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GoodNewsFL.org
August 2017 13
PERSPECTIVE
When God Shows Off
The idea birthed from a con-
versation Lisa and I had about
what we could do for our kids at
Christmas. Our family continues
to grow with two sons-in-law, one
daughter-in-law, three grandchil-
dren and the random foster child
here or there. Lisa thought laser
tag in the front yard would be
great fun…seriously laser tag in
the front yard? I then suggested
something a little more primitive,
something so not us, something
that would scream, “out of my
comfort zone, nobody loves me.”
Camping!
Camping
The family, ours that is, does
not have any experience in camp-
ing, no equipment, no fond mem-
ories, no technique, no folk sing-
ing skills, (unless karaoke counts),
limited grilling skills and frankly
absolutely no desire. However,
we dove right in. Air mattresses
wrapped under the tree was the
first indication that we had defi-
nitely hit a new low of expressing
our deep and sincere love to this
growing family of ours. The reac-
tions were polite, initially: “wow,
thank you”, “this will be fun”, “all
of us together?” Then the veiled
complaints started to roll in, pri-
marily in the form of questions:
“what if it rains”, “where are we go-
ing to sleep”, “I think I have a con-
ference call that day”, “the kids will
get lost” etc. However, we forged
ahead.
The day of camping came
(only one night that is), and we
did execute the adventure quite
well for a bunch of camping rook-
ies. We packed too many clothes,
had just enough food, didn’t have
a good knife, almost ran out of
charcoal, had plenty of marshmal-
lows, never opened the peanuts,
and told a spooky story about
Old Man River before bedtime
(grandchildren haven’t slept since
and will wear diapers for another
year). We then slowly drifted off
to our tents for an apprehensive
night of sleep. We were all won-
dering just how we would do.
The quiet and protected thoughts
ranged from concern about the
temperature, bug bites, slithery
snakes, creepy gators, our sleep-
ing comfort, using the bathroom
in the middle of the night and
then, always, the omnipresent,
though occasional roaming serial
killer (the zipper on the tent only
prematurely awakens you to the
horror).
Night skies
Sometime in the pre-dawn
hours I remember sensing a flash
of light in and around me. I slowly
opened my eyes to have a beau-
tiful view of the night sky and its
horizon. My attention was drawn
to several very large thunder-
clouds in the distance and in to-
tal silence they would randomly
glow, a glow that was generated
by these beautiful flashes of light-
ning…no sound, just flashes of
light. These large clouds simply
would glow like huge Chinese
lanterns. I leaned over and tapped
Lisa and nudged her to wake and
watch this beautiful site, not sure
she had the same appreciation,
but I did want to share this experi-
ence, part of loving someone.
I simply watched for a few
moments until my eyes got heavy
again and fell back to my camp-
ing sleep. I thought to myself as I
was falling asleep that God simply
woke me up to show off. Seriously,
God was having fun, playing with
His creation and waking me up
was just fine with Him. Honestly,
most of the entire city was asleep
in their comfortable beds and
rooms with roofs over their heads
with no opportunity to see what
God was doing in His night sky
canvas. God didn’t care, this was
His “me” time. God simply decid-
ed to share His fun and tapped
me on the shoulder, saying, “Hey,
watch this, and this, and this….
pretty cool right?” My response,
“Oh yea God, very, very cool,
thanks for showing off.” I slowly
drifted back to sleep feeling quite
special that God would wake me
up to show me something He was
doing.
His workmanship
I do realize, especially when
I choose to slow down a bit, that
God seems to show off a lot, and
He loves us so much that He too
wants to wake us up and share
the experience. Sometimes we
simply don’t wake up and see it.
Thank you, God, for being a show
off; your creation is a great display
of that, and we are still gazing at
it with amazement and doing ev-
erything we can to even reach it.
Thank you for showing us how
babies are formed, how flowers
blossom, how birds fly, how a tune
gets stuck in my head, how to
laugh out loud (and quietly), how
to cry, even when I’mnot sad, how
to say sorry when I thought I was
so right, how to mourn a life by
celebrating it, how to plan all the
while knowing we have no idea,
how to rejoice rather than wor-
ry, and eventually getting closer
to understanding that your life,
dear Jesus, on earth was the ul-
timate showing off…the life, the
cross, the burial the resurrection,
the great charge…all of it. God,
you loved me so much you had to
show off to all of creation. Thank
you.
- Stephan N Tchividjian -
National Christian
Foundation President