Colleen and Nikki discuss God’s perfect plan which includes your being here during the pandemic. Transcription by Gwen Billington.
Nikki: Welcome to Former Adventist podcast. I’m Nikki Stevenson.
Colleen: And I’m Colleen Tinker.
Nikki: And here we are now, three months into this time of social distancing and recording in separate places, Colleen.
Colleen: Oh, I know.
Nikki: I sure miss being in there with you.
Colleen: I miss it too.
Nikki: So when we first started doing these check-ins a few months ago, our goal was to encourage each other during this time, and we have had plenty of opportunity over the weeks to feel discouraged and confused and frightened, at least I have. This last week has been one of those times where I have started to feel almost hopeless, honestly, about the future. It’s hard to feel like we are going to ever stabilize. How do we come back from everything we’ve experienced over the last six months of 2020? How do I raise my kids in that? And what is their future going to look like? And those are sort of the places that I have been in my head over the last week.
Colleen: Um-hmm.
Nikki: And then this really wonderful thing happened while I was online on social media, which is shocking, that anything wonderful could come of that these days. [Laughter.]
Colleen: [Laughter.]
Nikki: I found a soundbite from Allie Beth Stuckey, from one of her recent podcasts that I shared with you. And I want to share it with our listeners, at least her message. One of the things that she said that was shocking to me, and I don’t know why because I’m a Bible-believing Christian and I know it to be true, but she said, “You were made for this, guys. There’s no reason to be afraid of the times that we’re living in because you were created for this. You were purposed to live here in this place, during this time.” It felt encouraging. She was giving me truth that I had lost somehow over the previous week. And she was quoting some of the verses that I didn’t even see until I became a Christian.
Colleen: I heard that soundbite as well, and it had a similar effect on me. It was very encouraging. She was actually referring to, I believe, one of the verses that has actually become one of my favorites in Scripture. Now, I have favorite verses for different purposes.
Nikki: Um-hmm.
Colleen: But this is such an amazing thing because the whole idea of God being sovereign is something that I didn’t even understand until I became a Christian. But here’s the passage. It’s from Acts 17. Paul is preaching on Mars Hill in Athens, a bunch of pagans in a very highly developed culture, metropolis, but a pagan metropolis, and he’s saying, “God made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us.”
Nikki: I remember the first time I heard that after leaving Adventism, because we spent quite a bit of time in Acts, didn’t we? [Laughter.]
Colleen: Yes, we did. [Laughter.]
Nikki: But I remember seeing that He had determined the allotted periods and boundaries of their dwelling places. He chose that I would live in this town, and He chose that we would know the people that we would know and that we would live during this time. That’s kind of an overwhelming thought.
Colleen: He picked us for this. In a related way, about this verse and about what it says, that He also knew who He would put in our lives, who would be in our local Body of Christ, who would be in our circle of friends that we communicate with, that we encourage, that we hear preach the word to us. He determined that we who share this podcast together would do that. This was His plan from the beginning, and we’re right where He expected us to be, at the time He wanted us, doing the work He gave us to do.
Nikki: Yes! And He equips us. I love how Kaspars put it at the conference, He gives the demand, but He also gives the supply. When we see these things and when we look at this time that we’re living in, we can know that this was God’s purpose for us. He knew about 2020 back in 2015. He knew what was coming, and He prepared us for this time. I can take that to the bank when I think about my kids’ future. He chose for this time for them, and no matter what’s ahead of us, He’s going to sustain us, and He’s going to give us everything we need to be able to walk through these times. His word really is the only thing that’s going to carry me through this and keep me sane.
Colleen: Oh, me too.
Nikki: Because without it, I find myself very quickly and very easily feeling hopeless. So hearing that we were made for this was stabilizing.
Colleen: This is not a surprise to God. He knew this was coming. Sometimes I think about the fact that He put Life Assurance in the world at the time He did. I’ve often wondered, why is it that the Lord allowed Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses to be so clearly recognized as false religions from almost their beginning, but ever since 1955 Adventism has been given a pass with the Christians because of the way Adventists deceived Walter Martin. And I’ve thought, why? Why was that? I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know that God chose the time when Adventism would begin to be unveiled, and I know that we’re here talking to one another as part of His sovereign plan to help people with our background know what the Bible says and also to help people in the Christian community to recognize when they come up against a false religion.
