CarsfromGod

We went to church in Franschhoek for the first time. It is a church called Shofar and all the students from Bridges Academy ride a bus there, so there were quite a few familiar faces. This church is considered “charismatic” which includes members of the church being invited to share any “words” from the Lord they had. Open mic experiences have historically been very bad for me. Think no time limits, uncomfortable seats, emotional external processing in front of large groups that are captive audiences…you get the idea. I am not a fan. So if you have this “open mic” mentality and add to it the “God told me this” line it could be a very questionable mixture.
The first woman to go told a very touching story about forgiveness and I thoroughly enjoyed myself, even shed a few. Then a young woman went who (for the sake of annonimity) we will call Shera. Shera ditched class the day her public speaking professor taught on audience analysis. Shera also lacked the use of an alternative word for “blessed”. Shera also, in my humble opinion, told the audience something about God that would make many people question what God must think of them.
To make an uninteresting story shorter and more to the point, Shera went car shopping with her dad and picked out the car she wanted and got it. You might be thinking that I have left out some important detail that would make this more interesting or more touching, but I assure you I have not. She took 4 to 6 minutes to tell this story and talked about things like financing and timelines, she smiled a lot and also said that God just blesses her and blesses her. There was a lot of spewing and now that I am trying to recall, I’m not exactly sure what her point was at the end. The interesting part of Shera’s story was that she was telling it to an audience that was made up of one quarter people around her own age but that had probably very little in common.
The students of Bridges Academy are either a. orphans or b. nearly orphans. They are all considered to be “at risk” and have grown up in the township of Philippi in, by nearly all standards, poverty. I think it’s nice that Shera has a new car that only has x amount of kilometers on it (she did include that detail). I had a car when I was young also. What made me really question what she was saying is that if God really wanted her to have a new car, just the one she wanted, and it is because he loves her so much and wants to bless her so much, well then what the hell about all the kids he doesn’t give brand new cars to, let alone parents or clean water or access to education? Does he not like them as much as Shera or I? Did he forget about them? Are they being punished?
What is the currency of blessing that God deals in? Is he operating in our realm by dealing out material wealth, and by directing all of our physical circumstances? Or is the world coming and going with light and dark, evil and good and our hearts are what God is looking at? Is it a mixture of both? I’m not sure, but I personally feel very skeptical when I hear someone say that God gave them a good parking spot. I know he does give good gifts, but are they gifts in the same way we think of gifts? I would pay good money to know how those Philippi kids felt when Shera went on and on about God giving her a car?