What We Do Not See

When I was in fifth grade, my mom sent me to Sunday School.

I loved it. I’ve always craved learning. Cassie calls me a career student and she wouldn’t be wrong. It’s in my bones. So, when the opportunity came for me to learn about God and Jesus and Heaven, I jumped at the chance. Even though it meant getting up early and not watching cartoons. Mrs. Shimazki told my mom about it. She and my mom were friends, and she told my mom that every Sunday, she took her kids to Anaheim Free Methodist Church and while they were there, her and a bunch of other moms would go and have a nice brunch together so my mom joined in the fun. But I loved it. It was the first time I really studied my Bible, and it left me with a ton of questions.  I would memorize my Bible verses each week and get a stamp on the wall.  And that was quite the incentive. More than just learning more about God, the deal was if you got fifty stamps on the wall, you got to go to Disneyland for free.  I mean what kid wouldn’t want THAT? After a while, my mom got a little worried I was spending too much time with my Bible, and we stopped going to church.

Flash forward and I’m in college.

I had a crush on a girl named Lisa. She was the first girl I ever took home to meet my parents. It was Easter and that year our big family get-together was at our house, so I invited her. At the time we were just friends, but I had high hopes. She asked if we could go to church before going to see my folks and of course I said “Yes.” What else was I going to say? A few of us went together and sat in the balcony. I’d never been to a church with a balcony.  Felt fancy.  When the plate was passed, I only had few dollars on me but still put a couple in as it passed by and felt pretty good about that. We went to my parents’ house for Easter and then headed back to school.  I never went back to that church, but I remember it was United Methodist.

A few years later and I’m working at Disneyland with my buddies Mark and Steve.

Both of them invite me to church. Both are Catholic. And one of them tells me it’s a great way to meet girls. I figured why not? I’m still curious about God and who knows? Maybe I meet my future wife there.  I go with them semi-regularly when they ask and if I don’t have something else on my schedule. It’s not a high priority, but there are a lot of girls there.  Not that I ever went out with any of them.  Still, I’m learning more about God and about faith and it feels good to go. I give when I can.  Not much.  I’m just out of college and still trying to figure what my next steps will be in life. But the Catholic church just wasn’t for me.

I was every church’s nightmare. Until I wasn’t.

I sat in the pews. I didn’t join the church. Although I thought I was giving a lot considering everything, I really wasn’t. I wasn’t a regular. I wasn’t “growing in my discipleship.” I was a drain on church resources. At least I’m sure that’s what some people thought. It is not always easy to be faithful to God. Our culture teaches us to look for quick returns and easy rewards, but God plays the long game. Like it says in Peter’s second letter to the church, “…do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:8-9).”  When we invest our time, energy, effort, and resources into something, we expect to see it pay off right away.  If it doesn’t, we are prone to think of our efforts as a failure. But more often than not, we are just part of a much bigger picture. God is asking us to trust in the process. Something bigger is at work. 

That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the lake. ² Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat in it, while all the people stood on the shore. ³ Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. ⁴ As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. ⁵ Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. ⁶ But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. ⁷ Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. ⁸ Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. ⁹ Whoever has ears, let them hear.” – Matthew 13:1-9

Our vision is too narrow. Our scope too small.

We often can’t see beyond the moment and that blinds us to the work God is doing. But just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. Let’s take the seed example. Have you ever been to the redwood forests along the coast of California? To stand in the midst of those trees is like watching nature reach up to Heaven. It’s pretty incredible. It’s even more incredible when you realize every single one of those trees started as a tiny little seed. Through decades, centuries, and – in the case of a select few – millennia they grew to be the trees we now see and enjoy. On a trip we took as a family up the coast, we even drove through the trunk of a tree! It had grown so big that a car could pass through it and still be strong enough to support the weight of the tree. That was incredible. But to get to that point takes longer than any of us will live. Even if we are faithful to the process of growing these trees, we will never see them reach their full potential. That’s alright. Our role is not to see it to the end. Our role is to be faithful to the process and leave the rest up to God.

It reminds me of a true story we heard at a pastor’s retreat from Steve Sjogren.

Steve was the pastor of a church in Cincinnati and they were doing gift wrapping at a local bookstore during the Christmas season. They would go to local businesses and offer to wrap gifts for free.  And they did a great job.  Not just cheap paper and cheap bows, but they used the “good stuff.” This one girl, who was dressed up in dark clothes and dark make-up and looked like she was part of a traveling Goth band, came up to Steve and asked him to wrap something inappropriate. She did it to mess with the church people, but instead of making a face, instead of looking at her in judgment, he simply asked how she would like him to wrap it and he did.  When he was done, he handed it back to her with a little card they gave to everyone that simply said, “Showing God’s love in a practical way” and on the back it had their church contact information and worship times.  Something made her ask the question, what kind of people would do this for me?  Why would they give up their time and effort and money for me?  She put that card on her mirror in the bathroom and kept looking at it repeatedly.  Finally, she felt compelled to find out more about what it means to be Christian and accepted the invitation of one of her friends who had been asking her to come to her small group Bible study for a long time.  She found this group of people to have something she didn’t have – a quiet peace that pervaded their lives.  And she started coming more often and soon became a regular attendee.  Eventually, she started to go to church with them and found the message touched her in a special way and finally she decided to get baptized and give her life to Christ.  She didn’t know what church her friend belonged to, but it turns out it was Steve’s church and when she got baptized, she went up to him, a completely different person with a whole new look and showed him the card and told him that one act changed her whole life.  You just never know how God will work. Often, we don’t see the fruit of our efforts, but sometimes we are blessed to see something come full circle.

Over the next few weeks, we will be stuffing over 3,000 eggs.

Think of each egg as a seed.  The seed of an idea. An example of our generosity and love for people we don’t even know. Will it sprout?  We can hope, but likely we’ll never find out. The true testament of whether or not our Easter Egg Hunt “works” won’t be attendance on Easter Sunday. It will be far down the line when each tiny step in the process leads some child of today to know and love Jesus.  In the meantime, I am confident that our faithfulness to the process bears fruit in other ways. Our community comes to know us as a place that cares. They see us as generous people who share their gifts with our neighbors. And slowly but surely if we stay faithful to the process, people will want to be part of what we are doing. When will it happen?  In God’s time, not ours.

Each of those churches I visited growing up might have thought I was a waste of time.

Certainly, their outreach efforts didn’t pay dividends for them individually. But look how it turned out. Eventually, I met Cassie who also invited me to church and this time it stuck. We became members. We gave regularly. We joined a Sunday School class. I became baptized. And eventually was called by God to become a pastor of a church. Sometimes our efforts to reach others for Jesus might seem like a waste, but I hope you have eyes to see and ears to hear.  Have you heard the story of the three bricklayers?[1]  A man was walking by a building project and wondered what was happening.  He asked each of the three workers he passed the same question, “What are you doing?”  The first person replied, “I’m laying bricks.”  The second replied, “I’m building a wall.” But the third replied, “I’m creating a cathedral!”  Let us be like the third bricklayer and see beyond the individual tasks we are doing and instead have faith that we are part of a larger story, one we may not see to completion, but know in our hearts that God is doing something in us and through us to change the world. 

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[1] For more of the Three Bricklayers Story and its origins, read about it on the sketchplantations website.