A little over a year into our journey with multiple surgeries and autoimmune diagnosis, my husband really wanted to go to a Toby Mac concert that would be playing in nearby Las Vegas. Alas, we had a lot of other obligations, including our son’s return from his YWAM SOME outreach the morning (early morning) after the night of the T-Mac event. We didn’t think that we could handle the energy that it would take to go to the concert, get home, and go back the next morning, so we resigned ourselves to being happy for some local friends that were going and let the thought of attending fade. We had signed up for an Air 1 giveaway, but who remembers those things, and who really wins anyway. We were about our business as parents dealing with life and related responsibilities, we put the thought of the concert aside. But God! A couple of days before the concert was to take place, we were having a morning devotional time as a family when my husband’s phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number, so he handed it to me to answer. Surprisingly, it was an Air 1 representative on the line informing us that his entry had been selected for the Toby Mac tickets. Change of plans!

The day of the concert, we had two medical appointments to handle in Vegas, one for my husband and the other for my daughter. Between the two, we made a mad dash to the concert venue to pick up the tickets, which were for the very front row, seats 3 and 4. Talk about excitement. We had already decided that we would stay the night in a Vegas hotel to ensure that we didn’t have to drive while exhausted and that we would be close at hand for my son’s arrival. After our early business in town was done, we drove the hour plus home, rested a bit, and returned. We truly had the best seats in the house. In fact, seats 1 and 2 remained empty for the whole night. We had the benefit of being right in the front, center section. My husband even shook hands with Toby Mac himself. It was an amazing if wearing night of music, worship, and pure enjoyment.

In looking back, I realized that the Lord had painted an amazing picture of glory for us in this personalized scenario. We were going about the business of life, basically, we were about our Father’s business as parents and as His children. We were tending to our family, supporting our son in his YWAM efforts, studying the word, and doing the things He gave us to do on a daily basis. The concert was a nice thought but did not derail our life activities. Nevertheless, the Lord moved in this life to facilitate our presence, giving us what we could not have purchased with our own means or in the time we had available, namely premium seats at a night focused on Him. T-Mac was the performer, but God was the author of the experience. I imagined Heaven and eternal life, positioned in a premium seat not because of my focus on being in Heaven but because of a life lived being about the business of the Lord. We would have been thrilled just to attend, but God put us front and center to relish the moment. Numerous friends were in the audience, we got texts through the evening as they noticed us or inquired where we were sitting. It wasn’t our intention to draw attention. In fact, my husband nudged me at one point, asking if I’d seen Toby Mac shake his hand. I didn’t – my eyes were as closed as could be as I lavished in the moment, praising Jesus.

Clearly, you don’t build doctrine and ideology upon experiences, but experiences can help match examples to ideals. The idea of rewards in Heaven is interesting, but I think that based on Matthew 25:37-40, we can recognize that those who were acknowledged by Jesus for doing the right things to Him were aloof to the fact that they had done so. “And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.” (Matthew 25:40). These individuals were recognized for doing the right things with regard to their fellow human beings, and they were not so doing just to ensure that they racked up jewels and rewards. They did the right things based on what they knew to be the right things because of Jesus at work in their lives. They did not stop to meditate on whether they were going to add to their blessings. Nevertheless, those blessings most certainly were stored up because Jesus was honored. My takeaway from this section of scripture has always been that those who are loving Jesus will do so because it’s the nature of who they are as they live that born-again, changed life in Him. My takeaway from that concert is that God has good gifts for His children, that He can orchestrate an experience that is more amazing than we can imagine, and that He can honor the child who seeks only to live life in a manner that honors the King. Every good and perfect gift truly does come down from Him.