I’ve spent a fair amount of time talking about Facebook this week. It’s truly amazing to me the connections I’ve been making.
Kristen’s dad wrote a book called "Circles of Blessing" where he describes their missionary story in Indonesia, his dreams for one day reaching into Soviet Russian, and God’s annoying habit of doing amazing things because you are simply faithful to His Word and calling.
Thanks to Facebook and taking some seminary classes I’ve been able to paint a beautiful picture of something God did simply because I was faithful to His Word way back in 12th grade.
I really got on fire for the Lord in 11th grade while living in Germany. But some circumstances led to my
coming back to the U.S. and re-entering the school that I grew up going to for my senior year. That’s where the story takes some twists.
My high school was pretty typical. There were mountains of students and 90% of them were normal and out to have a good time. And, well, that’s what everyone did. Coming back to my old high school after one year meant that while I already knew everyone a lot of people didn’t know the new me. When I gave my life to Christ it was 1000%, probably even a little too much. But I knew that God had changed me and that I wanted to live for Him no matter what and that meant that I was going to literally obey God’s Word. (Even though I was pretty bad at sharing my faith.)
Anyway, during my senior year I went out with a girl pretty briefly… about two weeks or so. I liked her, she was super fun to be around, had a great smile, and was really smart. (Way smarter than me!) About 2 weeks into the relationship both of us just sensed that it wasn’t to be. We had some pretty serious conversations about Jesus and it was clear to me that she wasn’t a believer… and while I didn’t know much about the Bible I knew that God only wanted his children to date other Christians. So the relationship ended. Because it wasn’t a long relationship, I don’t think either of us were really hurt by it terribly. Just the normal awkwardness of a break up. Within a few months we "sort of" resumed being friends and pretty shortly my high school career ended and that was that.
Flash-forward about a year. I went back home from college to visit some people, go to a basketball game, and see family. And this former girlfriend makes a point to come and speak to me while we’re at the basketball game. Basically, she told me that when we went out I had said some things that got her thinking and within that last year she had started attending Younglife, given her life to the Lord, and was doing great. That was amazing news!
Flash-forward about 8 years. I’m in a seminary class with a guy who is a youth pastor in my hometown. In fact, his primary high school is my old high school. And in the course of the class he starts to tell this story about how a ton of students gave their lives to the Lord and a lot of cool stuff started happening at that school. I thought, "Wow, that’s awesome!" and during a break I went and talked to him about it. Well, when you track down the timeline it becomes apparent that the girl who I had broken up with, basically because she wasn’t a Christian, had played a big part in a lot of other people finding Jesus. See… in this God-sized drama I had a part to play. And the tiny part I played was finding out that the girlfriend wasn’t a Christian and eventually breaking up with her. (More reasons than solely that!)
What does Facebook have to do with this exactly? Well… now, all of a sudden, all of the parties are now reconnecting. Amazing stuff God is doing. That word seems really "shy" of what is really going on.
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