What is God up to?

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/090116.cfm

1 Corinthians 3:18-23
Luke 5:1-11

When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said,
“Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”
For astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized him
and all those with him,
and likewise James and John, the sons of Zebedee,
who were partners of Simon.

                  Luke 5:8-9

As the days fly by, our hearts and heads clash over what the heck God is doing with us. Our boats full of fish either astonish us or confuse us; or they don’t make any sense at all. It can’t be just me who feels this. 

At one moment I feel the calm of the view out my car window, the mountains basking in the sun, like a giant lizard or a lazy, hairy bear. Just depends upon the look of it. Birds, grouped and alone, zip by, organized chaos amidst the beauty as I float along the surface of the highway. I am gracious and thankful for where I live, surrounded by post card pictures wherever I go. 

Then, in the next moment I find that I’ve drifted into to the right lane, awakened by a car horn. I barely miss a 45 mile per hour door-to-door clang with an irate man in a pickup, madly pounding out honks on his steering wheel, mouthing at me what appear to be harsh expletives, something akin to the conclusion that I shouldn’t be allowed to drive. His eyeballs are huge.

Deep into that blue mesmerizing sky, God juggles the majestic routes of the innumerable stars, avoiding almost all near misses of each of the circling planets. The interplay of spinning balls and cascading asteroids defy computation. He adeptly monitors the stretch of gravity and light as the horizon changes dramatically from one galaxy to another, fireworks frozen in a slowly expanding reach. 

He does all this, while he miraculously startles my idle gaze at the galaxies beyond a couple of mountainous bumps on a tiny patch of my travel on one small human planet in order to continue the life of me, an insignificant pondering man, and a potential innocent victim driving to my right. He adjusts the destiny of two lives with the alarming trumpet of a car horn, searing the image of a wide-eyed fearful fellow into my driver’s memory, surely to protect more humanity in the future from my lazy gaze at his beautiful creation. 

We Christ followers do not see coincidences anymore. We see the hand of God and hear his voice. Everything reflects God’s fingerprints, nudges, and presence to us.

But, as we interpret the more obvious cushions of God herding us along as he pays attention to our lives, working everything to his own glory, we cannot fully know what God is up to, because death and destruction still run rampant. 

Just 24 miles away from my unacceptable attention to details an accident took place that ended the life of a pedestrian, and ruined the unfortunate driver’s sense of fairness and culpability as he knew it up to that point. While my driving memory will be altered by what could have happened, I am allowed to continue driving with a particular caution added to my itinerary. The driver who suffered a fatal result will replay an ongoing nightmare, in both the light and darkness, inside and away from his car. His future itineraries will be shrouded in fear. 

Scientists have discovered disturbing destructions of entire solar systems in the skies. Giant black holes swallow entire suns and their planets, wiping out unknown worlds that God had created a billion years ago and nourished with his Spirit.

And yet, God is always in both places. Where the irate man survives and the pedestrian dies. Where the galaxies reside and flourish, and where the black holes steal them away. This dichotomy of life and death never stops.

At our Wednesday meeting this past week, we gratefully welcomed the return of a recovering friend, Bob, from a fall that left him bruised and broken. We gingerly touched his sore body in relief that he was back with us. Mary, his wife, delivered him to us so that we could see him. She was all smiles. And then we hear that very same night of the sudden death of Roger, a dear and loyal friend to all of us. We didn’t have the chance to tell him we loved him, to thank him for his friendship, before he left us. Our hearts tighten knowing that Carol, his wife, has lost her beloved. We are overwhelmed.

The cycles of wonder and shock, joy and sadness, never cease. We drop to our knees regardless of the situation, because our Christ centered view of life constantly reveals that God isn’t just near. God is somehow able to be personally infused into everything, both pain and relief. He winds them together, relentlessly eager to show us he has the power and authority to work everything to some good.

And, standing in our unimaginable boat full of fish, our doubts of his love and abilities erased, we face great embarrassment. We threw our nets into empty waters, with arrogant flair. God is out of his depth, we said out loud. “Look,” we pointed out to him. There are no fish. Our friends are broken and die. 

Now on stage in front of all of our friends, God heals one friend and takes another to his side. We can’t quite see it, though. We are hip high in the harvest of holiness, and yet we can’t imagine why God would now have anything to do with us. What would he want with such hardened skeptics? He has an awesome universe to attend to. People of high bearing, unbelievable courage, deep faith, and much more worthy needs deserve his attention. 

Then the dichotomies remind us that everything and everyone matters. His healing will never stop. His gathering of followers will fill heaven. The boats of fish will keep coming, and he will use that to tell us something new about what he wants to do with us.

We may not feel worthy, or up to the task. But God will not depart from us.