This Is Not The End

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are a reflection on Sunday’s message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/hear-a-message]

We’ve all had situations that turned out differently than we thought they would. Maybe we got stuck, perhaps in a physical sense (snow bank, anyone?), or maybe a metaphorical sense, in a bad job or relationship. Maybe we made a wrong choice, and ended up where we knew we shouldn’t have gone. Or maybe circumstances beyond our control got us to a point where we never thought we’d be, desperate and looking for something, anything, to save us.

In Judges 4, Barak and the Israelite army went to battle against the Canaanite army, which was commanded by Sisera. The prophetess Deborah had warned Barak that the glory would not go to him, but that the Lord would deliver Sisera into the hands of a woman. Yet as the Israelites defeated the Cannanites, Sisera ran away. When Barak realized what happened, he was probably confused. After all, God had promised they would defeat Sisera—or, more accurately, that a woman would. With Sisera gone, how was that possible?  


As I listened to KJ’s sermon on Sunday, the lyrics of Gungor’s song “This is Not the End” sprang to mind. It goes like this:

This is not the end
This is not the end of this
We will open our eyes wide, wider

This is not our last
This is not our last breath
We will open our mouths wide, wider

And you know you’ll be alright
Oh and you know you’ll be alright

This is not the end
This is not the end of us
We will shine like the stars bright, brighter


So though Barak was likely confused, frustrated, and angry that Sisera had gotten away, it was not the end of the story.

Enter Jael, a woman who wasn’t even an Israelite. She welcomed Sisera into her tent…and then proceeded to drive a tent peg through his head. It’s one of the more gruesome stories we read in the Bible, and definitely not one that gets featured in many children’s storybooks. Yet this shocking act, performed by a woman who wasn’t a member of God’s chosen people, was the way God chose to accomplish his plan. It’s an unexpected plot twist that Barak could not have seen coming. When he may have thought the story was over, God had something else in mind.

I don’t know what your story is right now. Maybe it feels like the end, and you’re starting to despair. Maybe you’re in a messy middle, and you don’t see how God could possibly pull you through. Maybe you don’t even know what story you’re supposed to be in, and you’re trying to find it. Whatever your story looks like right now, it is not the end. We have a God of unexpected plot twists, who knows just what we need and gives it to us at exactly the right time—even if it sometimes feels like he’s acting too early, too little, or too late. 

I hope the words of this song play on repeat throughout your week, month, and year for whenever you need the reminder most:  This is not the end.

[Brianna DeWitt attends Encounter Church and lives, works, and writes in Grand Rapids, MI. You can see more of her musings on her personal blog at http://awritespot.wordpress.com and on Twitter at @bwitt722.]

Mind the Gap

So I was reading about bridges earlier today, which might sound a little strange, but as you can probably imagine, bridges are pretty interesting. For example, did you know that the oldest standing bridge in the world was constructed in 605 AD in China? It’s an arched stone bridge that is still used today. And did you know that most bridges are designed using complex equations that have to do with compression and tension? Imagine taking a pink eraser and placing it between your thumb and first finger. Squeeze your thumb and first finger together gently. The eraser will flex downward into a “U” shape. This is the same shape that bridges will make when a car drives across the top of the bridge; the upper side of the bridge is compressed while underneath, the bridge is under tension.

So why was I reading about bridges? Well, when Dirk writes sermons he always collects about a million factoids about the text and culture. And then he has time to share a tiny bit of his reading with us during a sermon, and the rest gets packed away for another day. Dirk will sometimes share these factoids with me throughout the week, and recently he mentioned that some theologians and historians speculate that God chose the land of Israel to be “his” land because it connected two important continents during the earliest days: Africa and Asia. So by claiming that central land, God was able to reach the most people with his message of grace. Eventually, as we heard on Sunday, the people stop listening to God and they stop sharing his grace with others, and they are taken into captivity for 70 years in Babylonia under Nebuchadnezzar. After Nebuchadnezzar’s death, the Babylonian Empire, once the greatest empire in the world, falls into decline. The Medes and the Persians conquer the Babylonians, and while the Israelites have more than 400 years of foreign rule ahead of them, King Cyrus of Persia does allow the Israelites to rebuild the temple that Nebuchadnezzar destroyed.

