Broken Promised Lands?

I think I had a God moment on Sunday.

I’m preaching a sermon series on change – our congregation’s need for and resistance to it. While the first two parts of the series laid out the need and some symptoms of resistance, Sunday’s third part took the series’ first dig into the teaching of Scripture, focusing on the complaints and criticism of change voiced by the Israelites on their way out of Egypt to the Promised Land.

The sermon’s invitation was for those who, in spite of their personal attitudes and ambiguities toward change, wanted our church to reach the Promised Land God intends for us. In the first 30-45 seconds of the song that followed the sermon, there was no movement in the pews. Then quickly the ice broke, and out of the corner of my eye I saw people from all over the room moving forward, a higher percentage of the room on the march than my sermons ever generate. (Some Sundays, I swear my invitation to stand while we sing sparks interest in only half the room!)

The small throng of us gathered at the front of the worship center held hands and prayed that something genuine was happening, that God’s spirit was the instigator in the incident of which we were clearly a part. The prayer ended, people moved back to their seats, worship continued to its close, and all of us – those who came forward and those who did not – walked out of the church building, into the rest of our Sundays.

Later in the day it occurred to me that something important may have happened during our worship. So many people, some with tearful eyes, responding to a call for change in our church, a congregation steeped – “mired” might be the better word – in its past. Over the next 24 hours I heard from others who had been in the room Sunday morning. They, too, reported the germination of serious hope as a result of whatever had happened.

For several years we have been pursuing a change agenda; as Sunday languished in its final hours, I wondered whether the worship experience had dislodged us from an ice jam?... Or, had the congregation merely been giddy that the changes in our worship service that had taken effect that day were actually going to cut the length of our worship by the advertised 10-15 minutes?


It’s the question of exactly what did happen that intrigues me, and upon which I invite your reflection. Some of us are interpreting Sunday’s experience as a “God thing,” a presentation of the holy in our midst. But was it? What qualifies as a “God thing”? When does an “everyday thing” transform into its godly cousin?

I ask, because in my spiritual journey numerous have been the occasions when I believed God was intervening in my/our congregation’s situation, when God was acting purposefully on my/our behalf or for my/our best interests. It was a feeling I had, a hunch that possessed me, an intuitive surmise that the current course of events was no coincidence, no happenstance encounter with good fortune. I believed God was leading me/us out of our exile. That is, I was having a God thing.... But it didn’t turn out that way. What I thought were good leads, led to murky dead (or dying) ends. What I perceived as divinely inspired paths to destiny, destined me/us to fates and frustrations not much different from, and obviously not much better than the status quo. What I thought were “God things” were...not.

....Or maybe they were.

I hope I am confusing you, because if I am, then I am making myself clear. There are moments when I know I am in the midst of a God thing...and it turns out I am right. There are other times when I know I am in the midst of a God thing...and it turns out I am wrong, at least apparently. How and when do you know the difference? By what criteria do you discern whether God’s is the hand stirring your life’s cauldron?

I am not certain of the answer, but I do know these are some of the issues that fueled a fog over my Sunday enthusiasm. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate the moment, nor that I thought it insignificant that so large a proportion of the worship group came forward to pray, but that I was not sure where it all fit in to our larger, longer journey toward our promised land.

There’s a moment in the Old Testament book of Jeremiah when God says this to the residents of Judah, then on the way to exile in Babylon:

“The truth is that you will be in Babylon for seventy years. But then I will come and do for you all the good things I have promised, and I will bring you home again. For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen. If you look for me in earnest, you will find me when you seek me. I will be found by you,” says the Lord. “I will end your captivity and restore your fortunes. I will gather you out of the nations where I sent you and bring you home again to your own land.”

How about this? My problem is I don’t know how many of my seventy years have passed.

How about your count of yours? Think about it and let us know. I’d love to receive your response to these issues.


Let Us Pray:
God, you’re alive, you’re working, you’re engaged in our lives. We will grant you those, now grant us more. Tell us, show us, demonstrate to us that exiles end, seventy years time frames don’t last forever, and your things can still be our things. We await your help to direct our paths to the promised lands you have in store for us. We look forward to your hand’s guidance and your grace’s provision until we get where you’re leading. In the name of Jesus, Amen.