I have previously mentioned that our family lived overseas for 12 years. In 2006, Melanie and I loaded up our 2 very young children and moved across the pond to another country. I was accepting a sports related job. It was a perfect match for me based on my background and general love for all things sports. We loved the country and the people and expected to live there for decades, if not the rest of our lives. However, our expectation did not become our reality. We ended up moving from there to Cyprus, after only 3 years due to some security related events. It was very difficult for us to leave, but we also knew that we couldn’t stay. On the very first day in the office with my new job, I met a man from the very country that we had just departed. In addition to the local Cypriot people, Cyprus is home to many from other nationalities.
However, I never would have dreamed to meet someone from this particular country. He wasn’t only from that same country; we lived in his city and our house was less than a mile from his family’s home. We hit it off immediately. Our families soon met one another and even though we have returned to Rankin County, MS, we have been close friends ever since. During our time in Cyprus, I was eventually brought onto the leadership of an international church there. Before moving overseas, I had served on church staffs, but had never pastored. The experience in Cyprus helped prepare me for the role I have today. I share these bits of our history to illustrate the providence of God.
In John 5:17, Jesus says: “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” God is always working in and around our lives. We may not always notice it in the moment, but when we look back on our lives, we can recognize His fingerprints all over the place. Our family grieved the move from our first country only to be welcomed to the next by a family from the very place we didn’t want to leave. You can call it coincidence if you want, but I choose to recognize this as God’s providence. He cares for us. He puts people in our lives to fill holes that the loss of others has created. He also uses our experiences to prepare us for what He has planned for us in the days ahead. Not only that, He redeems our hurts and struggles and uses them to either prepare us for something ahead or so that we can be a blessing to others that walk through similar situations that we have endured by His grace. If I had the space, I could write out stories from our history to illustrate each one of these truths.
My all-time favorite band is Caedmon’s Call. My favorite song of theirs is called “Lead of Love”. The lyrics of the chorus read like this: “Looking back, you know you had to bring me through…All that I was so afraid of…Though I questioned the sky, now I see why…Had to walk the rocks to see the mountain view…Looking back, I see the lead of love.” If you don’t know the band or the song, I encourage you to search for the song on YouTube. Regardless, this is the message. We may or may not see God’s hand at work throughout the journey of our lives, but when we look back, we see that He was leading us all the time. I encourage you to remember the different parts of your journey and look for His fingerprints. When we can recognize His work in our past, it then helps us to keep our eyes open for His work in our present and then expect Him to continue working in our future! Thank God for His Providence! He is working until now…
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