Spinning

A friend and I sat in the quiet of a large dining room last weekend, chatting until the middle of the night. We just sat there, he and I, talking about life and how it just keeps spinning.

"I'm cold," he said. "It's (life is) kind of like that ceiling fan. 'I know you can shut off that fan God', so why don't you just do it?"

It's as if we ask of God, "Life is spinning out of control, I know you can stop it God, why don't you?"

This circumstance you have put before me is just too hard God, won't you just fix it?

There are people starving all over the world, can't you just feed them, God?

There are people hurting all around me, can't you just make them feel better, God? Can't you just take their pain go away?

Just some of the questions that rattle around in my mind as this notion of the ceiling fan spinning continues to play out in my mind.

My phone rang at 10 p.m. last night with a distraught friend on the other end. The situation he described to me through his tears, and even sobbing, literally made me pose the question, "God, why? Why didn't you stop this, why won't stop the spinning?" It also led me into an attitude of prayer which may not subside soon.

I am no answer man - that is clear to anyone who knows me - but God is teaching me a few things through this life I am living...for Him.

One reason He doesn't just fix everything, I believe, is that Jesus wants us to draw near to Him...to come to Him with everything.

In Jeremiah 29 He tells us that "you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you." AWESOME! He wants us to bring our petitions to Him - each and every one of them. When there are things we question, He wants us to ask for the answer. He wants us to turn to others and have them do the same. When life is awesome, He wants to hear that, too.

He's also calling into His work.

I had a conversation with a friend of mine this morning, relating this whole ceiling fan conversation. This was his question - rather poignant, at that. "Was there a switch in the room where you could have turned the fan off?"

Of course there was, but that would have required something of us, wouldn't it?

I have very few answers to many questions, but our God is one who is always at work - and He calls us into His work - to join Him in it. That in itself is amazing. That He wants us to help in His redemptive, restorative work in this world, but that's the point of the question about turning the switch off. He has taught us some things and also equips us to work with Him in others.

There are situations, virtually everyday if we are dialed into them, when God poses the same question posed in Isaiah 6:8: And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Then I said, "Here am I, Send me."

Experiencing grace and peace in this life is summed up, in part, in this. It is seeing our resurrected Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, at work. It is having the fan spinning out of control in our lives or in the lives of others around us and Him asking us, "Whom shall I send?"

Call out to Him today - listen to what He is calling you into - and trust that the fan spinning is one way in which you may see Him show up today.

Grace and peace,

Chris