God Is A Sneaker

This coming Sunday my brother Kenny is being installed as the Sr Pastor of my home church, The Tabernacle Church of Norfolk. It’s a big deal. Great church with a great history and great pastors. Most unusually the last three pastors have all been associates at the church for some years before they became the senior pastor. For 50+ years they have not had to do a pastoral search outside of their own congregation. That’s unusual, to the point that I have never heard of a church with this kind of record.

My family’s history with the church began rather inauspiciously. Most things that end up with some great spiritual benefit do. God is working out his plan behind the scenes, unnoticed and uninvited. God sneaks into our stories. He is creating our future out of small moments. He just shows up. (Reminds me of the quip that all good novels have only one theme – a stranger comes to town; I think that is true).

Our story at the church began with me transferring to a Christian high school my junior year. You see, there was this cute girl that was coming to the church I grew up in!! You guessed it – she went to this Christian school. So I thought I would, too. And then I saw this other girl at the Christian school once I got there. And she went to a different church. So I thought I would, too. I did. It was the Tabernacle Church of Norfolk.

Her name was Sharon, and Sharon became my wife.  And later on my dad and mom followed me to that church and raised my younger brother there, who is now to be that church’s pastor.

Strange! Girl chasing is how God wove me and my family into a bigger story. I wasn’t making big spiritual decisions nor following some internal call of God in my life. I was following my hormones. I was simply doing what boys do. And bang! God shows up! I wasn’t being wise or godly or spiritual or much of anything. God used that ultimately to weave together a whole new chapter in the history of The Tabernacle Church.

God is a sneaker. He gets into our stories unannounced, much like He snuck into human history coming down the backstairs of heaven with a baby in His arms. He put that baby in an unnoticed place to unnoticed parents and made out of that moment a plan that changed the history of the world. So many of the stories of the Bible are stories of God sneaking into other people’s stories. He just materializes out of nowhere.

I come from a tradition of what I call hothouse Christianity. Like a hothouse for growing plants year round, this kind of Christianity is always trying to create moments of growth for me – revival meetings, altar calls, evangelistic crusades, spiritual life campaigns, and so on. Every-time I turn around there is new product on the evangelical market to increase attendance, the temperature of spiritual passion, tithing and outreach programs – all for the cost of a conference and special order materials (available at the conference for a one-time low, low price). We try to get people to make big decisions and bold plans.

But the things that really changed me in the long run are things that I could not invent, create or plan for. It’s enough to make a Calvinist out of me. (Wait, I already am a Calvinist – too late!!!) My life is really a Genesis story. “Let there be light, and there was light.” Order out of chaos. The Spirit of God hovering over my darkness.

It’s enough to make a man trust his future to God. And maybe this is what it is all about.