which stick out from the corner of the porch. The impact broke his jaw, popping the bone out of the flesh and then snapping it back in again. Christopher came running, screaming, blood pouring out of his mouth and out of his face. The trip to the ER, the ambulance ride, the next four days in Cardinal
Glennon Hospital, and the three weeks of his mouth wired shut were some of the
toughest days Ron and I have endured as parents. We had many conversations about
that incident. I don’t know why God allowed it to happen. It was such a freak
accident - with such big consequences! Ron and I asked ourselves, and God, what
we were supposed to learn from the whole thing. I did learn some things. Some
good things came out of the whole ordeal. But I don’t know that we’ll ever know
why it happened. Still, the one thing that Ron and I both concluded had to do
with trust, trusting God completely. Think about it: is it really trust if only
good things happen? Or, can you really say that you trust God if you always see
why a thing happened? Trust means believing that God has your best interest at
heart even when you don’t see why, even when it is something painful and
difficult. Sometimes it’s easier to turn to God, and trust Him, when things are rough. When I am in a crisis situation, I know I need God. But in my mundane, humdrum, every day existence (as if my life could be humdrum and mundane with homeschooling three active children and training two active black labs!!!!), sometimes it is the endless repetition of normalcy which can blind my eyes to God’s presence in my life. But He’s there, and if I am willing to be a tool in His hands, He can do great things through me - even if I don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. When I was a child, Mom and Dad always invited people over to our home after church services. Sometimes we’d have just one other family; sometimes there’d be a whole bunch. One particular Sabbath, we’d invited a bachelor, Gary, to come over. He asked if he could bring a friend of his who was visiting from California. Mom told him it was no problem; several people were going to be there. Gary played the guitar and had a great voice, as did his friend. We had a special evening of singing and fellowshiping and enjoying being together. About three weeks later, Mom got a letter from Gary’s friend. He wrote, he said, to tell her how much that Sabbath meant to him. He had been going through a particularly difficult time and had decided to commit suicide when Gary had brought him over to our home. Because of that evening, he had changed his mind. This young man was Mark Graham - a church musician who put together a songbook filled with so many original hymns of praise to God. Mom didn’t know that God was going to use her in such a powerful way when she
told Gary that Mark was welcome to come to our home that evening. And she would
never have known her impact if Mark hadn’t written that letter. Mom was used for
the glory of God. And really, that’s what this life is all about. I quoted 1
Peter 1:7 earlier: “These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than
gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may
result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
Our primary purpose is glorifying God - if we know God as our God. Too often, we want to tell God how to fulfill His part of the covenant
relationship. We want to tell Him how He should take care of us since we are His
people. That’s His jurisdiction, not ours. We pick out our favorite verses, like
Jeremiah 29:11 - “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans
to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” I love
this promise. But look at the context again. This was part of the letter written
to the exiles in Babylon. God had hope and a future for them - after 70 years in
captivity. I’m sure there were some of God’s people who died in Babylon before
those 70 years were up. Does that mean their future is lost? No, it’s a matter
of perspective. It’s not about this life. It’s about life in God’s kingdom.
Hebrews 11:13-14 talks about us being strangers and aliens here. Don’t hold on
so tightly to this life. It’s not about this life. I hope that you have been using your eyes more than I have. I hope that you
haven’t tripped over too many appointments and object lessons that God has
arranged to show you how very much He loves you. But, even if you have, I’d say
there’s a good chance He has quite a few more in the works. Next time we meet, I
hope you will share with me some of the appointments you’ve had and how you’ve
seen God’s hand in your life. |
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