We had completed our survey of the interior of the church and were walking around the perimeter of the building when one of the men spotted the fencerow that separated the church property from our neighbor’s hayfield. “The fencerow is grownup with weeds again,” he said, “we should have someone burn it.” The other trustees quickly agreed and began to add, “Burn the fencerow” to the list.
Aghast, I hurriedly spoke up. “We can’t do that,” I protested.
“Why not, preacher? That fencerow is looking really bad, and the point of this workday is to make the church look nice. Burning that fencerow would be a vast improvement.”
“Oh, I agree! It does look bad. No question about that,” I continued to protest, “but we can’t burn it because that is where the blackberry bushes are. We can’t burn the blackberry bushes.”
Having come from Colorado to Rock Chapel, which is located in southern Missouri, the trustees were already suspicious that I might be a closet tree-hugger, and now in their minds their worst suspicions were probably being confirmed. “Pastor, don’t you know that blackberries are a nuisance,” one of my trustees explained, “we brush hog acres and acres of them on our farms every year.”
I continued to protest, explaining to the trustees that these were not just any ordinary blackberry bushes. These were my blackberry bushes, my own private blackberry patch. I counted this blackberry patch as one of the perks of living in the parsonage next door to the church. If they were to burn the fencerow I’d lose my opportunity to pick blackberries. “Surely, you do not want to deprive the parsonage of the joy of those plump juicy little fruits,” I reasoned.
After a few moments of listening to my passionate pleas of amnesty for my blackberries, one of the trustees graciously granted the sought after pardon. “Okay, we’ll drop the fencerow from the list and leave the blackberries for the preacher.” I immediately thanked them for their generosity.
Later, that summer as I picked blackberries, I thought back to this incident and gave thanks to God for preserving my blackberry patch. I remembered the words, “blackberries are a nuisance.” The trustees had good reasons for feeling this way, of course. It is not uncommon for blackberries that are let be to take over entire fields, and this is a problem because cattle cannot graze on the thorny blackberry bushes. But, nevertheless, it was difficult for me to reconcile how they could classify as a nuisance what I considered one of the best blessings of the summer.
But isn’t that the way that life works? Some do not value things that are highly valued by others. As my grandmother, who lives for a good yard sale, would often say, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” But this is true of more than just possessions. Circumstances do not often turn out to be what we initially thought they were, and so what we might view as a nuisance or problem sometimes actually turns out to be a blessing.
I am reminded of the story of Joseph. If there was ever a person who had troubles it was Joseph. Joseph was the youngest of his brothers, but the favorite son of his father. Now that may not be much of a problem if you only had a couple of brothers and they were only a few years older than you. But Joseph had ten older brothers! And to make matters worse, Joseph also had a big mouth! He loved to boast to his brothers about his dreams that predicted how one day he would rule over them.
Now, Joseph’s brothers may have been able to overlook a lot of what Joseph said as the wild dreams of youth. They gave Joseph the nickname, “Dreamer.” But when their father Israel gave Joseph a multi-colored coat to honor him and distinguish him from his brothers, it was more than they could bear. They weren’t going to idly stand by and let their brother’s dreams of ruling over his older brothers come true.
We know what happened next. They took Joseph and sold him as a slave to some nomadic traders and then manufactured evidence to make their father believe wild animals had killed his favorite son.
Now that is a pretty awful set of circumstances, but things got worse for Joseph before they got better. Those traders who bought him took him down into Egypt where they sold him as a slave to an Egyptian named Potiphar. Although, he had unjustly been made a slave, Joseph served Potiphar well and in time gained his trust. That is until Potiphar’s wife developed an infatuation for Joseph and tried to seduce him. When Joseph refused her advances, she responded by telling her husband that Joseph had attempted to rape her in her own house. Potiphar, as you may well imagine, became quite angry, and since he was also the captain of Pharaoh’s guard he threw Joseph in prison. So, here is Joseph falsely accused and imprisoned in a foreign land, and all of this through no fault of his own – rather this is all occurring to him as a result of his brothers’ jealousy and envy.
When Joseph meets up with his brothers later in life you would expect him to be extremely angry and possibly seeking revenge. And after their father died, that is precisely what his brothers expected. They thought, "Now that Dad is dead, Joseph will surely exact his revenge on us." But notice what Joseph said to them…
You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. Gen. 50.20 NIV
You see, Joseph realized that sometimes things are not as they seem. We may look at our circumstances and see problems, when they are actually opportunities. We may see them as a nuisance, when they are actually blessings. We may see them as burdens, but they are actually joys.
Joseph had discovered this first hand in his life. Sure it was difficult to have his brothers betray him, to be sold into slavery, to be falsely accused, and to be rotting in prison, but he discovered that it was these very things that had brought his dreams to pass. These difficulties were all part of God’s plan to make him the ruler not just over his brothers, but of all Egypt as well. In Joseph’s life the nuisances turned out to be blessings in disguise.
