You Can’t See Him, But I Sure Can

Always be prepared to give an answer

to everyone who asks you to give the reason

for the hope that you have.

But do this with gentleness and respect.

— 1st Peter 3:15b&c

You can’t see him, but I sure can. He’s right there waving his sign in every church I’ve pastored, every time I’ve been a guest preacher, every small group I’ve guided, and on and on.

His sign shouts at me, “So What?!”

He first did that in a class. I was up front in a preaching and worship class in seminary. The instructor sat in the back of the class and held up that sign at various points in our sermons.

And I appreciate his recurrent question of, “So What?!”

It’s echoed in our Lenten Bible Study guidebook this year. The author asks what steps  we’re going to take to live into our learnings from that week’s lesson.

There’s way too much at stake for you and me to take the things of God lightly. They’re worth far more than a cursory nod before checking the time.

Donald Boyd was right when he’d flash his sign at us fledgling preachers as we sweated through our sermons on those chilly Kentucky mornings: “So What?!”

“So, What” difference are you letting what God’s showing you this Lenten Season make?

By the grace of God, may you and I live into our learnings, because we live in a world that’s constantly asking us, “So What?!”

Sometimes our culture even uses words to ask us, “So What?!”

Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect. — 1st Peter 3:15b&c