On Walking to Work and the Faithfulness of God

My wife Julie has a job for next year! Starting on September 10th, she will be a chaplain at St. Mary's Hospital. St. Mary's is a strong hospital with two locations in the Milwaukee area. She will be working at the one on Lake Avenue (pictured left), which is, incidentally, only five minutes from our apartment! She will be walking to work! This is quite a change from the 35-40 minute drive she now has everyday. Though she is only part time right now, it has been indicated to her that there is a strong possibility of it going full time soon.

This is just one more blessing in a string of blessings that we have experienced since coming to Milwaukee. Yes it is true that it is cold here (except when it is unbearably hot) and yes it is true that we got an inordinate amount of parking tickets in the first months and yes it is true that we have been living on an intern's salary for a year, but these are all incidental to the truth that we have consistently felt God's hand on us here. I do not think it is a matter of God rewarding us for our faithfulness. Rather, I believe that God called us to Himself and we have followed, which led us on paths to one another and then to Milwaukee and now for Julie to St. Mary's hospital.

I leave you with a few of my favorite lines from hymns that celebrate God's faithfulness.

"Great is thy faithfulness." -Thomas O. Chisholm

"Ponder anew what the Almighty can do." -Joachim Neander

"Here I raise mine Ebenezer, hither by Thy help I'm come." -Robert Robinson

An Answer Remembered

As Christians, we are part of a long tradition of people who are intent on remembering their story, of remembering the points in our history where God has decisively and definitely acted on our behalf. This rich tradition, of course, began with the ancient Israelites who rehearsed their salvation story - the story where the Angel of Death "passed over" the Jewish firstborns killing the Egyptian firstborns, which ultimately led to their exodus from slavery - once a year at the Feast of the Passover. This was actually a law that the Lord God required of them, in order that they not forget the wonderful acts of their God.

Christians continue this tradition with the celebration of the Eucharist, which I would argue, is the central act of the church. Every time we celebrate the Eucharist, we remember the sacrifice of Christ - his broken body and his shed blood. We remember the story and we make it present once again for us. Christ also prescribed such an action when he proclaimed to his disciples: "Do this in remembrance of me."

One of the reasons that God has demanded such constant acts of remembrance is because we are forgetful people. We need to remember because it is so easy for us to forget - when we feel that God has not answered our prayers or that he has not been present to us for awhile, we quickly jump to the conclusion that he has never been there.

I think, therefore, that it is entirely helpful, and entirely biblical for that matter, to work at remembering the times in your life when God has clearly answered prayer. Such an act can increase your faith and inspire you to more prayer, though you may feel that no one is listening. In light of that, I would like to rehearse for you one of the times in my life when God most clearly and most lovingly answered my prayer.

March of 2006, Julie and I were in Kentucky, unsure of our next steps. I had been accepted to Marquette for doctoral work, but we had no provisions for tuition money. My last chance was the John Wesley Fellowship, but for various reasons, that looked very doubtful. I was scheduled to fly to Houston for an interview one Friday. At the same time, Julie was driving to Milwaukee to interview for a position. She left on Thursday morning and I had the evening to myself. With so much at stake, I decided that I had a lot of praying to do.

Around 9:00 in the evening, I headed to Asbury Seminary, about a mile from our house. I wanted to pray in a special place, which for me was Asbury's chapel, Estes Chapel. At 9:00 in the evening, I figured the place would be deserted and I would be alone with the Lord and my prayers. To my dismay however, as I approached Estes, I saw that all lights were blazing and there was some extremely loud, and rather poor, organ music emanating from the place. Disappointed and dejected, I considered turning around and heading home. Instead, I found a little prayer chapel just to the side of Estes, which I always knew was there, but in which I had never spent much time.

With the lights off, I kneeled at the small altar and began praying about all of the things that were heavy on my heart. I prayed for my wife and for her interview, for her calling in ministry and for our marriage. I prayed for my interview and my calling and for the challenges that a PhD program entailed. Finally I began to pray for the means to pay for the tuition. Knowing that the John Wesley Fellowship was unlikely, I simply began praying that the Lord's will be done. It became a refrain in my prayer: "Lord that you would provide the means to pay for this: your will be done." I remember simply repeating that phrase again and again. At one point in the prayer I looked up and caught my breath at the words engraved above the altar where I knelt:

"Thy will be done."

As most of you know, Julie got the job she interviewed for and I was fortunate enough to receive the John Wesley Fellowship, which has helped us so much this year. We often wonder how we could have done this without the Fellowship. However, I do not think that earning the Fellowship was God's answer to my prayer that night in March 2006. I believe that it was rather his words to me: "Thy will be done." Seeing those words were like God's arms around me, assuring me that he was with me in this walk. That he would not leave me. And though there have been times this year when I have forgotten - more times than I care to relate - I know that this truth remains. God is with me. God is with us.

We simply need to remember.

This is My Story

Julie, my wife, will celebrate her birthday this Saturday. The other day I was at a card shop looking for that perfect card, which would express my love to her. I came upon a "Wedding" card that had these words written in it: "We live two lives, the second one starts when we are married." Nice sentimentality to be sure - in fact, I almost bought it. But as I reflected on it, I realized that it is profoundly mistaken. The truth is that we live two lives, and the second one starts when you are baptized, or in the words of my favorite theologian, when you "catch up to your baptism." That is, your second life truly begins when you come to saving faith in Christ.

When Julie and I were married, we both were walking with God; therefore, our marriage did not begin a new life, but rather was a glorious continuation (and one of the finest expressions) of our life with God. This truth was our reasoning for choosing Fanny Crosby's hymn "Blessed Assurance" for Julie to walk down the aisle. An odd choice in the eyes of many, but the words beautifully expressed our sentiments that day:

"This is my story, this is my song. Praising my savior all the day long."

We felt our marriage was part of God's greater story, not only in our lives, but in the Kingdom of God. We felt that God would continue and multiply the good works he had started in each of our lives as we joined together. We wanted the day to be about him, and only about us in so far as our marriage was an expression of his faithfulness. And that is how we have tried to live as a married couple, failing often, but keeping that as our goal.

"This my story, this is my song. Praising my savior all the day long."

As people, our lives change often. We are taken to new places, we start new jobs, we are children, we have children, and the list goes on. But if you are baptized into the community of faith, then these events are all seen as merely parts of the continuous story of God's work in his kingdom. And the story will reach its climax when we depart from this world and are, together with all the saints, married to the lamb. This is why I want "Blessed Assurance" played at my funeral. But this time I will be walking down the aisle, with my wife and others beside me, as we approach Christ, our blessed bridegroom.