I had just finished speaking with a good friend of mine on the phone. She’s one of the saintliest persons I have ever known. Her life journey has been touching – she’s been raped, robbed and duped. She’s survived the religious violence in Northern Nigeria. During our conversation, a part of her was asking – how does this all add up in God’s story for me?
I bet you have asked the same question at some point in your life. I have asked those questions. It doesn’t get easier when it seems like God is not answering the questions either. When God offends my expectations, my heart reveals what it thinks about God.
How many of you have been in one of those discussions about what you needed to do to let people know that a Christian was working in a particular office? Well, one of the strategies that used to come up was creating a sort of church-in-the-office time where we would sing, pray and study scriptures together.
Actually, at my first job I even contemplated starting one of those office fellowships. The truth is that they are nice and they help us as Christians to create a comfortable environment that we can control. My only concern is whether that should be our aim for living out our call at work.
The workplace is meant to be one of the zone where we meet the needy world in their space. The biggest beneficiaries of workplace fellowship times are mostly Christians not the people who really need our message.
When I was starting up as a Christian, I used to hear sermons asking us to pray for God’s perfect will and not to live God’s permissible will. It really put the fear of God in me not to “miss it”. It used to seem like I could be living my life thinking that I was living God’s best and poof! I find out that I am on the wrong side of the road.
For example, you need to find out if it is God’s will for you to study that course or else you could spend your life working in the job God didn’t want. I bet you know this one – you could marry the wrong woman and spend your life wondering “what could have been?”.
A friend of mine got me a free VIP ticket to watch the first match of the 2016/2017 season for the Barcelona football team. I like football but I am not one of those fans of the club (that sounds like blasphemy to some people right?). Really I am not a fan of any club. I see myself as the sophisticated football connoisseur who sorts though different delectable offerings from the football buffet (all this talk over football).
For my American friends, I am not talking about that football (with pads and all); you probably know this game more as soccer. So now that we have all this out of the way, let me continue with my tale.
I met an older man this week with an interesting story. He was originally from Iran and has lived in Spain for the past 11 years. I am not sure “living” is probably the best way to describe the past 11 years for years for him.