South Africa Pilgrimage: Leaving home

I believe in an interventionist God

I am sitting in the Launceston airport departure lounge.

The fact I am sitting here feels like a bit of a miracle.

I remember a line in a Crash test Dummies song where the lead singer droned “I don’t believe in an interventionist God” in the way that only he could.

When I first heard the song I really liked the lyric.

It brought to mind images of whacky Christians with lots of make-up who pray that God would make them rich and famous.

I thought “yeah I don’t believe in an interventionist God either”.

Except that He does intervene.

Jesus was the ultimate intervention.

It doesn’t end there though: God intervenes in my life.

As I said the fact I am sitting here feels like a miracle.
Three weeks ago Fusion’s field leadership agreed that I should go to South Africa. The idea was to be with the team at the end of the pilgrimage that Fusion has been running and to both dialogue with our African executive about the future and talk with individuals about their next steps.

I could see the trip was a good idea but there was one fairly major problem. Fusion had no money in the budget for the trip, and Leeanne and I certainly couldn’t afford it.

As I prayed about it I had a clear sense that God was saying “Yes Matt you will go to South Africa but I am also going to use this as an opportunity to teach about how things really work”.

I let people know that I was probably going to South Africa and waited expectantly.

Nothing happened.

The guys asked me whether I could ask some of our friends to help pay for the trip. I really didn’t feel right about that. I sat down to write the email a number of times but just couldn’t write it with integrity.

Still Nothing happened.

Then I finally gave up and started telling people that it looks like I would be staying home. Part of me was relieved.

I went over to the Poatina Chalet motel to help with the washing up on Saturday and someone came up and asked whether I could take a phone call.

My friend Michael was on the other end of the phone asking “do you still believe it is right to go to South Africa?”. Apparently he was at a function where he just mentioned the fact that I hadn’t been able to get to South Africa in passing and someone had come up to him afterwards and offered to pay. Michael was stunned and so was I.

I know I shouldn’t be.

God seems to have found a way to provide my family’s needs every day since Leeanne and I were married in 1994.

But still….

There is an earler blog post entitled “bicycles and faith” which has a poem/story that captures my experience of trying to trust God very well.

Things never seem to work out how you think they will but somehow God seems to turn up.

I have no idea why, if God intervenes like this, he doesn’t save a child from cancer or the world from Hitler.

What I do know is that God does intervene, and while he almost never does things the way I tell him he should…… I’m glad he does.