Coincidences

I have to laugh at the number of Coincidences that have been happening lately.  By coincidences, I mean, when vertical meets the horizontal –or when the LORD meets us where we’re at.  These sorts of things are like punctuation marks to me.  Kind of an exclamation point to a study or a revelation or whatever… when we’re reading in a passage of Scripture and somewhere along the way we discover that a brother or sister in the LORD is reading or has been reading in exactly the same place and has come to the same conclusion we have about a matter or has come to a completely different conclusion and the LORD uses that situation to open our eyes to His Truth or something He wants to show us that we hadn’t been thinking about.  But the times that have been richest are the times where a brother will share a passage we’ve been mulling over and confirms God’s working.  Such was the case with that passage in 1 John that we’ve been studying over the last few weeks — the “love not the world, neither the Bling! things of the world…” passage.

We smile as we see the LORD is leading brothers and sisters all over the world and is ministering through His Word to bring us all to a deeper understanding or sincere walk with Him.  We enjoyed listening to different men share in an “open meeting” this past weekend.  It was no surprise after the first shared (from 1J2.15) that another shared and another from parallel passages.  The first brother talked of several things that are drawing young people to “the things of the world” (MySpace, movies, music, internet) and I would add: clothing/styles.  He talked of the importance of guiding or being aware of the dangers or trappings of those things.  We whole heartedly agreed (This is what got us started with our website many years ago—the desire to set up a safe place to search out lots of good things and resources for families).  So anyway,  as men shared, the theme continued and was expanded as each elaborated on different points.  Open meetings are often like that—they sort of become to me like a patchwork quilt; each piece fitting together with the previous piece and eventually through the evening a full blanket of truth is seen.  We gathered with believers for an annual Cider press in the morning and on through the day and into an evening of sharing a meal, singing and hearing the Word.  It was a delightful time —and as a family tradition, we always look forward to gathering with those friends and sharing what the LORD is doing/has done.  The apple cider was delicious, too!

We smiled as the LORD continued to show us His Word as we came to our family table this morning and continued reading on in 1Corinthians.  We happened to be at chapter 11 this morning.  This, too, was significant as we’ve lately been discussing the gathering of the saints and the priority of coming together to celebrate the LORD’s day/supper and considered the importance of fellowship and structure of meetings.  We also, of course, talked about the matter of headship and God’s order.  We didn’t go through the meaning of the covering this morning as time didn’t permit that study, but will tomorrow as we gather again at the table.  (We tend to do this fairly often – latch on to a particular thought in a passage that might not necessarily be at the first of the chapter and then spend an hour or two talking it over and have to go back three or four days in a row to discuss the rest of the chapter or the different points that seem to be whole books in themselves!)  So we talked around the perimeter of the chapter and set aside the several verses pertaining to headship, hair and headcovering.

That matter (headcovering) has come up many, many times over the years – more in some groups than in others and more with some friends than with others.  Probably every three or four years of our marriage, this matter comes up either as a result of a talk we’ve heard, a book or an article we’ve read or through someone we’ve spent time with.  It’s a hot topic in some circles and yet needn’t lead to a volatile conversation or condemnation for those who do or those who do not choose the covering.  I believe it’s a step of faith –not as in degrees of faith or obedience, but a step of conviction of the LORD and yet always seems to stir up quite a bit of controversy and seems to have quite a bit of debate surrounding it.  It often becomes a dividing point or a distraction –but it needn’t be that way.  So… we’ll be looking into that a bit more tomorrow.