With fortune cookie comes egg roll

We take it as a given that God has spoken and he still speaks – whether it be in the heavens who daily pour forth speech (Psalm 19:2), the words of holy writ (2 Timothy 3:16), or through his Son, Jesus (Hebrews 1:2). What’s more, who among us have not “heard” God speak through the words of pastors, teachers, speakers, friends, our spouse, our children or our boss let alone through the medium of television, music, movies, or books? As for me all the above apply and I would add one more: From time to time, God has spoken – even prophetically - to me through a handful of the plethora of fortune cookies I have cracked open in my life.

Allow me to cite three examples of this occurrence:

On the night before my ordination in October 1995, Linda and I had left the kids with the folks and gone out to eat at our favorite restaurant before we were married, The Lotus, on Madison’s East side. Following dinner, we were reminiscing and such about how we used to frequent this Vietnamese-Chinese eatery back in our dating-days when I opened my cookie and read this:

You take a reverent attitude towards life and

are most capable in guiding others

I’m not making this up. I just copied it from the original copy that is taped to the wall behind my computer in the office of the fellowship I now pastor. I know we’re not to take stock in these things, but on the eve of one of the most important days of my life it was wonderfully comforting if not amusing.

I don’ recall when I received the next fortuitous message but it now lays atop my bedroom dresser and I cast my eyes upon it most days as I’m getting dressed:

You cannot fix the problems of those who don’t want them fixed

Obviously, it’s not much of a fortune. It’s more like home-spun wisdom – something Grandma Chang might say? - and yet time and again since opening that cookie it’s truth has been proved, especially to a pastor-type like myself who has the notion that he has can save the world single-handedly with just a little more effort. As most people who have been around the block in ministry know, it just ain’t so. There’s plenty of people with issues. But a lot of them want people like me to fix their life but the power to do that lies in other hands (mostly their own).

You will step on the soil of many countries

I don’t know where or when I found this one but the moment I read it there was – and still is – a definitive YES that went off in my heart. It is a great summary of one of my life’s dream: to be an ambassador for the Kingdom in places that make up the “uttermost parts of the earth.” I don’t feel called to go and plant churches or evangelize. No, I want to be a part of planting His flag in places that are off the beaten path. I want to worship in Rebat or pray in Baku or run the steppes of the Great Wall or encourage the saints who may be in hiding near Mosul. I don’t want to go and make a nuisance of myself or go simply to say that I did with the bravado I sometimes detect in the voices of those who are graced to travel so. I want to be sent as one on assignment, who has received a “come over here and help us” summons as Paul did to Macedonia.

Since receiving this fortune, I have not traveled outside this country at all. But, noteworthy to me, is that despite the fact that I pastor a fellowship in a county mostly white and fourth-generation Norwegian, German or Polish, individuals from the following countries have come into my orbit or visited our fellowship: Canada, Russia, Ecuador, Morocco, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Qatar, Thailand, Uganda, Liberia and South Korea. Meanwhile, people from our fellowship have been sent out on assignments to Morocco, Turkey, China, Thailand, Egypt, Philippines, South Korea and Canada during the same time period. So maybe the prophetic word has as much to do about influencing those from these locales as it does to actually getting on a plane and flying there. I guess time will tell.

I know we’re not to go looking for God’s counsel in this manner. Neither here nor in this week’s horoscope, to say nothing of Madame Rositta and her crystal ball. His Word and His Spirit are more than sufficient to lead us in the way we are to go. But God being God can do what He pleases and for reasons that are all His own speak through something as insignificant as a fortune cookie after a night out at China Buffet.