A birthday reflection on the providential grace of God

I did not intend to write this birthday reflection when today began. I would not want you to think I am doing so now to draw attention to the day. In every discernible way, it is a day like any other. So far as I can tell, no one but me and those close to me know it to be any more significant than yesterday or the day before. They’re right, of course.

And yet I feel prompted to share some reflections with you today, thoughts I could not have written this time yesterday.

“The path your life is to take”

Last night, I had a get-further-acquainted dinner with two friends who lead a significant ministry with global impact for Christ. We spent the evening sharing our stories.

It seemed that at each point, we had to stop and give thanks for God’s providence and grace. When you are in the moment, it can sometimes be hard to detect the Lord’s hand and plan at work. However, when you look back over the years, the pattern becomes clear.

Our dinner conversation is on my mind this morning as I turn sixty-seven years old. There was a time—it feels not long ago at all—when people of such an age seemed old to me. Oddly, I do not feel at all like I thought people my age must feel. In many ways, I don’t think I’m any different than I was when I was twenty and even forty years younger.

And yet, at the same time, I feel my age and years in ways I have not before. Physical challenges are more a part of my daily life than before. But there is providence even here; as Michel Quoist writes, “Your limitations are not simply obstacles to your success—they are also indications from God of the path your life is to take.”

That “path” has been one of providence from my first moment to this moment. Looking back over it, I am moved with deep gratitude for such unmerited favor from a Father who loved me long before I knew him.

“A sense that something is missing”

I grew up in a family that never went to church. My father had been active in his church as a young man before his service in World War II scarred him physically and spiritually. As a result, we had no spiritual life at home whatsoever. We never prayed together, or read the Bible, or discussed the things of God.

And yet, God was never far from my thoughts. I remember lying in the summer grass as a child, staring up at the clouds and wondering what was beyond them and who made it all. 

I had an aunt who was a devout Catholic Christian and whose faith seemed to give her great joy. Once we were discussing a baby born to some relative I hardly knew, and she took the moment to ask me with a twinkle in her eye how I thought babies came to be if not for the miracle of God.

Just today, I read this from Frederick Buechner:

Each of us . . . carries around inside himself, I believe, a certain emptiness—a sense that something is missing, a restlessness, the deep feeling that somehow all is not right inside his skin. Psychologists sometimes call it anxiety, theologians sometimes call it estrangement, but whatever you call it, I doubt that there are many who do not recognize the experience itself.

I certainly did, and still do.

And so it was, with these unseen preparations in place, that a Baptist church in our Houston neighborhood “happened” to start a bus ministry and “happened” to knock on our apartment door to invite us to ride their bus to church. I was fifteen years old at the time. 

We “happened” to be home; if we had not been, they would not have come back. My father “happened” to overhear their invitation, decide that my brother and I should have some religious exposure, and tell the men that we would be ready the next morning. 

In this way, I “happened” to hear the gospel and eventually respond to it. From then to today, so many other dots form lines that form a picture of gracious providence.

The best thing that ever happened in sophomore English

My wife’s father “happened” to get transferred from Los Angeles to Houston. She tried to attend the University of Houston, but they “happened” to lose her transcripts twice. Her father “happened” to tell her story in the breakroom at his office, where a recent graduate of Houston Baptist University “happened” to hear it and encouraged him to encourage her to try HBU. 

She then “happened” to walk into my sophomore English class, a day I will never forget. Three years later, we were married.

We were called to our first pastorate because its pastor search committee “happened” to recognize the name of the pastor whose recommendation letter accompanied my resume. Then I was invited to join the faculty of my seminary because they “happened” to have an opening in the philosophy department and wanted a professor with pastoral experience.

Then I became the interim pastor of First Baptist Church in Midland, Texas, because our seminary’s president “happened” to hear me preach in the seminary chapel and recommended me to them. Then the church called me to be their permanent pastor; then a church in Atlanta called us; then a church in Dallas called us back to Texas.

Then, a wonderful couple in our church thought my wife and I should lead a ministry that reached beyond our local church, and helped us begin what is today Denison Ministries. Last year, our combined resources across all our brands were read, heard, or viewed over eighty-three million times.

At every point, my path has been one of providential grace.

“The union is effected by grace”

Earlier this morning I read a reflection by St. Cyril of Alexandria (AD c. 375–444) on John 15, where “the Lord calls himself the vine and those united to him branches.” According to Cyril, he does so “in order to teach us how much we shall benefit from our union with him, and how important it is for us to remain in his love.”

He then unpacks this metaphor in two ways that I find relevant to this day.

The first has to do with my physical birth. Cyril notes: “On the part of those who come to the vine, their union with him depends upon a deliberate act of the will; on his part, the union is effected by grace.”

What was true of my spiritual birth was untrue of my physical birth: I had nothing to do with the “deliberate act of the will” by which my parents conceived me, a gift to me “effected by grace.” I am alive by their choice and the providence of God.

The second concerns my spiritual birth. Cyril writes, “From Christ and in Christ, we have been reborn through the Spirit in order to bear the fruit of life; not the fruit of our old, sinful life but the fruit of a new life founded upon our faith in him and our love for him. Like branches growing from a vine, we now draw our life from Christ.”

Just as a branch grows through a process it did not choose but can only receive, so it is with my spiritual birth and life in Christ. My part is to remain “attached” to Jesus in prayer, Bible study, worship, and service. When I do, his Spirit works in and through me in ways I could never produce or earn.

Again, it is all made possible by grace.

“A mighty prayer in the Spirit of God”

My purpose in sharing this unintended reflection today is twofold.

The first is to give glory to God for his unfathomable providence and gracious love. He is truly “able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20). 

I know that I do not know even a small part of all the ways he has blessed me and kept me over these many years. It is wonderful to imagine that day when “I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12). In the meantime, I can only testify with Paul, “Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!” (2 Corinthians 9:15).

The second is to invite you to take a moment today to do what I have done, to look back over your path for those stepping stones of providential grace. 

Who were the people used by the Holy Spirit to bring you to saving faith? What gifts of love and mercy have marked your journey? How have you experienced the purpose and plan of your Father? What words of gratitude would you share with him and with others in response?

John Bunyan observed, “A sensible thanksgiving for mercies received is a mighty prayer in the Spirit of God.”

Would you join me in offering such a prayer to our Father today?