Big Questions – Bigger God
It was a Tuesday in September 2019. It seemed like any other normal cross-over workday for me. I worked 8 days on and 6 days off. Tuesdays were the days the crews changed over so the companion crew was there as well. This day would mark a monumental change for everyone that worked in that department.
I worked for a mining company in their exploration department. Think of exploration as the research and development department of any other company. Without new products how would a company grow. Likewise, without new areas of economic minerals to mine the company would not be able to grow and support itself in the long term. I had been with this particular company for a little over 7 years at the time. Before my wife and I got married, I operated under a 1-to-2-year plan with my previous employers. So this was something special.
We lived in historic Negaunee, Michigan just west of Marquette in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I was less than 5 minutes from our exploration office. We had wonderful neighbors and a few of the families in our church community lived within walking distance of each other and we spent a lot of time together. We even celebrated Thanksgiving together a few times.
Our church community was wonderful. It was full of life and love and an abundance of young people and young families. We hungered and thirsted for righteousness and sought Christ out in everything we could. Suffice it to say, we loved where we lived and the wildness of the UP that was around us. We loved the community of our church body, and I was working at my dream job.
Then that Tuesday came in September of 2019. We were gathered for our weekly exploration department meeting, with updates on projects, permits, safety, among other things. The Managing Director was present and had been to our meetings in the past, usually to update everyone on things like quarterly business updates. So it wasn’t surprising that she was there. Our Exploration Manager finished our meeting and then stated the Managing Director had an announcement. She stood up crying and said the business decision had been made to shut down the exploration department. I immediately went outside and called Katy to discuss what happened. We had very little information. There was not a concrete timeline on when this would happen, they did not know details of severance or what that would look like.
After that Tuesday we shifted from exploration in searching for discovery of new minerals to what it looked like to close our department. What we had to do to satisfy state rules and regulations. What we needed to do to reclaim the sites of land we used for the drill rigs that pulled the rock samples up from beneath the surface of the earth. There was still a lot to do.
Then the pandemic hit in 2020. We were attempting to make an incredible life transition in the worst time frame that this world could throw at us. We were in the middle of last-minute updates to the house and were preparing to sell. All the while almost everything was supposed to be closed or shut down. By the power and grace of God we were able to sell. We moved to the Allegan area in July of 2020. We entered another season that would be full of questions with not many answers.
We are in the middle of the Asking for A Friend series at Corner Bible Church. Looking back 4 to 5 years ago, I still have questions for God about much of it. Some have been answered, many have not. But we should not base our faith on the lack of answers or having answers to our questions. Our faith must be based and rooted in the One who holds the answers. Not those answers we think we need. Those things should not bear any weight to our faith in Him.
Hebrews 11:1-2 says “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. 2 For by it the people of old received their commendation.”
How did the people of old know what would bring them life or bring them death? Before Moses, they did not have the law. They took the word of the Lord and lived by that. By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain. How did Abel know that the firstborn of the flock of his herd would be regarded by God and that what Cain would offer of the fruit of the ground would not? What interaction with God did Abel have? I believe that Abel heard from God on what would please Him. Abel offered that sacrifice even though it would be costly to him and his flock. By faith Abel heard God and did what God asked and it was commended as righteous (Heb 11:4).
It reminds me of Paul when he asked Christ to remove the thorn in his side. The answer was “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9). The word of God doesn’t say that Paul continued to ask God to remove the thorn. He took what answer God gave him and lived out what God asked of him.
Hebrews 11:6 “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”
So what pleases God? Paul makes that quite clear in 1 Thessalonians 4. God desires us to know how to control ourselves in holiness and honor. I believe that we cannot do this. Wait what? But Paul is saying to do this. Yes he is. But we cannot do it without the power of Christ in us. Our posture is a heart that desires to obey Him and to learn of and do the sacrifices that please Him. I’m not writing about finding the best sheep in your flock to kill. In reading 1 Corinthians 13 we see everything that love is and is not. When we desire to be unkind, boastful, resentful, to be rude, to be self-seeking, to rejoice in wrong, or to be irritable, those are moments to ask Christ what he wants. When He says to us to take His route, then by His power we do it His way, that is sacrifice.
I think when God allows something so life-altering to occur He is after how we will react to Him and His word. Will we still trust and put our faith in Him when these things happen? Will we still search Him and His word out to understand what pleases Him even when we do not get the answers to our questions?
I will end with this. Despite everything that we thought we lost when we moved from Negaunee to Allegan in 2020, God did something miraculous. Through the profit of selling our house, the severance I did receive, and a small amount withdrawn from my retirement account, we were able to pay off six figures of student loans in an instant. Do I still have questions about this season of our life? Absolutely. But whether I get an answer or not cannot determine the weight of my faith in Him.