The LORD’s Unseen Collaborators (07/30/2024)

Last evening, we had bible study at my home. We ten women gathered around 6 for a meal provided by members of our group. We take turns bringing the entrée, salad, and dessert. We pray, we eat, we share our lives and faith, we break open the Word together and seek to make sense of it for our journeys, sharing our thoughts, our faith, our hopes, our needs. And we end with prayers of thanksgiving for the evening as well as prayers for our loved ones in need. And the host, sharing his space, is my husband; he goes to the basement every Monday evening and occupies himself for three hours.

Last evening, after all the women left and the dishwasher was started, I took time again to thank the LORD for my husband’s support, understanding, and generosity. Weekly, he fixes himself a bite around 5, we chat as he eats, and then he leaves his comfortable tv chair and goes downstairs to make room for the group that will be descending momentarily. He ascends again only after he is sure that his chair is vacant for him again.

He isn’t visible during our gatherings, but our gatherings wouldn’t happen if it weren’t for his understanding of their importance and his support of us. His willingness to give up his comfort weekly so that we can gather exceeds commendable; it is a reminder to me that the LORD works through others we may not see. They are among the LORD’s unseen collaborators.

On our journeys of faith, hope and love, we need to seek out and thank the LORD’s unseen collaborators in our life. They exist.  They give themselves or their resources to make things possible for us. They include the sacristan and the night custodian. They usually include members of our family. Hopefully, we are on someone’s list of the LORD’s unseen collaborators.

Front and center, we are reminded, is not the only place the LORD is at work. This day, may we take time to consider who has been the LORD’s unseen collaborators in our journeys and take time to give thanks to the LORD for the LORD’s grace and guidance and give thanks to them for their cooperation with that grace and guidance as well as their loving generosity of self and resources.

Until tomorrow, let us all love well.