Dominoes was a popular game at our house, first double sixes, then double twelves, then colored-pip double twelves. Somehow along the way, I heard about standing the tiles on end, one after the other, then knocking the first one into the second, and watching the whole set collapse, in a ripple effect, one after the other. Setting up all 91 in a curving pattern took the preparation of a secure platform, great patience (no hurrying!), and a steady hand, but the results were rewarding – if guaranteed.
God, too, before the foundation of the world, and knowing, with His eternal knowing, all events, set things perfectly in order for the re-establishing of Shalom, His original design. We’re calling it His Plan ‘A.’ In the Fall, mankind lost the ability to discern the perfection of God. William Cowper (1731-1800) wrote the words to a hymn that speaks of our ongoing bewilderment. The opening lines:
‘God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform.
He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm.
Deep in the dark and hidden mines, with never-failing skill,
He fashions at His bright design and works His sov’reign will.’
We wonder at the way Jesus came to us, hidden, without royal announcement, without fanfare. God’s only Son?! And the victorious completion of Jesus’ mission was his cruel and humiliating death on a cross – dying with deserving murderers on both sides of him?! To us, it’s mind-boggling. It’s not how ‘we’ would have done it! It’s not how ‘we’ would show Sovereignty or Supremacy It’s not how ‘we’ would win! His ways are, indeed, not our ways! And yet, to our profound amazement, through Jesus, God’s ‘bright design’ did all that He planned it to do, accomplished everything necessary for us to know life and forgiveness and grace – and the invitation to belong to the intimate love community of the Holy Trinity. Mysteries all, to be sure. And so we can but bow in worship and in adoration, receiving freely what we couldn’t earn, what we don’t deserve. What a Savior!
Tomorrow, we gather as a family to celebrate, once again, the flat-out, unspeakable glory of all we have, all we’ve become, in Jesus. See y’all 10 AM, 3 PM UK. PD
Don graduated from Regent University in 1988 and moved to France for seven years, coming back to the US briefly to marry Sue in 1990. The work in France included working in a Christian School and helping plant a church before returning in 1995. He’s been pastor of Peninsula Vineyard since 1999. He enjoys counseling, especially married couples, traveling back to France (with Sue), reading, doing Sudoku puzzles and sleuthing out good, dark chocolate. Don serves as the senior pastor of the Vineyard Church Peninsula, in Newport News, Virginia.