God's Biscuits

One of the great things about having children, is that they grow up. And suddenly, you find yourself sitting across the table from them in a coffee-shop, and you are having a deep, meaningful, spiritually encouraging conversation.

After telling my daughter Jo the story of why I was ending my attempted career-shift into being a REALTOR®, I made a joking comment about how the things I was gifted at qualified me to be a starving artist. When Jo saw this saying on a magnet a few days later, she just had to get it for me. It now occupies a place of honour on our refrigerator door.

(Our family does have a certain fondness for tongue-in-cheek, slightly-dark humour.)

I also found myself sharing with my daughter the various unexpected bits of encouragement that I’d been getting over the past couple of weeks. As Wendy and I had begun to notice these seemingly random tidbits of life-giving words, Wendy observed, “It’s almost like God is tossing you some biscuits.”

• after playing bass at a different church recently, a well-respected musician from the congregation stood up to make an announcement, but prefaced it with words of appreciation for the musicians, pointing out my bass playing in particular
  
• a friend who had been in a worship band with me 15 years ago emailed me out of the blue to say, “I’m not one for ‘titles’, but you were a real worship pastor, and I wanted to say thanks”
  
• another former youth group member from 20 years ago found me on BookFace and sent me a message to say thanks for being a youth pastor, and for the impact I’d had on their lives
  
• yet another former youth group member, from our time as volunteers with George Mercado in the 80’s, emailed to say, "God’s been putting you on my heart a lot recently -- what can I be praying for you about?”
  
• a local couple with whom we’ve enjoyed friendship since the mid-90’s, and who had just finished reading Post-Charismatic?, mentioned in passing during a St. Arbucks gathering, “You should be writing more. That’s your gift.”

“Hmm,” mused my daughter Jo, giving me her widest and most innocent blue-eyed stare, “People whose lives you made an impact on. Music. Writing. What do you think God is trying to tell you, Dad?”

Gee, I dunno... Maybe that having coffee with a wise young woman -- clearly her mother’s daughter -- might point out obvious things that her old man hadn’t dared consider?