Nate attends a weekly support group. Just the weekend prior he was so elated that his dad, visiting from out-of-state, joined him in that session.
“God is really working. I just keep praying and believing,” he accented.
Nate is my neighbor. We laugh together. We pray together. We read the Bible together. And so when he shares his support group spiritual experiences, it’s a real treat.
“I had a chance to tell them that morning how God had worked amazingly in my life just the Friday before,” his father said to me. “I had been faced with an unbelievable crisisa really complicated one. I could not figure out any solution at all. But God did the figuring for me. I simply had to keep the faith. With that, He led me through the maze. Now of course that was exciting enough in itself. But then to tell friends about it was truly something else. I was psyched!”
I looked at this jubilant friend of mine, taking him to heart. Joy shared is always joy expanded. That’s the way it works. So Nate relating to me his spillover of God’s blessing was a perfect closing to my own day. After all, Nate – faced with a nasty situation – could have relapsed into past destructive patterns. But instead he persevered forward in faith.
“I noticed that one of the fellows in the group did not say a word at first,” Nate elaborated. “Later I was told by those who came with him that they had never heard him share anything. He barely talkedever. But near the end of that hour, he spoke up. He told us some of the heavy burdens on his soul. In fact he went on and on. It was a unique moment.
“I followed his remarks by saying, ‘I sense God at work among us in a special way today.’ He had guided me through some terribly difficult hours just before the meeting. And now he was directing others, especially this one man, into divine peace and wisdom. There aren’t too many meetings as strengthening as that one. But it can happen. I know. I have been going to enough of them to know.”
Other believers were listening in to Nate’s detail that Sunday evening. Throughout, not a sound. We were all caught up in our practical God who – though invisible – evidences Himself in the visible.
“So what did you do when you left that meeting?” I asked.
“I phoned my believing parents to tell them what had happened. They too were genuinely thankful to God.”
With that, we clustered around one another in prayer. It was a quiet, meaningful moment. Each of us brought our hearts before the Lord in appreciation for His kindnesses.
One of the Christian community’s strengths is sharing “God-sightings.” This is speaking what we sense to be divine moves in our everydays. It is applied faith – theology in the practical. The Bible is full of such tellings. Therefore, when a gathering is given over to such soul bonding, the result is increased hope and praise. It is a reviving to enrich the spirit for a more Christ-like witness.
As my friends left that evening to return to their homes, I thought to myself: “Now that is Maine’s Lakes religion at its best.”
And so it is.
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