Megaphone

In the fall of 2015 my mom died. After a long battle with cancer she said goodbye to this world. It is not an easy thing to live with hope when you know you’re dying. Cancer is a loud question in the dark, “does what I believe hold up in the night, at the very end?” Mom’s answer came in the form of a message from Louie Giglio. His message about the whales and the stars praising God gave her comfort. She played it on repeat. It fought back the fear of death, it reminded her God is big enough to hold her life.

In her last months when we talked about her funeral she told us, “I want the whales and stars played. I want you all to sing How Great is our God with the whales and the stars.”

So we did.

It was powerful. It was transcendent. It gave the rest of us left behind hope. But God wasn’t done. He wasn’t done. God wanted to drive home the point. So he brought Louie Giglio to my mother’s funeral. In little Weaverville, NC Louie Giglio showed up to my mom’s funeral! And in a nanosecond my family shared with Louie an eternal moment of godly favor. God doesn’t waste anything. I’ve heard of and seen Louie using this story several times in his sermons. God apparently used not only Louie to communicate God’s favor to us but he used the circumstance of my mom’s funeral to communicate God’s favor to Louie. Only God can do that.

So how does Pat Morton, a woman who grew up with an alcoholic father and struggled for years with a poor self-image, who joined my dad in pastoral ministry and later walked away from the church, who fought alcoholism herself, and finally, beautifully, gloriously, made peace with God toward the end of her life end up in a sermon alongside of Billy Graham as an illustration? How does that happen? God’s gracious economy.

Because really, Pat Morton was not more or less of a person just because you know Billy Graham or Louie Giglio’s name and not hers. She was not loved less. Her life wasn’t worth less because her life was small. And even though people like Louie Giglio are giants of the faith, what they really are is megaphones for God’s grace. 

God’s love for my mom or for my family wasn’t any less real before Louie came to her funeral, or any more real after he showed up. Louie’s presence was a message. He was the megaphone in God’s hand, shouting, “I see you. I am here with you.”

I’m pleased that God has honored my mom’s life by weaving her into Louie’s messages. It touches me. Because I know her journey. I know the agony she endured to confront the lies she had believed from her childhood. I know the love she cultivated for Jesus, hour after hour studying his word. I know that at one point she doubted if she mattered. I know that as God revealed her worth in him she experienced true contentment and joy. I know that she was faithful, and that that faithfulness was hard and costly. God loves to use broken and ordinary things to show off his glory. My mom was no exception.

Louie Giglio may not show up at your funeral, or your mom’s funeral. But that doesn’t mean you are not on his radar. You are. He sees you. He has purposes for you. He desires to pour out his favor on your life. 

Listen, God is a communicating God. If you need to know his eye is on you, ask him to show you. He will. Through his word, circumstances, nature, and so very often his people. And if you are a Jesus follower, surrendered to his purposes, get ready. God will use you as his megaphone. He will position you to magnify and spread his message of grace.

There is always a heart needing to hear God sees them. That his grace stretches far enough. That forgiveness is real and life has meaning. Wherever you go people are listening. If we position ourselves under God’s leadership we will be poised to be God’s megaphone wherever we end up!

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works,which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10