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Street & Steeple for January 29, 2021
By Phil Bell, retired, pastor, University Baptist Church
“God Is Help In Times Of Trouble”
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Are you discouraged and concerned for the future at how divided our nation has become, scared of contracting the coronavirus, or depressed about some personal situation in which you find yourself?
You might even have been praying about it. Too often we pray to God, telling Him what to do and how to do it! We think our nation is broken and needs healing! We may even be praying for it, telling God just how it needs to be done.
Again I say, be praying, encouraged and anticipate surprises! God is our help in any kind of trouble!
- Phil Bell, retired pastor, University Baptist Church
We may well be worried that, despite our precautions, Covid 19 will find us. How many times have you asked God to make someone’s chemotherapy effective to heal him or her of cancer? It is certainly proper to ask God for healing. He is the great physician, to be sure, but He just may surprise you how He does it!
One of my favorite contemporary Christian songs is Scott Krippayne’s “God Has A Wild Imagination.” The lyrics include “As you approach a deep abyss I can’t tell you the outcome, but I promise you this, God has a wild imagination at work in ordinary lives. Come and see. Come and be surprised!”
Is this song scriptural? Yes, I believe it is. Consider Exodus 15:11, written by Moses, who knew God, arguably, better than any other mortal. We’re told that he and God sat and talked face to face. In this Genesis Moses writes, who is like You among the gods, O Lord? Who is likeYou, majestic in holiness, awesome in praises, working wonders?” “working wonders” is the same as “has a wild imagination.”
Now I’d like to give you two examples of what I’m talking about. My pastor’sgrandson, at about the age of six months, in a scheduled checkup by his pediatrician, it was noted that his head was larger than it should have been in comparison with the rest of his body. The child’sparents and grandparents were greatly concerned, naturally! The doctor ordered a sonogram of the boy’s head. The results did nothing to calm anyone’s anxiety. They were told that he had a build up of fluid in his brain that might require his skull being sawed into in order to install a shunt for draining the fluid. All the boy’s family prayed for him, as did our entire church, and, literally, every pastor in MACMA ( Macomb Area Ministerial Association ).
An appointment with a neurological surgeon was scheduled. When the surgeon read the sonogram he told them he disagreed with the diagnosis. “Yes,” he said, “there is an accumulation of fluid, however, it is not in the brain, but rather between the brain and the
skull, does not pose a health risk, and most certainly doesn’t call for surgery!
He did have another sonogram performed which confirmed his opinion. I’m quite sure that not any one of us praying had prayed for that exact outcome, a missed diagnosis, but, you see, God has a wild imagination!
My other example involves my having a massive stroke at the age of sixty while serving as pastor of University Baptist Church. As part of my treatment a stay in Heartland Healthcare was necessary. My wife, Nancy, and I sat in my room, one day, discussing our financial situation. She, retired, had a very nice monthly payment from TRS, I received a much smaller payment from a retirement annuity from my work before being called into the ministry in addition to a couple other sources of income, but my compensation from University Baptist, easily, made up the largest share of our income. Of course that would end until I was able to return as their pastor, if ever! We thought we could get along for awhile especially since money would be saved by my not eating at home for quite awhile, in fact, not eating anywhere, until my speech therapist had restored my ability to swallow, but money would be tight. Nancy had made application for me to receive social security disability payments which had been approved but not yet started.
Out of the blue, the church deacon chair walked into my room. He was there to tell us that the church had voted, in a specially called business meeting, to continue paying me my salary until the disability payments began, considering me on medical leave.
Before becoming the pastor, I had chaired the committee which rewrote our Constitution and Bylaws, so, I knew that nowhere in the bylaws did the term, “medical leave “ appear! Those wonderful brothers and sisters in Christ had created the term just for my situation! You may think that rather fantastic, but, you see, God has a wild imagination!
Of course, there are any number of ways God could have taken care of both situations. That’s precisely my point, God delights in doing wonders for our good and surprising us in the process! How do I know that? Psalm 46 tells me so! “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change and the mountains slip into the heart of the sea.” I’m guessing, whatever your problem, it is no worse than that, should it happen.
The verse simply means that God is interested in our problems and not one of them is too big for him, nor reason for us to fear! If you’re upset and discouraged about any matter, pray about it and don’t be too surprised how it is resolved, because God does indeed have a wild imagination! We, who are Jesus followers should be the most positive, hopeful people from the Pacific to the Atlantic and from Canada to the Rio Grande!
I say that because Jesus did! In Luke 18:1 Jesus is preaching to the people. Luke records, “Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not lose heart.” O.K. He didn’t mention the Atlantic, Pacific, Canada, nor Rio Grande, but cut me some slack ,He might well have mentioned the Red Sea, Mediterranean, Samaria, and the Jordan, but Luke and the Holy Spirit felt no need to include it.
Again I say, be praying, encouraged and anticipate surprises! God is our help in any kind of trouble!
- Phil Bell, retired pastor, University Baptist Church
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