Nikki: And so when everything around us seems like a mistake, like the product of a lot of sin – and I think a lot of it is – we can know that it wasn’t just arbitrary that we were here for this, there was purpose in this for us. I think of Joseph when he was talking to his brothers, and he says to them, “What you meant for evil, God meant for good.” He put purpose in that, where he said, “God meant for good.” He purposed it.
Colleen: Right.
Nikki: And He did. We know that at this point, looking back. We know that it was because Joseph was in Egypt during that time that God was able to preserve Israel.
Colleen: Yes!
Nikki: So we get to see that purpose, and we can know that a time will come when we will understand the purpose for all of this. And by finding our strength in Scripture, we’re able to be useful to God during this time and keep our focus on the work that He prepared in advance for us to do even now.
Colleen: Um-hmm. You know, as an Adventist I didn’t understand God’s sovereignty over the world and its events. I would say He was sovereign. I would say, you know, there are things that will come to pass that He’s told us will come to pass, but as an Adventist I would have faced this sort of confusion and upheaval in the world with more fear than hope because I would have thought, “Oh, the time of trouble is coming. Oh, we’re going to have a Sunday law soon. Oh, maybe I should run to the hills.”
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: “Maybe I need to figure out my edible plants.” But now I see that these things are not surprises, and they’re not things that are happening because I’m not doing my part. As an Adventist, I believed that Jesus’ return was largely determined by how well we took the gospel – whatever we thought that was – to the world and how well we were obeying Him and keeping the Sabbath. I don’t see that anymore. The time of Jesus’ return is fixed. It’s a fixed date. All the times and purposes of God are fixed in His sovereign knowledge. We don’t hasten Him. We don’t slow Him down. All we do is do what He asked us to do, and as we trust Him, our work is effective. As we fear, our work has less effect. But it doesn’t mean that we’re slowing down His return, and it doesn’t mean we’re pulling ourselves out of His hand. It just means we can trust Him, and we can do what He puts in front of us. He only asks us to do the next right thing.
Nikki: And we know from Psalm 139:16, it says, “In your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” These days were formed for us. Even with all of the evil contained within them, because that’s just where we live – we’re strangers and aliens in this place – but even so, these days were formed for us. And we can know that He has not left us orphaned.
Colleen: And as we’ve learned in Hebrews, He’s perfecting all of us who are sanctified in Christ. All of this is for Hisglory and for our good. And we can trust Him. And we can know that if He opens up a step in front of us, that’s the step we’re to take. Sometimes that step means getting out of bed and doing the next right thing. Sometimes it means getting the dishes done. Sometimes it means sitting down and writing a blog. [Laughter.]
Nikki: [Laughter.]
Colleen: It means what God gives me to do, I have to trust Him to do, and He is faithful. We can’t be accidentally cut off before our time. He has determined our time and our place.
Nikki: And the truths of Scripture are the truths of Scripture no matter what we face. And if we proclaim them in times of plenty, we ought to proclaim them in times of loss and sorrow. This is truth no matter what we walk through, no matter what we face, no matter what’s going on around us, it is still true, and it will still sustain us, and so being reminded this week that I was created for this, that I was made for this moment and that I have work to do and purpose in Christ and that He will carry me, and He will carry all who are His, all the way to the end, save us to the uttermost, it has given me a new hope. Yeah, things don’t exactly look the way that I thought they would look for my kids, but I still don’t know what’s going to happen or how this is going to end, and the fact of the matter is, if I’ve learned nothing else in my 40 years of life, God’s plans are always better than my ideas.
Colleen: That’s so true. Well said, Nikki. And thanks for saying that. It was a good reminder to me to hear it said that way.
Nikki: So if you have any questions or comments for us, write to us at formeradventist@gmail.com. If you’d like to get back issues of Proclamation! magazine or sign up for our weekly blogs, you can do so at proclamationmagazine.com, and follow us on Instagram and Facebook, and leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. And don’t forget to join us for our Wednesday Bible studies as we walk through the book of Hebrews and study the New Covenant in Christ.
Colleen: Thanks so much for being with us for another check-in, and we’ll see you again next time.
Nikki: Bye.
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