Written by Jonathan Bowell

Some people hate when a song gets stuck in their head. I rather enjoy it. I’ll sing it over and over again, trying my layman’s best for a harmony until my throat aches or my wife yells at me to leave her alone. What good are killer harmonies unless someone else hears them? Sticky songs become a sort of soundtrack for my day, as if I was a character in a movie.

I feel the same way about Bible verses. Sometimes a verse will get stuck in my head, or perhaps my heart, and give shape to everything else I think about. It happened recently with Psalm 111, which says in verses 2-4:

“Great are the works of the Lord,
    studied by all who delight in them.
Full of splendor and majesty is his work,
    And his righteousness endures forever.
He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered;
    The Lord is gracious and merciful.”

The Psalmist states that those who delight in God study his works. That is, when they read the Bible they don’t ask first and foremost, “What does this passage contribute to my broader theological framework?” or, “What does this passage tell me about how I am supposed to live?” Rather, they ask, “What is God up to?” And not only is that a helpful question to ask when reading scripture, but also when reading our lives.

Paul Tripp says, “Human beings do not live based on the facts but based on their interpretation of the facts. You don’t actually respond to what’s going on around you, you respond to the sense you have made of what is going on around you – always carrying around an interpretative grid to make sense of your life.” What if our interpretative grid for this season of coronavirus and quarantine was the simple question asked with hopeful curiosity: “What is God up to?” Not because we think we can understand every detail of God’s plan or because we want to explain away our pain, but because God is working his grace into our lives and he wants us to sense it and sync up with it. That is what Psalm 111 is all about. This sort of “interpretative grid” allows us to look at churned up soil and, instead of seeing a destroyed earth, see the perfect conditions for growth beneath the surface.

Allow me to apply this to our church plant. Just a few months ago, our church plant was beginning to gain momentum. We had just launched our third community group, welcomed in our second wave of new members, and were two weeks away from moving our Sunday gathering into a local elementary school when the chaos broke loose. It has taken time, but we have begun to ask, with hopeful curiosity, “What is God up to?” As a result, our vision is coming into focus on the three ways He is cultivating growth in our church.

1. A renewed focus on prayer. Through both an increase in needs and an increase in time, God is cultivating a spirit of prayer in our body. We may have less face-to-face conversations with our brothers and sisters and the people we are seeking to reach, but we can now have more face-to-face conversation with God on their behalf. He is making us into a truly praying church--something that, if it depended on my leadership, would not have happened otherwise.

2. A renewed appreciation for our friendships. It is easy in a church planting context to grow tired of the same old people you see every week and become burdened by all the work that goes into hosting a Sunday gathering. But this season of physical distance is reminding us of the great blessing of being together, and our excitement is growing to create stronger rhythms of "life together". In fact, God is already strengthening our bonds through more prayer for one another and our weekly connection via social media.

3. A renewed commitment to micro-mission. By "micro-mission" I mean those small acts of love for the people closest to us. Dreaming about how to bring Gospel transformation to the city is good, but it's important we remember it always starts "close to home.” As our centers of gravity have shifted, our people are intentionally reaching out to, serving, and building stronger relationships with neighbors, close friends, and their immediate family members. God is giving us opportunities to move towards those we normally take for granted. My intent in sharing these examples with you is not to promote cheap positive thinking. The pain is real and if we move too quickly past it we will miss the God who is at work in the midst of it. But there is more going on than meets the eye at first glance. God is up to something beneath the surface. “Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them.” May the lyrics of Psalm 111 be to you an interpretative magnifying glass through which you investigate your suffering for signs of grace. May they be a louder and stickier soundtrack than your doubts and fears.