Lessons from Genesis
July 30, 2026
“I didn’t choose this Psalm; it chose me.”
I’m not sure if you noticed, but I didn’t miss it. Both Alex Bohn and Kirby Martens said that in their respective sermons this summer. Two very powerful messages for us because our brothers were willing to open up a deep part of their souls – and what did we find there?
We did not find any supposed answers to life’s problems. We did not hear surface-level responses to tragedies. Not at all. Rather, we saw that in the midst of questions, doubts, pain, and sorrow, God’s word had touched them.
I’ve been in and out this summer between vacation time and our mission trip to the Amazon, so the last two sermons I’ve heard were Alex’s and Kirby’s. If you remember, there was another similarity in their experience of being met by God in the dark night of the soul.
When Alex and Whitney found out that they would most likely not be able to adopt “Mr. B” (their foster child they had come to dearly love), Alex had been reading the Psalms with Whitney nightly before bed. That night, very understandably, Alex didn’t want to read the Bible at all. He had all kinds of negative feelings toward both the situation and toward God. Yet, that evening he chose to read anyway, and God powerfully spoke to him (and later us) through Psalm 35.
After Kirby got the call from his dad that his sister had prematurely passed away, he went back to his dorm and saw his Bible. He felt a nudge from the Spirit to finish his read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year plan. His initial response was totally normal, “Heck no!” But then he obeyed, and God spoke to him (and later us) powerfully through Psalm 13.
Both of these wonderful examples of God speaking came through the Psalms, but you know He uses every one of those 66 books in your Bible! I remember, very distinctly, a recent time when it felt like the bottom was falling out for our family.
A couple of years after moving to Fayetteville from China, our four teenage kids were still struggling to adjust to life in America. That move happened to us; we really didn’t have a say in it, and Kayla and I both said there was no way we could move the kids again – they just wouldn’t make it. Not moving was fine by us; we loved our little house, our new life, and I loved my job as a college pastor – the problem was (as many of you know) our church at the time was about to go through a great struggle. I began to realize that the job I loved wouldn’t always be there.
To make matters worse, as a family, we were struggling financially. Kayla was working full-time, and I was not only the college pastor, but I was also teaching at JBU and doing contract construction work on my weekends. Kayla and I started wondering if we needed to sell our house. It broke our hearts to even consider it. Everything felt like it was falling apart. It seemed like God had just forgotten about us.
One afternoon I was outside our house working on an idea I had. In another part of Fayetteville, I had seen a home with a south-facing wall covered with beautiful wisteria. When I saw it, I thought, “I should give that a try!” Many of you know wisteria grows like wildfire, so it felt well within my skill level!
Two inches into the dirt and I hit Arkansas gold – or just a bunch of rocks… I was hot, sweaty, and frustrated. Not too long into my first gardening endeavor, I began to question, “Why am I even doing this Lord? We’re not even going to be able to keep this house! We don’t know where we’ll be living in a year!? I don’t know what I’ll be doing job-wise!? And I can’t imagine how our kids will be doing at that point…”
And that’s when the Lord spoke straight out of Jeremiah to me. The exiles were in a place where they thought they wouldn’t stay long. Through Jeremiah, God told them, “Build houses, settle down, plant gardens, and eat what your gardens produce.” As I went toward God with my questions, anger, and accusations – He spoke this word to me, and I knew, “This place is ours.” I didn’t know how. I didn’t know what I would do. But I knew we were staying.
3 years later, I have to tell you, my wisteria is gorgeous. It blooms 2 times each summer, and by the looks of it this year, I may get a third round of beautiful, fragrant, light-purple flowers. I’m actually working on propagating it so we can have even more of it! I’m no longer doing construction on the side; we’re more than paying the bills, and I have what has to be my most loved role in 25 years of doing ministry. Thank you, Jesus! He not only blessed us in all these ways, but before the blessing, when things were dark – He spoke to me through His word. Just like He did with Alex and Kirby.
But what if I had never read Jeremiah? What if the day the bad news came, Alex had decided he was done reading the Psalms? What if Kirby, in his heartbreak, put down the Bible-in-a-year and never picked it back up? Oh, what a loss that would have been! What about you? Are you in God’s word day in and day out? I hope so, because that’s often how He speaks to us when we need it the most!
