Baby Steps; Discerning the Movement of God

At the beginning of your (Daniel) pleas for mercy, a word went out.

Daniel 9:23 ESV

Every single breath, a miracle, biochemical pathways dependent upon exact translation of amino acids from RNA, sequenced in order, folded perfectly, matched exactly to a receptor, up regulating, down regulating. Microscopic machines driven by chemistry, and ultimately tiny, tiny waves of energy. We are walking, breathing miracles, always at work, even while at rest.

Don’t believe in miracles?

Our eyes often scan the horizon of our lives watching and waiting on a miracle, fretting that the God who created us has absentmindedly left us to our own devices. Sixty-four beats per minute, my resting heart rate. Just over one heart beat per second. Every second of every day, His rhythm pushes life blood through my body, reminding me of His constant presence.

This great big God works small, moving mountains one bolder at a time. He deals in the currency of grains, seeds, streams, and clouds the size of a man’s fist. He comes not in the earthquake or the windstorm, but in the faint whispering breeze.

Have you ever wondered why He doesn’t just move big, like great big, and fix it? If He would just fix it already, the tears, the angst, illness, famine, fire, all of it. This week as I prayed my hands were more often set as fists than open, and all of the why questions rolled off my tongue. Can He not see? Can He not see what we are doing to one another? Can He not see the planet burning, or the anger stirring in the ocean? The parched earth, cracked and moaning? Does He not hear the people mourning in the streets, crushed under the rubble?

Can He not see?

But His thoughts are not my thoughts, neither are His ways my ways (Isaiah 55:8). His purpose will not be thwarted (Job 42:2), not by hate, not by ambivalence or incompetence, not by greed, not by misunderstanding, not by distraction.

Why does this steadfast God move so slowly?

• Because we move slowly, and He is patient towards His children (2 Peter 3:9).
• Because we move slowly, and He intends to include us in His work (Ephesians 2:10).
• Because we move slowly, and He intends to meet each of us where we are at (Psalm 139:8-10).
• Because we move slowly, and He intends for each of us to know Him fully (1 Corinthians 13:12).
• Because we move slowly, and He intends to complete in each of us what He started (Philippians 1:6).
• Because we move slowly, and He intends to not lose one, not one (John 6:39).

Like the quiet thumping of my heart, replenishing fuel to my body, He is moving, moving, steadily towards His end, towards His purpose. He advances in step with the obedience of men and women, children. He waits on us to ask, to see, to hear and to persevere. He waits on us to notice. He does not outpace our obedience.

The book of Daniel offers tremendous encouragement to Christ followers. As Daniel is pleading in prayer over the exiled nation of Israel, the angel Gabriel comes to him swiftly and speaks to him. “O Daniel, I have now come out to give you insight and understanding. At the beginning of your pleas for mercy a word went out, and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved” (Daniel 9:22-23 ESV).

Did you catch it? “At the beginning of your pleas for mercy a word went out“. Before you finished your prayer Daniel, there was an answer. I was sent to tell you because you, Daniel, are greatly loved.

When our hearts are breaking and we don’t understand, He hears us, whether are hands are clenched or open. He hears our why questions. He hears our prayers. He holds our answers.

When we want God to move, do what Daniel did, pray. Daniel did not write a check, or make a political commentary (although he was certainly in the position to do so). He did not take his sorrows to his neighbors as complaints. Daniel prayed.

As I watch and listen to stories coming out of Afghanistan, I hear of Christian men and women who have chosen to stay behind and live out the gospel amidst great hostility. I read the stories and see the faces of very young men and women giving their lives so that others may have life. I see US Veterans going in to get others out. I watch families sacrificing to give their children a different life in an unknown land. I see people from all walks of life asking why questions, praying and sharing hope, being brave.

Don’t believe in miracles?

Take a deep breath and pray, for you too are loved greatly.

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“God never gives us discernment in order that we may criticize, but that we may intercede.”

Oswald Chambers