Friday, November 30, 2007

Divine Intervention

I remember being in a high school composition class and writing a story where I hadn't really thought out the end from the beginning of my writing. I had my main character in an entirely unsalvageable spot--I don't remember what, probably hanging from a branch on a cliff or something of the sort. Since I had not thought out the solution ahead of time, I was stumped. My solution finally was that the character was dreaming and woke up in bed, safe and sound.
My teacher was disgusted. He said something to the effect of, "This is a writing practice that is called 'divine intervention'--a solution so unrealistic, contrived or disappointing that the reader is let down and the power of your writing is lost." It was true. I knew that the solution was very anticlimactic.
Still, it reminds me that in the reality of my life, divine intervention has been anything but disappointing and anticlimactic. God has reached down out of time and space, from the realms of glory, snatched me out of my impossible situation and set me on a rock. Divine intervention has been so amazing, so out of the expected and believable that the unbelievers around me can't object that God really has responded to me in such a way; they can't claim that I am no different than what I was before--so they either have to reject me or accept God. Unfortunately most reject me, but it is Jesus Christ who they reject ultimately.
I remember my brother-in-law giving us tickets for my birthday to see him and his singing group perform down in Lynnwood. We went, and among the songs they sang complete with smiles on their faces was one called, "It Ain't Necessarily So." This song discredited the stories of the Bible, such as Noah and the ark, and Jonah and the whale. How can an unbeliever believe such amazing stories? They're amazing because God has suspended the usual order of the universe in order to perform His will in His power. It isn't something that most people have observed, or if they have they may have explained it away rather than attribute it to God. I remember telling him that the ramifications of that song are enormous--it makes God out to be a liar; if it weren't so then nothing in the Bible is believable and all humanity is hopeless. My protests fell on deaf ears, nay, dead ears; he doesn't have any problem considering God a liar and humanity hopeless--it's his deplorable condition; he hasn't received God's grace, yet.
Until a person experiences it for himself, I can see that God's grace and mercy in a person's life falls into the same category as the miracles in the Bible. People who have never seen God act thus tend to explain the miracles away in scientific terms until there is nothing really out of the ordinary in them after all; and yet, sometimes the changed person is the best argument for God's truth that exists. How does a person change his ways? How does the addict become free, the angry, violent person become gentle, the whining complainer become joyful? God can make it happen, and He does. The unbeliever can't deny it, and so he has two choices: he either responds to God or rejects the Christian. It's his choice, but the choice is clear and the benefit is as visible as the changes he observes in the Christian.
I thank God for His intervention in my life. It is hardly disappointing, and I didn't do anything to deserve it. It was bestowed on me for reasons that I can't fully understand, out of His lovingkindness, and I would never go back to my impossible situation. His intervention is available to everyone who will accept it; there is no better option than to accept what He so willingly bestows. "Praise be to God for His indescribable gift!"

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