031020755X_relation_fm.qxp 9/8/06 2:21 PM Page 1 This page is intentionally left blank The GRAND WEAVER 0310269520_grandweaver_hc.indd 1 4/13/07 7:32:19 AM Books by Ravi Zacharias Is Your Church Ready? Motivating Leaders to Live an Apologetic Life (general editor with Norman Geisler) Walking from East to West Who Made God? And Answers to Over 100 Other Tough Questions of Faith (general editor with Norman Geisler) 0310269520_grandweaver_hc.indd 2 4/13/07 7:32:20 AM The GRAND WEAVER How God Shapes Us Through the Events of Our Lives RAVI ZACHARIAS 0310269520_grandweaver_hc.indd 3 4/13/07 7:32:20 AM The Grand Weaver Copyright © 2007 by Ravi Zacharias All rights reserved under International and Pan -American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non -exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down • loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan. AER Edition January 2009 ISBN: 978-0-310-31794-4 This title is also available as a Zondervan audio product. Visit www.zondervan.com/audiopages for more information. Requests for information should be addressed to: Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Zacharias, Ravi K. The grand weaver : how God shapes us through the events of our lives / Ravi Zacharias. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN-13: 978-0-310-26952-6 ISBN-10: 0-310-26952-0 1. Spirituality. 2. Chris tian life. I. Title. BV4501.3.Z33 2006 248.4 — dc22 2006037560 All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible: New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture references marked KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other — except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Published in association with the literary agency of Wolgemuth and Associates, Inc. 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 • 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 0310269520_grandweaver_hc.indd 4 10/19/07 10:51:07 AM To Sarah, Naomi, and Nathan, our beloved children. Three beautiful tapestries woven by God. Finish well, Sweethearts. 0310269520_grandweaver_hc.indd 5 4/13/07 7:32:21 AM 031020755X_relation_fm.qxp 9/8/06 2:21 PM Page 1 This page is intentionally left blank Contents Introduction 9 1. Your DNA Matters 19 2. Your Disappointments Matter 33 3. Your Calling Matters 53 4. Your Morality Matters 75 5. Your Spirituality Matters 93 6. Your Will Matters 111 7. Your Worship Matters 131 8. Your Destiny Matters 153 Epilogue 171 Notes 175 Appendix: 25 Key Questions 179 About the Publisher 208 Share Your Thoughts 209 0310269520_grandweaver_hc.indd 7 4/13/07 7:32:21 AM 031020755X_relation_fm.qxp 9/8/06 2:21 PM Page 1 This page is intentionally left blank Introduction OUT OF THE THOUSANDS OF LETTERS THAT I RECEIVE EACH YEAR, many from skeptics, a recent one stands out. The writer asks simply, “Why has God made it so difficult to believe in him? If I loved somebody and had infinite power, I would use that power to show myself more obviously. Why has God made it so difficult to see his presence and his plan?” This is a fair and haunting question. Theologians refer to this as “the hiddenness of God.” The skeptic uses stronger terms, re- ferring to him as the God who has absconded and left us with no visible sign of his existence. How do we arrive at any sense in dealing with this struggle? Would anyone deny that they would really like to see some pe- riodic “visitation” from God, some tangible evidence of his ex- istence? And who among us would not like to know his plan? As much as the question seems powerful, however, I con- tend that the answers we give must remind the questioner that maybe, just maybe, the question itself hasn’t been care- fully thought through. For example, how often would we want God to reveal himself? Once a day? Every time there is an emergency? Would we like to hear a voice every now and then, saying, “Trust me”? The interesting thing about this demand is that some have seen God’s presence; some have heard his 9 0310269520_grandweaver_hc.indd 9 4/13/07 7:32:22 AM 10 THE GRAND WEAVER voice — yet it did not make it any easier for them to believe. It turns out that when you are all-powerful, someone will always demand that you demonstrate the fact. John the Baptist, who introduced the Christ to the world, saw many miracles. Yet when John found himself in prison, he wondered if Jesus really was who he claimed to be. Apparently he thought, “If Jesus is indeed the Christ, then why would he allow me to rot in prison?” Peter had the most dramatic disclo- sure ever given to the human eye atop the mountain, when he saw the transfiguration of Jesus. He felt so overwhelmed that he did not want to come down again. Yet not long afterwards, when Jesus was arrested and on his way to the cross, Peter de- nied that he ever knew him. Cynicism or Climax? We always like to know how a story ends, don’t we? Otherwise we feel cheated. Does a sudden disappointment or unexpected event shatter everything else we believed? Is this disappoint- ment a marker before the turn, or is it the end of the road for us? Carrying the question further — is the end of life the most awesome thing we will ever encounter, or is it a long day’s jour- ney into night? If we were to judge by much of what we see and hear, we would honestly find it difficult to keep ourselves from becoming cynical about life. More and more, when some- thing terrible happens, we declare, “That’s life!” — as though disappointment and heartache declare the sum total of this existence. We miss the roses and see only the thorns. We take for granted the warmth of the sun and get depressed by the fre- quency of the rain or the snow. We ignore the sounds of life in a nursery because we are preoccupied with the sounds of sirens responding to an emergency. We forget the marvel of a marriage that has endured the test of time because we feel 0310269520_grandweaver_hc.indd 10 4/13/07 7:32:22 AM Introduction 11 discouraged by the heartaches of loved ones whose marriages didn’t make it to the end. In his play “Long Day’s Journey into Night,” Eugene O’Neill has one of his characters utter a powerful statement toward the end of her life: “None of us can help the things life has done to us. They are done before you realize it and once they are done, they make you do other things, until at last everything comes between you and what you’d like to be, and you’ve lost your true self forever.”1 Which of us has not flirted with the despair reflected in these sobering lines? Are we really dealt a deck of cards, all predesigned like a magician’s pack toward a certain fixed end? Is it just an illusion that we play the game at will? We must recognize that divine intervention is nowhere near as simple a thing as we might imagine. For it to sustain us and give us staying power — to help us remain firm and see God’s hand at every stage of our lives — it must look quite different from what we would usually prescribe for ourselves. It cannot be only a journey of unmistakable blessing and a path of ease. To allow God to be God we must follow him for who he is and what he intends, and not for what we want or what we prefer. That’s what this book is about: seeing the designing hand of God and his intervention in our lives in such a way that we know he has a specific purpose for each of us and that he will carry us through until we meet him face-to-face and know our- selves completely. An Unexpected Face Some years ago I was speaking in South Africa. I felt fortunate to be there during a major cricket match between South Af- rica and the West Indies. The manager of the South African team came to one of my speaking engagements, and he was able to get me tickets close to the players’ viewing box. I had a 0310269520_grandweaver_hc.indd 11 4/13/07 7:32:22 AM 12 THE GRAND WEAVER marvelous time.