A MAZE OF GRACE
oh my, these past few days have been a flurry of activity! writing it all out is such a daunting task, but i will do it because i need to write it down. a testament of God’s grace, if you will.
on friday night, we held a joint fellowship event at the ROM between NTCBC’s Josiah and RHCBC’s SALT fellowships. jon came up with the idea back in may and we decided it might be a neat adventure to undertake, so we did. and how it grew! originally, i thought we’d just gather some interesting tidbits or artifacts for people to go around finding. it would be a scavenger hunt for our fellowships, a time where teammates could get to know each other. but as things progressed, it started taking the shape of several short talks around the museum. vicky signed on and a short time later, lillian decided to join us as well. jon wanted to talk about ICTHYS, the Jesus fish (or, more correctly, the Jesus, Son of God, Saviour fish). vicky was interested in some of the artwork at the Images of Salvation exhibit. and lillian wanted to talk about the ancient text scrolls.
less than two weeks before the event, i still had no clue what i would be talking about. i’d been to the museum countless times, but nothing jumped out at me. hoping jon could help me decide on a topic, we wandered around the exhibits for a while. he asked me if anything caught my attention at all and i said, “well, there’s this wall that’s built by nebuchadnezzar…” so we went and stood there, staring at it for a while. then, we noticed that there was a huge map of the mesopotamian region right next to the wall. intrigued by the history, i took out my study bible to find out more about this king and his contemporaries (i knew from before that daniel was in the picture somehow). as i flipped the pages, my bible opened to a page in 2 Samuel of a map of the Conquests of King Nebuchadnezzar; pretty much the exact map that was posted! i knew then that this was my subject. there was no question about it.
honestly, i’d never had so much fun and excitement in researching a subject than when i went digging for this talk. every new fact shed a light on the subject. the ultimate moment came when i was sitting on my bed at home, reading jeremiah when i came across chapter 29, verse 11. i had known the verse well from numerous occasions of quoting it, but this time, i understood it in an entirely new way when i finally read it in context. i’ll post my findings in another article for those who are interested. :>
so thursday night rolled around and we met at vicky’s house to finalize everything and put the booklet together. it was the first time all of us could meet together since debarking on this project. it was also the first time i got to meet lillian! everything fell into place that night. we all knew the spirit of God was very present with us. after listening to each other share what we learned, we saw a common thread in each of our talks: God uses all sorts of people. from nebuchadnezzar, to constantine, to ishmael and issac, to various artists, God’s purpose was achieved through their lives. God uses odd people! how comforting. ‘cuz it meant that God could use us, too! the booklet came together so easily and after we’d finished lil’s page, jon and i discovered several small “coincidences” that blew us away: the text matched the picture of hagar and ishmael that it was sitting on (ie, the word “shoulder” was on hagar’s shoulder, the words, “i cannot watch my boy die” were on ishmael). the four of us also had an awesome time of prayer just praising God for his work in history and in our lives. we left vicky’s house late that night, tired, but excited about what the next day would bring.
i spent most of my day on friday making all the booklets and remembering everyone in prayer. when i got to the ROM at 5:30, my heart started going crazy. seeing all the people milling about suddenly made me so nervous! i kept saying silent prayers asking God to calm me down. jon and i went to each spot where talks were going to be held and we prayed over them. but even after praying, i still felt uneasy. i needed peace and all i had was a noisy brain on overdrive. :T i think we all needed peace at that moment. we needed to heed the words of psalm 46:10 “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” after taking care of some other details, i retreated to philosopher’s walk for several minutes alone with God. in the silence, He reminded me of why i was there, to give Him glory and to serve the people who were coming. after that, i felt grounded again. i knew it would be all God or nothing.
by the time it was 7:30, we had a sizeable group and jon and i started our talks. i was still nervous so i kind of pity those who were at my first talk. :p time flew by and soon i was giving my second talk. this one went much better, despite the fact that bigjon was taping me! then it was time to head down to the vatican exhibit. personally, i’m not too fond of renaissance or baroque style art. i found too many of the paintings looked too ethereal and not down to earth enough. many of them were not true to biblical text either. but even so, i appreciated the expositions from vicky and jon. as we were leaving the ROM to go for dinner, someone pointed out that the byzantine dome at the entrance of the museum had the words, “that all men may know His works.” that summed up our whole evening perfectly. God was in the ROM and we had experienced it.
“I think God took the little bit of trust we gave him, and opened the floodgates wider than we’d hoped.”
that’s exactly it, jon. exactly.
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”
Ephesians 3:20-21