What If…
Ever once in a while God hits me between the eyes with His incredible plans, His unbelievable attention to detail…
Have you ever asked the simple question “what if?”
What if God knew all along…
What if that was what He was really up to…
What if He really knows… really cares… really loves?
Of course asking the question re-affirms the stark reality that God is God and we ain’t… right?!
I don’t have all the details nor the exact timeline of this “What if” God story but here is what I have at this point…
Some ten years ago a young 18/19 yr old young man was terrorizing the neighborhood(s) around the St Florian Roman Catholic Church.
This once for very strong/safe Polish-American neighborhood had now become like other’s… in decline of safety, security, dignity… lots of reasons but also because kids in this hood had very little except time and imagination. Unfortunately this young man (let’s call him Mike since that is his name) had little structure. little accountability, plenty of anger/time not a good combination.
I have heard from some neighbors that MIke was a pretty scary dude… big and mean.
Not a little mean… a lot mean… we have heard stories but we will not go into those.
It was about ten years ago that Mike took off on a motorcycle from his house that changed everything for him (and the neighborhood).
He had a terrible wreck and it left him physically disabled for life.
Mike was angry before now he was bitter and angry… hard to understand because of the slurred speech… he cannot run anymore… struggles with the very basics…
Fast forward about 9 years and this young man has learned to live with his disability but not with his anger and bitterness… not a very nice person.
The nearly 100 yr old Roman Catholic Church has now closed its doors and a new Community of Faith has purchased it and moved in.
This church planted by a bigger/older church that had not planted a church in its 40 plus years but was willing and able to invest in this under-resourced neighborhood now but not before…
Led by a guy that ten years earlier was living in Florida who had just stepped out of the coaching profession after 14 years and was a youth pastor in a small little town of about 4000 wondering “what the heck have I done?”
The church opens it’s doors officially on the first cold Sunday of 09!
Things start to happen all over the campus… people are coming back into the building… curiosity abounds for those in the neighborhood. Neighbors start to come to the new church… to the community events that are happening on the campus…
Mike starts to come over and talk with people… starts to come to the Sunday morning gatherings… hesitantly at first but the more he comes the safer he feels… people begin to know him and talk to him…
he begins to “taste and see” that God might be good after all.
Summer comes and we begin to hear more of Mike’s story…
One day Mike walks over and begins to talk with Joshua… they sit down on the steps of the church building and Mike becomes a new man… he gets a transplanted heart straight from heaven above.
Mike’s filter is not very “Christian”
He says things like… “God is crazy as hell” I say… in a good way Mike… yea in a good way… I say your right Mike. (never heard it put that way before but…)
Sunday Mike did what Christ Follower’s have done for the last 2000 years…
He got dunked… baptized… he brought a crowd with him… he looked good!
He struggled without anybody helping him up and into our portable baptistry… a little scary to be honest with you…
I baptized my brother in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost…
This brother who ten years earlier was on a crash course with either death by being murdered or in a life in jail… unless something or someone intervened…
What if God knew back then what none of us had even imagined or thought… that Mike would need to stay alive until a group of people could come and create an environment for him to “taste and see”
What if God knew that I would become a church planter… (something I had not ever considered back in the day)
What if God knew a big church would be led by great leaders that would be compelled to do something in a community that everybody else had given up on…
What if God knew that on May 2, 2010 Big Mike would be getting dunked and He orchestrated all of our lives so that it could happen not only for Mike but for hundreds of others?
What if God knew all of that and DID all of that?
Just a thought I had in passing this week… what if?
My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,’ says the Lord. ’And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.