Typically, when one culture invaded and took over another, the defeated culture would be totally destroyed. And the Babylonians destroyed culture better than any other army. By the time the Persian king Cyrus allows Zerubbabel to lead the Israelites back to Jerusalem, only a remnant of Israel desired to go. The rest had turned away from God. The homogenization of all peoples from Babylonian to Persian to Greek and eventually to Roman is so complete that by the time Jesus is born, the entire world, it seems, is Roman. One language, one emperor, one culture. Many scholars believe that just as God chose the land of Israel because it served as a “bridge” between two continents, God sent Jesus at just the right time because the people needed a permanent bridge between heaven and earth. In only 70 years of Babylonian exile, many Israelites turned away from God to a pagan religion. After several hundred more years, the world was more uniformly pagan than ever before. Rome was everything, and Roman gods were everything to those who lived in Rome. Many generations would pass before Constantine would convert to Christianity in the early 300s AD and in the meantime the Romans continued to perform horrific feats to please their many gods. If ever there was a time for a savior and for grace, this was it.

So Christ enters the Roman world with a message of grace and love. He bridges the gap between depravity and holiness and brings the possibility of hope to a desperate world. And then, after a brief ministry, he leaves his disciples with instructions to do exactly that: to bring the possibility of hope to a desperate world. The task of today’s Christian, then, is to figure out exactly how we are to become the bridge that connects the people in our spheres with the almighty creator. What specific actions do we engage to pave a way for Christ to enter into the life of one who chases chaotically after any source of happiness? How do we share the truth of the gospel in a way that opens eyes and hearts? It might be coffee and a conversation or a note, but it might also be a facebook status or a tweet. In a time when the world is so desperate once again for the smallest amount of grace, it’s up to us to make grace abundant. And time isn’t exactly on our side, is it? Think about the ways and the places where you personally have the greatest influence and pray about a way to leverage that influence for Christ. For many of us, our greatest public presence is in social media. Every time you send an update into the electronic world through Instagram or Twitter, hundreds (thousands?) of people see your name and the attached message. Pray about ways that you and I can be a light into darkness and a bridge between grace and this fallen world.

When God Says, "Kill Them"

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are a reflection on Sunday’s message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/hear-a-message]

The passages in the Bible where God tells his people to destroy towns and entire groups of people are not ones I tend to dwell on. I know they exist, but I usually live as if they don’t.

Yet, when I do stop and think about them, it’s not usually the actual killing that really bothers me, even though it was babies and children and women and men and cows and goats. The thing that makes me pause, the question that lurks on the edges of my mind is “Why?”

Why would God command his people to "kill them," these people who were quite possibly totally innocent?

As I continue to think on it though, I arrive to the real root of my question. Yes, I want to know why God commanded these things, but my question becomes much more basic than that.

Is God really who he says he is?

We hear so much about God’s love and grace and redemption, and it doesn’t seem to line up with these Old Testament stories of slaughter. There are reasons, like Pastor Dirk talked about with the concept of “herem.” These were the things that were devoid of any potential to be redeemed, and therefore had to be destroyed for the good of God’s people. There’s also the matter of obedience--God told his people what they had to do, and they were supposed to obey him. On some sort of factual level, these can sort of make sense to me.

On an emotional one though, I still can’t entirely make it seem okay.

But I’m not sure that’s the point. Maybe there’s a different way to approach these difficult questions. Instead of starting with asking God “Why?,” maybe the answer begins with, “Are you who you say you are?”

It’s still not an easy or even comfortable question, and our answer to it may fluctuate. When life seems to be falling apart, it can be more difficult to believe God is who he says he is. But when we look at the bigger picture of the entirety of the Bible, and hopefully in our own lives and that of those around us, I hope we can at least begin to answer that question with a “Yes.”

