Daily Archive

“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose,“ (Romans 8:28 – NASB).

“We are confident that God is able to orchestrate everything to work toward something good and beautiful when we love Him and accept His invitation to live according to His plan,“ (Romans 8:28 – The Voice).

I believe every word of this verse.  I accept its truth by faith even though my limited human cognition is incapable of even coming remotely close to grasping or understanding the inner workings and complexities of God’s providence.  I fully trust that God does this, but I simply don’t have a clue how he does it.  “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts,” (Isaiah 55:9).

In August of 1986 I was about halfway through my two-year mission apprenticeship with the church in Gympie, Queensland, Australia.  While teaching class one Sunday morning, I saw the silhouette of a man standing in the back door of our small church building.  The door was open, as were all the windows, since the building wasn’t air conditioned.  The bright morning sun shone like a full-body halo around the man’s darkened frame in the doorway.  I invited him in to join us for the remainder of the class. 

In conversation during the break between class and our worship assembly, I learned that his name was John Glendenning.  He was just passing through town and had stopped at a petrol station to ask for directions to a local church.  He never found the church he was looking for that morning, but he saw our building and decided to pull in.  John stayed for worship, shared in our weekly potluck lunch, and remained for our 2:00 afternoon service.  

Over lunch, John told me that he had cancer.  His diagnosis several months earlier had sent him into an emotional tailspin and put him on a spiritual quest.  He hit the road in his ute (a four-wheel drive utility vehicle), and he had just been driving around the country for about five months.  He lived on a government pension and a substantial inheritance he had received from his mother.  Anytime John wasn’t driving, he was reading his Bible. 

If I had to guess, John was probably in his mid-50s at the time, but those five and a half decades had been consumed in hard living, with years spent surfing up and down the beaches of Australia’s east coast.  He was thoroughly weathered and worn, with skin like brown leather.  His hair was matted with dirt.  His clothing was filthy and quite odorous.  Everything in his ute, all of his worldly possessions, were caked in a thick layer of fine, powdery red dirt from thousands of miles driven on unpaved roads. 

John stayed with me for a few days until we found a room for him to rent in town.  It took three washings of all of his clothing to get them clean.  We studied the Scriptures together regularly, and John was baptized into Christ in September of 1986.  I wrote at the time, “I have never seen anyone beam with joy the way John did when he came up out of the water!”  Cleansed.  Redeemed.  Washed clean.  Make whole.  Forgiven.  Granted eternal life.  Heaven-bound.

John’s cancer progressed rapidly, and he was soon hospitalized in Brisbane, about 100 miles south of Gympie.  He received aggressive radiation treatment.  His left arm was amputated in an effort to prolong his life.  A group of us drove to Brisbane to visit him.  We had car trouble on the way, which put us significantly behind schedule.  John was in a hospital ward with 7 or 8 other patients.  I approached his bedside and leaned over to give him a kiss on his rough, whiskered cheek, something I had never done before.  At that exact moment, a three-foot square of sheetrock, which served as a crawlspace cover, came loose, fell from the high ceiling, and shattered across the back of my head, neck, and shoulders.  I almost lost consciousness.  Had I not been leaning over John, the sheetrock would have hit him directly in the face.

Within a matter of weeks, John was called home to the meet the Lord who had saved him.  Why did John not find the church he was looking for that Sunday morning?  Why did we have car trouble on the trip to the hospital, making our arrival a couple of hours later than planned.   Why did I instinctively bend over to kiss John’s cheek?  I don’t know.  There are so many variables and moving parts in this story.  I can’t wrap my brain around it, but I accept it, embrace it, and praise God for it.

I look forward to seeing John again.  I promise that I will introduce you to him.  I know you’ll love him.  I suspect that you already do.