faith

Oswald Chambers once observed "God orchestrates our circumstances to educate our faith." This statement has had a powerful effect on my day to day life. Somehow it has allowed me to rest in the way things come into my life that seem like interruptions or problems.

The statement seems innocent enough until you begin to examine it more closely. It says much more than it appears to say.
First, it says my faith is more important than my circumstances. My circumstances are simply tools in God's hands to be used in a much more important matter. Second, it says God is deeply involved in the details of my life. To orchestrate one needs to really be involved in the moment by moment details. Third, it tells me that I am a learner not a teacher. My faith will not educate itself. Just reading and meditating on my Bible will not produce faith. I need a laboratory to work out the things I have read. That laboratory is life. Fourth, my faith must be very important for my future. Why educate it if it is not going to be of use later on? Fifth, I need to relax with the process. Faith is not a work. Faith is a revelation. I need to pay better attention.

Last night God was busy educating my faith. We completed our sixth week of a small group Bible Study on marriage in a friend's home. The friends who hosted the meeting are Adelino and Sheila Cardoso. We go back a long time--over 25 years.
One by one we have seen nearly the entire Cardoso family embrace Christ. Now the family is helping us lead others to Christ by inivting them to the Bible Study. What an amazing thing it was to realize that all these details over 24 years in the making are now coming together which such power. God is a great teacher! He sure had my attention last night.