Journal Entry 21: Unique Routes

Jesus, if you’re not in it, I don’t want it.

Journal Entry 21: Unique Routes

        I’m a geek, especially when it comes to strategy based games. Civilization VII just came out, and I snatched it up the moment I could. It’s basically a giant strategy game that spans the dawn of time up to the modern age. You take control of a single kingdom that starts out tiny, and you, through many decisions and challenges, build a legacy. With one settler it all begins.

        God plays a strategy game with all of us. He started with Adam, added Eve, and here we are thousands of years later. Me being the geek that I am, I get amazed at the idea of the moves God had to do to get me here where I am today. It would be nice to be able to say I did this and did that and planned my way to some great victory. The truth is I usually slipped over several mistakes and should have landed on my face yet by the grace of Jesus I’m where I am.

        Seriously, if you think about it, God makes moves to make things happen even if we do have freedoms and choice, thankfully, God does intervene. Me, my story, which is the only one I truly know, had moves made on my life from the very beginning.

        1. I was born into a middle-class family within a trailer park full of kids around my age that became what I would call one of the best ways to grow up. Was it perfect, nope. There was drama, problems from time to time, but it was a good place for a boy to be wild and free with others.

        2. I was born with horrible vision. Without my glasses I’m legally blind. Throw in color-blindness and my eyes are less reliable than most. I was born in an age of glasses, so I can’t complain too much.

        These two things, before I was even born and could make a single decision, created paths in my life and took away others. God was making moves; while, I was still a breath in his greatness not yet made flesh.

        This stuff can be overwhelming or boring depending on you. Me and my strategy gaming geek self likes to think about it.

        My wife, born in South America, was adopted at nine and brought to the United States. She then spent the next nine years being raised by two amazing children’s pastors. She went to college in Florida, didn’t work out, came back home to her parents, then by the workings of God, end up at my place of work. So many things had to happen in Rainy’s life and my own for us to finally meet years later. I don’t believe in soul mates, but Rainy is a blessing of a woman from God that I didn’t even know to ask for.

        God makes moves in all of our lives expanding generations, and if you look you might see some of those movements in your own life. Example in the Bible is Jesus Christ and the genealogy that the Bible takes us through to show God working from the first man all the way to Jesus. That hasn’t ended. God is still making moves in our lives. If we let him, if we rely on God and give our lives to Jesus, how much more he can work freely within us.

        I . . . well, I’m still trying to work on myself in this area. I’ve heard it said that it is good to work on yourself, so that you can then help others. Jesus says something like this when he speaks of first removing the plank from your own eye before you try removing the spec from your friend’s eye. Me, I’m trying to improve on myself by removing that plank. But I have seen God work in my life, and I am thankful.

I love the fact that God, GOD, takes the time to help me. I’m more of a pawn on a giant chess board than any of the more important pieces. Yet, God takes the time to help me. Jesus died to save me, and offer me grace. This is a beautiful wonderful fact for all of us, if we’ll have Jesus. I use to think it was sad that I was a pawn in the scheme of things. Yet, the more I focus on Jesus, the more I realize I’m loved anyways. There can only be so many kings and queens, knights even, but that doesn’t mean I’m loved any less.

Tangent above, but I think a good one.

There’s little moments in my life that God, I know, or have recognized, moved in my life. I’m sure there’s thousands of times maybe millions, but I am ignorant and blind, so I haven’t noticed that many yet. Probably never will. Yet, before I start off on another tangent, let me get back to God moving in my life.

Being stupid teenagers my friend and I were playing with my dad’s guns. I should have died that day or at the very least been given a wicked scar. My friend, thinking he’d dumped all the bullets out of the revolver, pointed the gun at me and clicked it several times. The final time, he pointed the gun completely to the side, pulled the trigger, and thunder erupted in the room. A hole appeared in the wall; where, he’d been pointing the gun. God moved and prevented a nightmare.

Another time, not so dramatic, yet a time I was emotionally falling apart, I needed God to move me, literally. My parents were fighting A LOT, divorce was coming, I was struggling with friends and such, and life was not going well for my over dramatic teenage life. In looking back, things weren’t nearly as bad as others have suffered, but for me at that time, I was in a dark place. I had came close to suicide, but I didn’t pull the trigger. Instead I ran away, in my old, beat-up, car that died on me just outside of city lines. Yep, died right there on the road just outside of the city.

I tried everything I could to get that car to start, and it wouldn’t start. Finally, desperate and not yet a believer, I bowed my head in prayer with my hands on the keys. I begged God to let me go, get me out of that nightmare of a story that was unfolding in my home. I needed out. God heard me, an unsaved, and when I turned the keys the car started. Not only did the car start it didn’t give me anymore problems for the couple weeks I was gone.

On the same story line, God worked another turn of my path. A runaway teenager with little of a plan, I was in a parking lot eating a can of food, not sure what anymore, but it was a can of something. After almost an hour of debating with myself, I decided to phone home and let my parents know I was ok. This was before cell phones, or before I had one, and phone booths were still a thing. I called home, and on the phone outside of what I think was a Wal-Mart, another miracle of God happened.

A long time friend of the family, that had moved away and hadn’t seen me in years, found me. She and a friend were an hour away from home, decided on a whim to come to the store I was at, walked from the side of the building instead of the main parking lot, and saw me on the phone. Mrs. Kay, my childhood friend’s mom, took the phone from me, spoke to my dad, and I ended up spending the next two weeks at her house with a friend I hadn’t seen in years. God moved me and Mrs. Kay that day in a way that was amazing.

God knew I would choose Jesus in the long run. He knew I was a struggling soul, and he helped me. I asked, and he didn’t just start my car, he steered me days away from home until I was lost and then had an old friend take me in. God rescued me from what could have been dangerous and stupid all around.

God moves us, not out of spite or anger, but out of love and the will to do good. We may not enjoy being moved sometimes. I don’t always enjoy it, but if I pray and seek understanding I usually understand better by the end. Sometimes I don’t, but perhaps I never will. I have to trust God, have faith that he loves me and those he’s working around me.

Ask God for help. Seek Jesus’ gift of grace, and see what they can do in your life. Take a look at your life now, ask God for some help in seeing, and perhaps you’ll see where God has already made moves in your life.

Trust that Jesus loves you.