There are moments in your life when you sense God's hand reaching down; when events occur that go beyond simply coincidence or good fortune. And as you look back, these events become markers of God's grace in your life—reminders that God has a plan in mind for you, that He has walked with you in the past, that He can be trusted to lead you into tomorrow.
My wife Kari and I were in Nigeria at the beginning of the Biafran War, a brutal, bloody conflict in which many thousands of people were killed. I was principal of our college in West Nigeria, where Babcock University now stands. The college had a bakery that delivered bread to stores in Lagos and Ibadan—the best bread that you could buy in the country was produced by our college bakery, and every morning delivery vans set out to both cities.
One of the drivers who took bread to Ibadan came to my house late one evening. He was from the Ibo tribe of east Nigeria, the tribe that was at war with the rest of the country. As the turmoil intensified, most of the Ibo students at the college had returned home to east Nigeria. But this driver had not. For him the value of an education was too high, and he wanted to stay. He said, "I am afraid to go by myself into Ibadan tomorrow. Would you come with me?"
We left at four in the morning with an extra box of bread to distribute to soldiers at the military checkpoints we passed through. We made our deliveries at Ibadan and headed back to the college. As we came around a long bend in the road we found a number of cars had been stopped. There were a half dozen soldiers in uniform with automatic weapons; these were Hausa soldiers from north Nigeria, the Ibos' most implacable enemies. They were drunk on palm wine, unsteady on their feet and somewhat irrational. They could not speak a lot of English. As they came to each vehicle they asked just one question: "Which nation?" meaning, "Which tribe?" And when they came to our van they really didn't need to ask the question because they saw the tribal marks on the face of my driver.
"Come out, come out," they said to him. I knew what would happen if he left the van. There were so many stories of Ibos who were taken just off to the side of the road and shot. I opened the door on my side. "No," they said and gestured for me to stay. The leader of the group was on my side of the van, so I prayed and began to talk to him. I spoke for about 15 minutes and as I talked, the other soldiers, who had been pointing their weapons through the windows of our van, also came around to listen. I have no idea what I said to them—even immediately afterward I could not recall the words I spoke. But I know it was in English, a language they did not speak beyond a few words.
After a quarter of an hour the leader said to the Ibo driver, "We will let you go, but only because your master talked so well." If there was ever a classical case of speaking in tongues, this would be it! Without the intervention of the Holy Spirit there was no way my words could be properly understood by the soldiers, let alone impress them to let us pass unharmed.
Although there have been other times also, this stands out for me as a moment when I became profoundly aware of God's presence in my life; He stopped me on my journey, stepped in and said, "I want to give direction to your life. I want you to know that your work isn't finished; there are other things I want you to do. I will sustain you and stay with you. Stay with Me and things will be okay."
Some 40 years beyond this event, a different African conflict is dominating headlines. The crisis in Kenya is fueled by deep ethnic and political divisions. In the reports of death and upheaval I hear echoes not only of the Biafran War, but of innumerable other tragedies of the past century: from the genocides of Sudan, Rwanda and the Balkans, to the endless back-and-forth of the Middle East conflict, to the devastation of the World Wars and the Jewish Holocaust.
As I see heartbreaking images from Kenya—of a young man, shirt bloodied and head bowed; of a small child sitting lost and alone beside the body of her murdered mother—the question comes forcefully to me: "As one whose life has been touched by God's grace, what am I doing to make His presence visible in a world that desperately needs to hear His voice and feel His touch?"
Grace is not just a private, one-way experience. It's not a theological proposition we can hold up to the light and examine, then put aside and go on with business as usual. Grace is a powerful, living force that cannot be contained. When God reaches into our lives, His touch animates us. It opens our eyes to needs around us; it compels us to go into our communities with practical, hands-on care. When we feel God's touch, we can be sure that it is not for our benefit alone, but so His love will also be reflected and amplified in our actions and our relationships.
My hope is that Seventh-day Adventists will be known as agents of God's grace; that our first care will always be for people—before things, before traditions, before our own comfort. I pray that our churches will be places of spiritual and physical refuge; that all who enter will be embraced with warmth, acceptance and compassion. And I pray that each of us, as we reflect back on God's presence in our lives, will be able to say with the Apostle Paul: "[B]y the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect" (1 Corinthians 15:10 NIV).
Jan Paulsen is the president of the Seventh-day Adventist world church.
