This is definitely one of those times in life when anything that happens qualifies as a “and in the middle of all that…” moment. There’s already plenty going on. I’m crashing the library preparing for comprehensive exams on the early church next month. I’ve got a 3-month-old at home now, along with the 6 year old and the 9 year old. I’m assistant coach of my boy’s 1^st grader basketball team, the Lions! You know the story and it’s not much different than everyone else I know. And those of you who have followed my story over the last two years know just how happy I am to be home again and busied with the busy-ness of a dad. But it feels busy, and when something comes along different or new…well, I often hear my wife on the phone saying, “…and in the middle of all that…” But sometimes the very best things in life come along “in the middle of all that.”

     Continuing in the spirit of Valentine’s Day, I remember the first date with my wife, Abigail. We were in college at Northwestern and I drove her down to the Korean District to randomly select a restaurant. It really did feel like a trip overseas. All the signs were in Korean and the restaurant had no English-speakers working that night. They found one menu for us that had the English translation written in. I ordered “Bim Bam Bop.” I was delighted by the Korean, but even more intrigued by the English translation: “Burning Bowl of Stone.” Now that, I had to try.

     When the waitress returned she placed a heated stone bowl before me filled with layers of different foods. She placed the dish on the table, then pulling an egg out of her apron pocket, she cracked it and dropped the raw egg right in the middle of it all. She turned to me with an expectant look. Was this some sort of challenge? Little did I know I was supposed to stir the whole dish immediately upon receiving the egg. She finally got the message across, but instead of the specialty it was supposed to become, I enjoyed something of a layered dish with burned rice on the bottom topped with lukewarm vegetables and some raw egg. 

     Some of the best things in life drop in ‘in the middle of it all’ and we just need to know what to do with them. A friend from my time in ministry in New Jersey published a book last fall: Bruce Main, Spotting the Sacred . He reminds us that God is at work in our lives constantly and often it is a matter of paying attention. Yes, Jesus drops in. As demonstrated in the incarnation and recapitulated in every meaningful moment of worship Jesus is willing and able to step into history, to join with us in the day to day, to make the leap from the infinite realm of divinity to the finite run of life that you and I are subject to. We need to learn to pay attention, and we need to learn to see God dropping in right in the middle of it all.

     What does this look like? When Christ appears in your life it is an awe-inspiring, show stopping moment. The revelation of God in Christ is self-authenticating. I consulted no man, wrote Paul (Gal. 1:16). When God drops in through Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit, you won’t have to ask anyone what God is doing. If you open your heart in faith you immediately receive a divine sense and you see it all. You see it all again and for the first time. And you are there, and you are you again. And God is there, and God is God again. And together you walk right through the middle of it all.

     Now, when the fact of Jesus’ personal influence upon us has led us to recognize that God reveals Himself to us and pours out His love upon us, the whole world is transformed for us. For the world wherein this has befallen us is no longer to our eyes a weary stretch of numberless and perplexing events. What we experience at the hands of Jesus tells us the purpose of all that reality amidst whose relationship His person stands. When we understand the meaning of His life, the particular events of our life turn out to be efforts of God in behalf of our souls. The whole world appears to us now to be a well-ordered system whose culminating-point is the Person of Jesus and His work upon us.

--Wilhelm Herrmann, The Communion of the Christian with God.