Overwhelmed by Chicago... but confident in an unseen God

I wanted to post about some thoughts I had on our recent trip to Chicago for the Alliance's New Official Worker Forum, held in Wheaton. We came into the city on Amtrak and went out to Wheaton by commuter rail. Travelling by train (especially one moving slowly) removes my feeling of control, which probably started these thoughts I'm about to share.

First of all, the downtown overwhelmed me in a way that never happened when we lived in the city. Probably that means we've gotten used to the smaller city feeling of Detroit. Detroit's big, no doubt, but Chicago is massive and its downtown is booming and construction continues. There seems to be more skyscrapers, and they're bigger too.

I'm not sure why, but I started thinking, "Big Money continues to call the shots... all of these people I can see are dominated by big corporations... the rich get richer and everybody else treads water, and the vast majority of people either ignore God or treat him as a hobby... there are so few who REALLY want to be disciples of Christ... "

Needless to say, I began to doubt whether the church was having any effect on society, particularly in a proud city like Chicago. My thoughts remained stuck there and I didn't talk to Lisa at all except to say I was thinking and didn't want to share.

When we arrived at Wheaton, we still had a ways to walk with our suitcases. I finally started to share with Lisa what I was thinking... and as I was talking, I realized that I had to simply TRUST Jesus that HE was doing His work, no matter what things looked like. Of course, this is one of the major truths of Revelation, but I really think being stuck on slow trains and staring out the windows was starting to mess with my mind... or I was allowing it to, anyway.

But as we were waling through Wheaton, I remembered that His Kingdom is invisible, and thank God that it is. It's bigger than our eyes can see, and it is only grasped, it's only understood by FAITH.

And then John Meyer's favorite verse came to me (he's pastor of the Alliance church plant down in Hamtramck):

"Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." -- 1 Corinthians 15:58

And that's the deal -- no matter what we see, even when we observe a world obsessed with money, power, and instant gratification. Our PRIMARY reward for doing the Lord's work is not going to be something we see here.

This encourages me to always serve the Lord first, no matter who my earthly boss is, or even if I'm unemployed or retired. He is our Master; what a blessing to work for His INVISIBLE Kingdom.

Because one day, everything that's invisible is going to come out into the open.