“Nevertheless, each person should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to them, just as God has called them…” (1 Corinthians 7:17, NIV).

He spent a month with me as a fourth-year medical student, an Alaskan who loved the Lord. Last week he invited us to his apartment as he returned for a year of fellowship training in obstetrics. We sat across a small table filled with black cod, shrimp, Indonesian crab and quinoa. My wife and I were amazed as he and his Indonesian wife of 19 months told their story. One small part described how she had come to marry her American husband. He had failed acceptance to medical school for two to three years, and God led him for that time to missions in a small Indonesian town, where eventually he met his future wife. She described how Jesus had come to her in a dream during her high school years and had absolutely transformed her life and desires. As she was growing within her relationship to God, He placed on her heart a description of her future husband. He would be Caucasian, he would be a doctor and he would love Jesus. Her mother laughed at that impossible dream in their small village on an eastern Indonesian island. “You will have to go to Bali to find such a husband,” her mother said. But God knew better; God planned better; and now we sat across from them, expecting their first child and planning a life of mission together for the Lord they love.

I am constantly amazed at God’s hand as He directs His symphony of redemption.

A young man finds Christ as he grows up in Alaska, desires medical school but is delayed, the delay leading him to serve on a small island in Indonesia, where he finds his future bride.

She, transformed by God in a dream, receives from Him a vision of her future husband, finds the one in God’s plan and follows him into a future of God’s redemptive work.

What a beautiful song God is playing through their lives.

And He does that with each of us, though we each have different instruments and play different notes. All the while, God’s conductor wand is bringing us in when it’s our turn to play.

How often am I asleep or watching my friends in the audience when He points my way? How rarely have I practiced my part.

I need to focus more on the Conductor, to appreciate more the beauty of His music around me, less distracted by thoughts of other tunes. I need to prepare more intentionally and thank Him more for my place in His orchestra, thank Him more for every musician He has chosen, many who play instruments I will never understand but are just as vital as mine for God’s great song of eternal life.

May I never settle for a lesser song.

Dear God,

Keep me focused so that I may never miss my part, or miss the joy you have placed in your music.

Amen