I find it remarkable how God infiltrates our minds and leads us from A to B to C to D to E to F to… you get the idea.
The evening of June 6th I was grooving my way through an amazing service at the Mayan Nightclub hosted by Mosaic, the church where Erwin McManus is the Lead Explorer of Interstellar Creativity, or some such thing. A guy named Hank Somebodyorother was pounding out the first message in a summer series called Heroes, during which they’d all be taking a look at some obscure biblical characters that deserve a closer look.
Loved the message. I did. But the central thing I lifted from the experience was to do a series in my church called “Strange But True” for the remainder of our summer.
Praystorming my way into ideas for the series, I eventually parked on a bizarre tale spun in I Samuel that runs from chapter four through chapter seven. I considered dubbing the message “When God got a tumour.” The Philistines, after thrashing the Israelites, stole the ark of the covenant as booty. Very soon after that, they got thrashed by God via an outbreak of payback tumours and realized they need to give the ark back, ASAP. Their parting gift for God? A basket of golden tumours and rats. You know, to remember them by.
The real story is about taking God seriously, especially when he confronts your idolatry. So I wrote out my sermon. Made my points. Put down my pen.
“Deeper,” God says.
So I sat down again, went deeper, saw things I’ve never seen before.
“Deeper.”
So I sat down again, mulling, looking, listening. Until I think I’m finally seeing the real issue. One so profound I think I want to write a book about it. Something about the subtle trap of swapping Trinities for Pantheons.
“Deeper.”
Which is where I am right now, but I thought I’d weigh in first. Pray for me, this is so much fun I can hardly stand it. But here’s the thing: This all came from a prompting that led to a prompting that led to a prompting that led to a prompting. I could have just listened to the first sermon. I could have not gone deeper, twice. I could have missed so much.
Not only that, but I’m going to share it on Sunday, so the trail isn’t done yet. Who knows where it will all lead?