Have you ever gone on a God Hunt? A God Hunt begins when you teach yourself to look for God’s hand at work in the everyday occurrences of your life. Here’s one of my personal God Hunt Sightings:
The church we have been attending is small, meets in a neighborhood school, but puts a high value on interacting in the community. In fact, one Sunday a month is set aside as “Serve Sunday.” Kindly, they had scheduled to help us on July 14th.
The week before this had been a brutal week—with Jeremy in the hospital we nevertheless had to meet 16 folks up at the Stratford Theatre Festival in Ontario, Canada. This is an annual trek David and I (and for many years, our family) have made up north. We love the total immersion in Shakespeare and musical and little interested theatre pieces. By rights we would like to have stayed home—but houseguests had arrived from Canada and were driving up with us—and a friend or two suggested that maybe this would be a good break from the stress of our son’s battle against lymphoma.
So we went. Our friends were right: The diversion was helpful, even though I thought about Jeremy and his wife Angela and their three little kids most of time (during Fiddler on the Roof, during Romeo and Juliet, during Waiting for Godot, during The Three Musketeers, Blithe Spirit, as well as the rock opera, Tommy).
Believe me, when the next weekend rolled around—after a 36-hour hospital watch with Jeremy—I kept thinking, how can I possibly get things organized for 5-25 people for this coming Serve Sunday? Finally, I just prayed, Father, help this day to organize itself. Too tired to do any prep work.
I went to bed that night, took two sleeping pills, and woke up early to be ready for the first crew who had made plans to arrive at 8 o’clock to organize the tear down of our rickety and wretched screened-in porch.
God did such a good job that my husband complimented me on my organization abilities! Here’s a list of what was accomplished by about 20 eager (and mostly young) people.
- The porch was torn down without injury to life or limb of the wreckers.
- The job boss for this project figured out how to do this without needing to dig out a stand of very large hosta or taking out an arbor.
- Crews sorted wood into piles and either pulled nails or hammered them down; old screens were shoved together and the shingles placed in another section of the garage. This left us with clutter, but it was organized.
- The stones in a garden path were lifted, the soil rototilled and then the stones were reset.
- Grey bricks, which have been sitting in a pile since we bought the house in 1977, were laid down as edging for the hostas at the far west side garden.
- A team screwed together rough wooden shelving braces and made a huge trellis for the clematis vines (my design).
- Another team deadheaded spent flower heads.
- A twosome painted the mailbox across the road and reset screws that had gone missing.
- One little boy, tagging after his mom, picked the yellow cherry tomatoes.
- Two large gardens were weeded; the spent irises were deadheaded and trimmed back.
- One outdoor back door lamp was replaced.
- One of the three upstairs bathrooms that had been out of commission for a couple years was made functional again.
This all happened within a two-hour period. In God’s timing this Sunday was a perfect Sunday, and the Master Planner hardly needed my help at all.
I spy God!
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Award-winning author Karen Mains has long had an interest in spiritual formation and the obedient Christian walk. She has written about the God Hunt in her book by the same name, The God Hunt: The Delightful Chase and the Wonder of Being Found. A hardback copy can be ordered from Mainstay Ministries for $10.00 plus $4.95 shipping and handling. Contact Karen at info@mainstayministries.org and she will be happy to autograph a copy for you.
Karen continues to write content for her Christian blog, “Thoughts-by-Karen-Mains.” In so doing, she desires to touch the lives of Christian women and men and help them find ways to walk closer with the Lord Jesus Christ. In addition, through silent retreats, spiritual teaching, women’s retreats, Christian vacation opportunities, and other ministry activities, Karen helps each Christian woman and man receive vital spiritual food.
Through her Hungry Souls ministry, Karen serves as a spiritual coach to many Christian women and men, and teaches a mentor-writing class. And, through the Global Bag Project, she is working to develop a network of African women who sew exquisite cloth reusable shopping bags, Africa bags. This micro-finance women opportunity helps provide a much-needed sustainable income for struggling African families. For more information on this critically important project, please click here.
For decades, Karen and her husband, David, have served God through religious communications—radio, television, and print publication. They are the co-authors of the Kingdom Tales Trilogy: Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance, and Tales of the Restoration. To find many valuable resources for pastors and congregations at the Mainstay Ministries main website, please click here.
Likewise, pastors will find special resources to help them prepare effective, life-transforming Sunday sermons by visiting David Mains’ website by clicking here.
