I know what you’re thinking, and maybe you’re right. Truthfully though, there’s still information that is missing. Maybe somebody smells gas in their house. Maybe somebody thinks they smell a fire. Maybe you’re on a long road trip and dad ate a bean burrito for lunch. Maybe a husband is asking an ill-advised question about his wife’s new perfume. Maybe any of those, but when all you have is “What is that smell?” you don’t know. So, you wait until you have more data.

I remember how high school almost ruined me of the love of reading. For example, we would read “The Old Man and the Sea” or “Fahrenheit 451” or “Animal Farm” (“All animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others”) or “Lord of the Flies”. For the test, the teacher would then ask a question like, “What did the rain signify in the Lord of the Flies?” You see, rain always meant something in high school english class. It meant cleansing and purification; it signaled change. Personally, I think authors write about rain because their books would be boring from a meteorological perspective if it was sunny and 80 everyday; so they write a storm into it.

Alright, if I haven’t lost you yet, then keep reading because this is about to come together. We recently had a storm come through that brought rain – lots of rain. It didn’t signify cleansing or purging, but it did have meaning; it meant that we had to stop work on the church for a few days. It meant nothing was (at least to the eye) happening.

Have you ever had a storm blow into your life? I have. It was a time where God had me stop doing some things. Maybe there was a ministry you wanted to be involved in or a group you wanted to join, but you heard God saying, “Not yet.” So you wait, and nothing (at least to the eye) happens. Most of the time, God wants us to serve but there are those times when God brings a storm in to get us to stop working. Have you ever experienced that? It’s hard because when I’m hurting I want to get busy, because it dulls the pain. “Here am I, Lord; send me!” God quietly answers, “Not yet.” Here’s what I do know; there is something going on. God isn’t idle; He is at work growing you and preparing you to be made into the image of His Son. The best thing you can do is (to quote the hymn) trust and obey. God loves you and wants the best for you; sometimes that means storms and stillness. Listen to God and then follow Him where He leads. You will run into some storms but the good news is that storms don’t last forever.

“What is that smell?” Maybe it’s the smell of newness that comes right after a storm or maybe it’s the smell of rain that precedes a storm; either way, it’s good if God is leading.

Once the slab was poured, the building committee members would go out periodically and we would play that game. We knew where everything was going, but it was still difficult to pinpoint exactly where rooms were going to go. The reason it’s so difficult early on is because we lack structure – we lack context to the building. Now that steel beams are going up, the church has more defined shape and, most importantly, it has context by which we can see what goes where and where certain rooms belong.

Time for my confession: I play this game way too often in life. As an example, one of my kids will do something that I don’t agree with and I can have a tendency to jump all over them for it. I come down quickly and I come down hard so that they will understand that what they did is not okay. Afterwards, I learn a piece of information that completely changes the way I view what they did. Their actions didn’t change but the context changed. Walls were put up allowing me to see how things fit together.

Here’s another example: my kids play sports so we are involved on different teams. Some families I really connect to and some, for whatever reason, just rub me wrong. I found out one of the families will be moving to a different team next season. It was a family that rubs me wrong which makes complete sense that they would be the unhappy people, always mad about something. Next thing I know, BLAM!, a wall falls into place; the family is going through a divorce. I felt like a total heel and my context was dramatically changed. I saw that family in a completely different light and they suddenly didn’t rub me wrong anymore. Consternation was replaced with compassion.

I assume I know all the facts way too often instead of having the humility to try to understand the situation. Which is ironic (not to mention hypocritical) because I hate it when people do that to me. I hope that when I see different situations in life, I start realizing I’m just looking at a concrete slab; and that I wait for some walls to be put up so I can better understand the context. It’s a fun game to play at new construction, but it’s a dangerous game to play in life.

Basically, the problem was that the engineer used the wrong standard when he plotted the lines. And he found out that a little mistake can lead to some fairly big problems. So, this begs a question for us: “What is our standard”? I can’t answer this question for you, but I can answer it for me. My standard has been many different things in my life. I have sought to please men. I have sought to please myself. I have tried to merit God’s love through my actions and tried to merit his forgiveness through my penance. Now, let me offer one that will potentially be a little bit more controversial: I have used theology as my standard.

“But theology is good,” you say. “Theology is a right knowledge of God. Theology helps us to know God better.” Well . . . kind of. The first thing to make note of is that there are a great deal of people who love God and desire to follow Him who believe radically different things. The reason is because there are verses which seem to agree with their position. The truth is, none of us have it completely figured out. So, if theology is our standard, then whose version of theology are we using?

