In his letter to the Philippians (3:8) St. Paul wrote, “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.” I quoted this passage three weeks ago in a sermon I preached at my church’s Wednesday evening service not knowing how those words would come back to me when my house almost burned down.
Tuesday evening, while I was out, my house caught fire. My landlord/roommate called me right after he heard and I jumped into my girlfriend’s car and she drove me home. When I arrived there the fire was out and the investigators were walking around trying to determine what caused it. I know that the verse is speaking of losing all for the sake of Christ, and my house fire was not an act of persecution or something I chose to lay aside, but I have, pretty much, lost almost everything I own.
The day after the fire I was scheduled to preach the sermon at my church’s Wednesday evening service and I spoke about the story of Jesus and the blind man in John chapter nine. In the story Jesus not only restores the man’s physical eyes but also restores his spiritual eyes leading the man to fall to his knees and worship. Often times it is very hard to see God when incredibly terrible things happen and we need our eyes to be healed in order to see God.
Whether it is bad news from the doctor or experiencing loss, if we look we will be able to see something of God in it. For me I see God in the outpouring of support from my friends and church community. I see God in the fact that until the insurance company decides what’s what I have several different places I can live. I also see God in the fact that I have lost entertainment devices. It is all too easy to play Skyrim or watch Netflix on my Xbox 360 than to pray. It is sometimes far too easy to choose to watch a Blu-Ray than to read the Gospels. Now I have no such distractions. This latter point was reinforced in my mind when one of the few things I was able to salvage from my room was my prayer rope.
This does not mean that I’m sailing above it all unaffected by what happened, far from it, but when the sadness comes and when it starts to build I have something in the middle of the sorrow that I can hold on to. It may seem like nothing but to me it’s as clear as a light shining in a darkened room. Also, if you think of it, please remember my roommate and I in your prayers (especially him as the house is his).
Sojourneyman 