You'll Never Understand the Mystery

"Just as you'll never understand the mystery of the life forming in a pregnant woman, so you'll never understand the mystery at work in all God does.  Go to work in the morning and stick to it until evening without watching the clock.  You never know from moment to moment how your work will turn out in the end."   

- Ecclesiastes 11:5-6, The Message

Recently, with Jordan's hand on my growing stomach feeling the baby move, we sat in awe and wonder.

19 weeks with a little bump

"Can you imagine?" he asked.  "It takes 9 months for a baby to be born.  Today we can see the process through ultrasounds; we have photos of our baby before it's born.  But before, they had no idea.  A woman's stomach grew, but they couldn't see anything that was happening inside."

And yet, even with all of the technology today, where we can see our baby moving during ultrasounds, we can study what parts of the child develop at what stages, we can compare the size of our baby to common fruits and vegetables - even with all of this, we do not truly understand the mystery of the life forming in a pregnant woman.

First ultrasound at 7 weeks

Latest ultrasound at 21 weeks

Wow.

I'm reminded through this passage and through this current process of growing a human, that this is how New Life is formed through Christ, too.  It's a mystery.

Sometimes life as a church planter in France can be pretty discouraging.  As we look back on nearly 3 years of ministry in Aix-les-Bains, we can only point to 1 person who has surrendered her life to Christ.  Sure, we can point to growth within individuals who were already Christians, but we cannot point to New Lives.  We can point to lots of spiritual conversations with people far from God, but we cannot point to a New Lives.

But just as we will never understand the mystery of the life forming in my womb, so we will never understand the mystery at work in all God does.

We must trust that God is working.

So we continue to go to work, praying for the people of our city and seeking opportunities to share the Gospel.  We never know how our work - or peoples' lives - will turn out in the end.

As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 3, "It's not the one who plants or the one who waters who is at the center of this process but God, who makes things grow.  Planting and watering are menial servant jobs at minimum wages.  What makes them worth doing is the God we are serving...."