The second thing to make note of can be made with an illustration. After almost 14 years of marriage there are things I know about my wife. I have a right knowledge about certain things she likes (hugs and beautiful flowers in her garden) and certain things she doesn’t like (me tickling her or my son throwing a fake spider on the ground to scare her). In these ways, I have a right knowledge of her. But right knowledge doesn’t mean right relationship. I can do all the right things based out of my knowledge and still lack relationship with her. My right knowledge can help my relationship, but knowing the right things doesn’t ensure relationship. My goal needs to be right relationship and not right knowledge. My goal in this eternal life going on right now isn’t to know about God but to know God.

In the past, I set my standard as right theology. If I could know the right things about God then I would be spiritually elite (and truthfully, it’s easier to know than to do). But my standard was wrong, and it left me with a life that needed to have some jackhammering and some walls moved and some additional concrete poured (which is tons of fun let me tell you).

So, what’s your standard? Is it knowing about Him or knowing Him? I know about George Washington but I know my wife; and (no offense to Mr. Washington) I enjoy my wife a whole lot more because of that little difference.

This weekend I had the opportunity to attend a Walk to Emmaus event (the one I went to is called Tres Dias). It was a phenomenal event and I encourage anyone interested to attend one. One of the things I realized (it wasn’t anything anybody said or taught on; it was just something God spoke to me) was about purpose. Romans 8:28 is a verse most of us are familiar with. We quote it, sign it, email it, and use it to (try) to bring encouragement to others or ourselves. “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

I pulled open my Bible (why bother, I have that verse memorized) and read it officially. Only this time I didn’t stop reading. I continued on. Do you know what God reveals to us right after that verse? I didn’t. The remainder of the chapter is spent with Paul describing God’s character. Paul is saying that God did everything so He could mold us into the likeness of His Son. In fact, God sacrificed His Son so that we could never be condemned again. Paul ends the chapter with another passage most of us are familiar with. “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Why is that huge arm sticking up into the sky? What purpose does it serve? Why does God say all things work together for good and then say, “Oh, and by the way, nothing can ever remove you from the reach of my love.” Why are those connected there? Because we need them to be.

Have you noticed nobody uses the “all things” verse when everything is going great? We use it when life really stinks and all we feel is pain and despair. That is when we need to be reminded, “Oh, and by the way, nothing can ever remove you from the reach of My love.”

Like Job we cry out, “Why? Why would you treat me this way when all I want to do and all I try to do is serve You? Why would You do this to me? Where is Your love in this, God?” My purpose in writing isn’t to explain why or try to assign meaning to our suffering. My conclusion (and my point) is that God is there in the midst of our suffering because we can never be separated from His love. I (and we) need to remember that “all things” leads to “[nothing] will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus.” And now that we know that “all things” are found in the midst of God’s love, there’s just one thing left to do; trust it.

Looking at that fence encircling our property got me thinking about a friend of mine. He builds fences for a living right now. Before that, he was the pastor at a large church. He ended up making some unwise choices and had an affair that cost him his position. Now he builds fences and works diligently on restoring his life with his family.

As I thought about fences, my first question was, “What are they for?” They are meant to seclude, to protect, to conceal. My second question was, “Are fences good or bad?” My answer is that they can be either depending on the context. My friend ended up taking some fences down that he used to protect himself from situations that could lead him astray. Those fences were a good thing to have. The Bible has lists of “don’t dos” that are meant to be fences that protect us from destructive choices. We have the ability to take them down, but there is a cost; we lose the protection they are intended to give us. These fences are good.

So which fences are bad? The ones we put up in our relationships. I recently read Glaen (available in the church bookstore) and it brought up an uncomfortable concept. In the book, it was brought up that most relationships are not honest. We spend time trying to get something we want by acting a certain way (overly nice, I’ll give you this if you give me that, I’ll get mad so you’ll give me what I want). As a result of this concept, I started asking myself, “Am I seeing the real person I’m married to or is what I’m seeing the person I created.” These tactics are fences. I act certain ways to protect myself (get what I want and thus protect my “rights”), seclude myself (keep people at a distance so they can’t hurt me) or conceal myself (I’m afraid people won’t like who I am so I will hide by not being real). These fences are bad because they prevent us from having real relationships.

Personally, my struggle is with putting up fences that are bad and preventing real relationships from happening. I want to have real relationships that are genuine, but I’m also afraid of them. My fences offer me some protection, seclusion and concealment, but the cost is an honest and meaningful relationship.

In either case, the answer is trusting God. Either God loves me and wants what’s best for me or He doesn’t. If God wants me to build fences as a protection from harmful life choices, do I trust Him enough to do it? If He wants me to break down fences in order to experience real intimacy with someone I love, do I trust Him enough to do it? Sometimes you need to build fences and sometimes you need to tear them down; the important thing is knowing when to do each. And remember: Father knows best!