Encounter God in the City

Yesterday morning I opened the blinds of my office window and was struck by the beauty of what I saw. It was grey and overcast (as usual in Pittsburgh), but I noticed how much I am learning to love the city. As you look out my window, the green grass in my back yard gives way to my garage. Behind that, you see a broken down building with graffiti painted over it and old shoes on the roof (pretty random). Then, you can see through a row of trees to the bus way which is full of buses and trains in a constant flow of production. Next in line, you can clearly see huge warehouse buildings and factories which are monuments to Pittsburgh's blue collar manufacturing history. The hilltops behind the warehouses show off the beautiful mansions of Point Breeze and Squirrel Hill, and trees that grow up out of Frick Park. God is definitely in the city. I thought to myself, "This should be a painting. It's amazing!" Just then, my daughter, Kyra, came into the room, looked out the window, and said, "Daddy, that should be a painting. It's beautiful!" I am so happy that we are learning to encounter God in the city. Many people become somewhat biased towards cities, thinking that cities are evil and that God only exists in nature (or the suburbs).

I'm reading Dr. Randy White's latest book called "Encounter God in the City: Onramps to Personal and Community Transformation." He begins the book by writing, "Ever notice how there's a spectacular nature scene on the cover of just about every devotional guide or Bible study book: a thundering waterfall, a golden sunset, a snow-peaked mountain? There's never a graffiti-covered wall, a cyclone fence with laundry hanging on it, the faces of inner-city kids or the familiar tangle of concrete onramps and offramps. How could those things have anything to do with the roaring and magnificent themes of faith and the soverignty of God? Judging from the cover of my quite-time guide, if I want to commune with God, I apparently need a rainbow or a river to inspire me. Rail depots and rusty rebar just won't do the trick. Yet many fine scholars have acknowledged that the Bible identifies cities as a key focus of God's attention."

I want to love Pittsburgh and its people like Jesus does. God is in nature and in cities.