When we understand what our core question is, I think we set ourselves up to better approach our other questions. I don’t think it’s wrong to have questions and doubts about God and the Bible and faith, and if they spur us on to conversation, study, and reflection, I think they can even be helpful. If we can rest in the assurance that God is who he says he is, even though we’ll never entirely understand him, we can approach our doubting with confidences. The answers to the rest of our questions may not come quickly, easily, or ever, but we can know that God is good.

[Brianna DeWitt attends Encounter Church and lives, works, and writes in Grand Rapids, MI. You can see more of her musings on her personal blog at http://awritespot.wordpress.com and on Twitter at @bwitt722.]

A Lesson and a Tribute

[This week's Midweek Encounter is also shared on my personal blog which can be found here: http://noaphorismsplease.blogspot.com/ It's both a reflection on this past week's sermon, and also a tribute to Dirk's Opa who passed away last weekend.]

I attend a church in Kentwood, MI called Encounter Church. The church is relatively new, about 3 years old, but it’s been the recipient of one blessing after another. If I tried to list them all, the task would stretch nearly to infinity; indeed, perhaps beyond, even though the church has just begun.

Encounter Church recently purchased a building that was housing a defunct athletic club, and since moving into that new space, a huge number of people have stopped by on a Sunday or during the week to check out the church and its new space. Because of the church’s presence in the city and its desire to be a blessing to its community, it is already in use during the week for a number of non-church activities. It may seem unusual to host so many non-church clubs, but it’s a deliberate choice for Encounter. The church houses a group of special needs elementary students on Mondays, a Hitting and Homework club on Wednesdays (elementary kids come to hit golf balls in the indoor hitting nets and then they do their homework with some amazing adult leaders—because, hey, the basement of this building is enormous!), and people drop in throughout the week to play racquetball or to grab a latte with one of the pastors in the café, a café that is furnished with professional equipment. And here’s the best part: the church doesn’t actually run any of this programming. The elementary school across the street asked if Encounter had any space for their special needs kids to use. And then a community member who doesn’t even attend Encounter asked if he could set up Homework and Hitting in the church basement. And the professional café equipment was donated by a local entrepreneur and small business owner who decided to bless Encounter with this gift.

The thing is, Encounter didn’t seek any of this out. Encounter only made it known to the community that the purpose of having 7-day-a-week space is to be a blessing to others. Previously, Encounter met at a local elementary school cafeteria, and was able to rent that space only on Sunday mornings.

The thing is, every decision has a ripple effect that even the decision-makers themselves cannot control. 

The Encounter leadership was well aware of this. What does it mean to have open doors 7 days a week? What does it mean to take on a mortgage and to heat and cool a space for others to use all week long? Well, it means being open to God’s leading, it means saying “yes” to God’s nudging, and it means recognizing that every action results in a reaction that cannot be predicted by the action-makers.

And that’s where God comes in. God uses these actions to stir the hearts of individuals and of communities for his kingdom. And when God is stirring, stand back. This is the lesson I learned last week at Encounter, and this is the lesson I take with me tomorrow.

Tomorrow, my husband Dirk and I will drive to Elkhart, IN to attend the funeral for Dirk’s Opa, Hans van Eyk. Opa died this past Saturday after a long and courageous fight against esophageal cancer, a nasty cancer that robbed him of his strength, of his ability to play his harmonicas, of his ability to share meals with his family, of his ability to laugh with his great-grand kids, and ultimately, it robbed him of his life. He died at home surrounded by his wife of more than 60 years and his children. But the cancer couldn’t rob him of his spirit, of his trust in God, or of his knowledge that Jesus Christ is truth and that he is the way to eternal life. And it is that faith, that legacy of devotion, which created a ripple effect far beyond what Opa imagined when he made the decision as a youth to follow Christ.

