What’s God Been Doing?

One of my favorite authors is Frederick Buechner. He is an ordained Presbyterian pastor who has spent most of his ministry as a writer, rather than in more traditional pastoral settings. If Christians have to put Buechner in a category (which is one of our favorite pastimes) we would say he is a “liberal.” It is an interesting label to give to someone whose archived writings are housed at Wheaton College along with those of C.S. Lewis. Wheaton is also the home of the Billy Graham Center. Wheaton would hardly be described as “liberal.”

         

One of Buechner’s more meaningful experiences was the time he spent as a visiting professor at Wheaton College in 1985. Buechner had just completed a stint as a visiting Professor of Preaching at Harvard Divinity School, where he became the talk of campus by beginning his first class with prayer! He describes his experience at Wheaton this way:

         

“I’d been sort of a closet religious person for years and years, moving among people to whom faith was either a dead letter or something not to be talked about. All of a sudden I was surrounded by people who found it very easy and natural to talk about faith. It was wonderful.”

         

One day he was having lunch with two students, and the conversation suddenly shifted from small talk about weather, the movies and other mundane subjects, when one of them asked the other what God was doing in his life, as naturally as he would have asked the time of day. Buechner writes, “I thought if anybody said anything like that in my part of the world, the ceiling would fall in, the house would catch fire, and peoples’s eyes would roll up in their heads.”

         

“What has God been doing in your life?” 

         

It might not elicit the same response in our circles as it does in Buchner’s, but at the same time, it is often a stumper. People have a hard time answering the question. It can’t be because God isn’t doing anything...God is always up to something! It may be a stumper because too often we aren’t paying attention. We don’t take the time to even reflect on the question for ourselves.

         

Or, more condemning, we don’t leave room in our lives for God to do much. We fill our schedules with events, tasks, meetings and responsibilities and there isn’t any margin for God to wiggle into. Even if we spend devotional time each day, too often it is a quick read, some helpful tip, and then we move on. We don’t spend much time in reflection of what God might be trying to say to us, much less what He is doing in our life.

         

If you were to ask me, my answer would be, that recently God is calling me to wrestle with the transformational power of His love. God’s love changes people. Do I trust that His love has transformational power, or do I need to put parameters, boundaries and limits on His love?

         

So, let me ask you:

         

What has God been doing in your life?

If you would like to receive this blog post directly to your inbox, please send us an e-mail and we'll add you to the list!