Providential Relationships...

Bam! Bam! Bam! The door to my dorm room shuddered under the
determined blows. Rolling over on my bed, I glanced at my alarm clock.
Quarter after nine. Still plenty of time to make my 10:30 class-no
reason to getup. But I knew of only one person who would beat on
someone's door with the intensity of a jackhammer. And he wasn't going
to go away.

With a sign, I rolled out of bed and unlocked the door. A
moment later, the door burst open and Rich Jarvi exploded into my room
like a miniature tornado, oblivious to the pile of dirty laundry he had
to sidestep on his way to shake my hand.

"Hi, Don," he said, unnaturally chipper at such an ungodly hour
on a Monday morning, "just wanted to make sure that you'll be at Bible
study this afternoon."

"Yeah, Rich, I'll be there," I said, knowing all the while that
if I didn't show up I'd only get a repeat performance of this morning's
wakeup call. After a couple more minutes of small talk, Rich bustled
out of my room, undoubtedly off to wake up another unsuspecting college student.

Rich worked as a campus minister for The Navigators and he went
out of his way to pursue me during my college years. Though we attended a University designed to allow students to become lost in the crowd, Rich refused to let my friends and I fall by the wayside. He would come to check up on us several times a week, Bible in hand, and he somehow always knew whether or not we were really home. If we didn't answer right away, he'd stand in the hall, oblivious to the looks he got from other residents, and pound on our doors until we opened.

You see that year, my first year away from the steadying
influence of family and church, I felt spiritually adrift and didn't
particularly want anything to do with God. So He pursued me instead by
using Rich Jarvi, a middle aged, unassuming man who wasn't too proud to wade into the freshman dorms at The Ohio State University and drag some wayward kids back to God.

Andy said on Sunday that God uses human relationships to
influence faith and I bet if you took an honest look at your own faith
story, you'd find a Rich Jarvi waiting in the wings. In Revelations
3:20 Jesus tells the Apostle John, "Here I am! I stand at the door and
knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and
eat with him and he with me."

During those trying days in college, when I felt farthest from
God, my savior was still standing at the door and knocking. He just
looked a little like Rich Jarvi.

* So what about you? Are you willing to be a Rich Jarvi? This
week put yourself in an intentional relational environment and see what
happens. Blog about the experience.


Don