Opa grew up in the Netherlands and lived there through the horrors of WWII. It’s true that you can’t choose always the consequences of your behaviors, so Opa trusted God to be faithful and he himself remained faithful to the promises of God. Opa didn’t get to choose whether or not to engage WWII; he was engulfed by it. He survived that terror by “hiding in crawl spaces and swamps” and eventually he joined the Dutch resistance. He chose to fight back against evil, and because of his actions, he preserved the lives of others and aided liberation. He risked his life so that others could live. And even when he was forced from him home in the Netherlands after the war because of the resulting housing shortage, Opa trusted God and made a plan to move his wife and two children to Indiana, where they found a home, a church, and a community that they served faithfully for decades. The added two more kids to their family and made Elkhart, IN their permanent home.

Opa had a tenacity and courage that could not be broken. Knowing nothing about his new home country and its language and customs, Opa became self-employed, working in construction and increasing the use of his property. Eventually, Opa had so much business that he was able to found a formal business, van Eyk and Sons Roofing, a company that is run today by his son Hans.

Opa’s life proves what we all know: we can choose our actions, but we can’t predict the ripple effects that those actions will create.

In the case of Opa, he led his family through a war to a new country where his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren have prospered. Opa’s decedents work in medicine, in education, in construction, and in a number of Christian ministries including radio and parish ministry.

See, Opa knew to trust God, to act on God’s guidance, and to trust that God would use those actions to cause a ripple effect for the Kingdom of God. And that is just what has happened. Three generations of van Eyk decedents in this country claim God and his promises, and that’s all that ever mattered to Opa.

Life in the Waiting Room

[The Midweek Encounter is a ministry of Encounter Church in Kentwood, MI. These posts are a reflection on Sunday’s message, which can be heard here each week: http://myencounterchurch.org/#/hear-a-message]


When I get home from work, sometimes I’m lucky enough to have a container of leftovers waiting in the fridge. All I need to do is throw it in the microwave, and a few minutes later, there’s dinner. Microwaves are great like that. 

We live in a microwave society. New products claim to be “Faster than ever,” if you don’t like standing in line at the store you can order it online, and saving time is a common slogan in ads. Why wait for the oven when it can be cooked in the microwave? 

Yet the story Pastor Dirk talked about on Sunday is a very different picture. I had never realized how much time passed between when David was anointed to when he actually became king--about forty years. As someone who has been around for just over half that long, I can hardly imagine waiting forty years for something to come to be. And it wasn’t an elusive, “This might happen”--it was guaranteed by God. David would become king.

As we head into 2014, most of us are probably waiting for something. It could be for a new job, children, a relationship, a vacation, or for God to finally tell us what we’re supposed to do with our lives. Some of these waitings may already have a guaranteed outcome, and we’re simply sitting in the in-between time. Others, though, may have no guarantees attached. We may desire them deeply, even know that what we’re asking for is a good, God-honoring thing,and yet here we sit in life’s waiting room. 

It can be easy to become frustrated and bitter in the waiting, to see it only as time that could be better used if we already had what we wanted. I think part of what makes waiting on God so difficult is that the world around us often feeds us the “microwave” mentality--that if we don’t have what we want today, we should go ahead and do what it takes to get it tomorrow, no matter the cost--be it financial or otherwise. 

God doesn’t always work on microwave time though.

King David learned that, as he waited those forty years to become king, and I suspect that many of us are learning that too. As we wait, we may have the chance to take action to get what we want sooner, like David did when he had the opportunity to kill King Saul. It would’ve been the easy, faster way for David to get what he wanted. 

God doesn’t ask us to do things the fast, easy way though--he asks us to do things his way. 

His way isn’t always straightforward or comfortable. Life in the waiting room can get difficult, lonely, or disheartening, but if we believe that God is who he says he is, we can know that his way is better. There is opportunity in the waiting room to learn and grow and be shaped more like Jesus, if only we take it. 


As we enter a new year, may we live in the waiting room not with dismay, but with hope and eager expectation.


[Brianna DeWitt attends Encounter Church and lives, works, and writes in Grand Rapids, MI. You can see more of her musings on her personal blog at http://awritespot.wordpress.com and tweets @bwitt722.]