You know that is often the case in our lives as well. I remember one of the first services I held at Rock Chapel. After the morning service I had one of the fellows come to me apologizing for the way his young son had acted during the service. He had cried and fussed and generally just made a nuisance of himself. I assured the father that it didn’t bother me; I just spoke a little louder. But he was still very concerned. Then one of the elder deacons who had been standing nearby and overheard our conversation turned to him and said, “You think he was a nuisance but I think it’s a blessing just to have young people like him here. Those are just the sounds of life!”
What a profound statement! How often have people complained about the noise of children during a church service? But those children are not really nuisances; they are blessings! How many have complained when people of a different ethnicity move into to a neighborhood or begin to attend the church, when really this is just an opportunity for the church to expand into new ministries?
How often have churches mourned over some natural calamity that their community faced – like forest fires, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, etc. Only to discover later that those disasters were not disasters at all! Rather it had given the church the opportunity to meet and minister to people in their community that they otherwise would not have. It gave them a rise in attendance as people began searching for God in the aftermath, and as people searched for God they also saw more people come to Christ. It was a blessing.
A good example of this is what happened at the Wedgwood Baptist Church a few years ago.
For many young people in Fort Worth, Texas, September 15, 1999, started with prayer around their high school's flagpole. After taking a public stand for their faith, about four hundred youth gathered in the sanctuary of Wedgwood Baptist Church for a See You at the Pole rally that night. Alleluias rang out as a Christian band led the group in singing praises.
Suddenly a lone gunman burst in. Larry Ashbrook killed seven people—Shawn Brown, 23; Sydney Browning, 36; Justin Ray, 17; Cassie Griffin, 14; Joey Ennis, 14; Kristi Beckel, 14; Kim Jones, 23—before committing suicide. At first, many thought the gunman was part of a skit. But they soon realized the bullets weren't blanks and the blood wasn't ketchup. Many of the youth, plus 150 adults and children, at Wedgwood that night must have wondered where God was. But in the weeks following the tragedy, they, and the world, have found that God didn't abandon them.
Drawing from the church's official Web site and other sources, here are some confirmed instances of God's hand at work:
Although the deaths and injuries were tragic, the devastation could have been much worse. Sixty-eight bullets were fired and only 14 people were hit. About 90 bullets remained unused. A bomb Ashbrook fashioned blew up in the sanctuary, but most of the shrapnel went into the ceiling, injuring no one.
All of Ashbrook's victims were believers.
Though it was a beautiful night, no children were on the church's playground, which Ashbrook had to walk past to enter the church. The shooter did not come to the nursery or elementary school areas of the church, and leaders were able to get the children out with very few of them seeing anything but police cars and fire trucks.
A paramedic, Art DeFord, was at church that night and gave some of the victims immediate medical attention, stabilizing them before other emergency personnel arrived.
All of the injured have been released from the hospital and are recovering—Mary Beth Talley, Robert DeBord, 17; Justin Laird, 16; Nicholas Skinner, 14; Kevin Galey, 38; Jeff Laster, 34; and Jaynanne Brown, 41.
Fifteen thousand people attended a community-wide service at the football stadium of Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. Al Meredith, Wedgwood's senior pastor, challenged people to pray and fast on Monday, the 20th. The service was broadcast live on a local television station and on CNN. Because Kim Jones's parents live and work in Saudi Arabia, that country, which is closed to the gospel, allowed portions of the service to be broadcast there.
A DJ at a local Christian radio station (KLTY) was able to lead a caller to Christ. The caller had said he wanted what the church members had.
When prompted by a question from Vice President Al Gore, Pastor Meredith was able to present the gospel clearly on the television show, Larry King Live. In the days following the tragedy, Meredith was also able to pray with President Bill Clinton and Texas Governor George W. Bush.
The husband of a church member professed a newfound faith in Christ shortly after the shooting. His wife, Jodi, and three-year-old daughter were at the church during the shooting, as he watched the scene unfold on television. The wife had been praying, with others, for his salvation for two years. She says the shooting helped him realize he was not in control of everything around him.
As of December 1, 1999, Wedgwood's Web site, http://www.wedgwoodbc.org/, had 100,000 visits. The site offers a link to the site of the North American Mission Board (SBC), which displays the plan of salvation in multiple languages.
The church has received more than $100,000 in unsolicited donations. They have established a committee to determine how it will be spent.
Sydney Browning's family has set up a youth scholarship fund in her name. The survivors of other victims have also set up funds in their honor.[1]
So, I challenge us as Christians. Let’s be careful about viewing things as nuisances, problems, and obstacles. They may instead be some of God’s greatest blessings. Let’s be people, who instead of looking for nuisances, look for the blessings of God.
PRAYER:
Lord, transform our perspective. Let us see things as you view them. Where others see nuisances and obstacles, let us see blessings and opportunity.
[1] Randy Bishop, “What Was God Doing at Wedgwood?” Christian Reader (March/April 2000), p.88
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