On paper, today will go down as an ordinary day in my life—day #19,419 to be exact. I ate three meals, did routine work with some friends at a Bible camp, played with a dog, worked on a book, went for a walk, and attended an evening Bible study. But as I sit here just past midnight and reflect on the day gone by, I believe God had a couple of specific messages for me. He sent those messages—those reminders—via three friends and fellow Sojourners. Those messages, if I take them to heart, can make today not ordinary but extraordinary.
The first message came from Dale Morris, a man who I have grown to love and respect through our work together as Sojourners. Dale did our morning devotional and talked about how the existence of God can be seen in the natural world around us. Actually, he did more than talk. Dale was pretty fired up and it wasn’t just because of the warm cinnamon rolls. He talked about a National Geographic program he had seen that featured a stunningly beautiful jellyfish, spotted 4000 feet beneath the ocean surface off the coast of Baja California.
As Dale put it, “The thing was incredible, I mean it was beautiful, and it was dancing! Ya gotta see it! (I did, and included a link below) I mean, why is this gorgeous and intricately detailed creature dancing at 4000 feet deep? I’ll tell you why. Because God made it! And we serve an awesome, creative God!”
Dale was just getting started. His next stop took us to a giraffe exhibit at a zoo where he had taken his grandchildren. Dale talked excitedly as he described one particular feature of the giraffe—its black tongue. “You know why it’s black? I’ll tell you why. Because giraffes spend much of their waking hours with their tongues out, trying to reach leaves at the top of trees. Those tongues are highly susceptible to sunburn. So, God designed the giraffe with a black tongue to protect it from ultraviolet rays! Ya gotta see it! What an awesome God we serve!” Dale was fired up…and that got me fired up…at least enough to pen this blog.
After a few more examples, Dale concluded with God’s most significant creation—mankind. When God made man, he was at the top of his game, and made us in his own image. Among other things, that means he instilled in us a tiny fraction of his creativity. To make his point, Dale pointed to Denton Wiggains, another Sojourner friend of mine.
Among many great qualities, Denton is a creative problem-solver. Years of solving problems on the farm, at church camps, and elsewhere have given him a knack for looking at problems in unconventional ways. Case in point: Denton was asked to take the lead on a bathroom repair project here at Carolina Bible Camp that was supposed to take a couple of weeks and cost several thousand dollars. Denton studied the situation for several minutes and came up with and implemented a brilliant, creative solution that took him two hours and zero dollars.
How was Denton able to pull that off? I’ll let Dale answer: “Because our creative God made him that way! And you know something else about Denton? No one gets more excited about completing a project than Denton does. He emerges from cold, dark, damp, dirty places with a smile from ear to ear because he knows God just helped him figure something out!” Denton’s joyful attitude reflects the God who created him. It’s also contagious…but will I catch it?
In addition to learning about joy and God’s creativity from Dale and Denton, I learned a third lesson from Bob Jarvis, another Sojourner friend who made a comment in class tonight. We were discussing how heaven is the ultimate, final blessing for Christians, but we experience many blessings even while we’re still on this earth. Yes, there are hard times—trials and suffering—but also many good things that should bring us joy.
Bob chimed in and said that “eternal life” is not something that will begin when we die. It’s something that already began when we began our new life as a Christian. For Christians, you might say eternal life is already underway. I had never thought of it that way. In John 10:10, Jesus said, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” While our ultimate home in heaven will be the final, complete, and perfect manifestation of that abundance, we also experience it on this side of eternity. We experience God’s peace, provision, and purpose for our lives, and that should give us joy.
Just like the giraffe tongue, it might even get Dale fired up.
