Time to get small

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It’s almost the weekend.  Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

Some weekends feel like finally setting your foot safely on the shore after swaying, teetering and flailing your way across a rushing river, stepping stone by stepping stone. I am always the one who tends to get distracted by the thought of falling in……losing my balance. Or by thinking about how cold the water is and how fast it’s flying by. Painting all the worst scenarios. I forget how Big God is.

And get overwhelmed with how small I am.

I am a slow learner, but He is patiently teaching me how to take stone by stone, day by day.

He nods and smiles and sometimes shakes His head from the shore. Sometimes He cries with me. And when I, like Peter, forget who He is, He reminds me by reaching an arm out and steadying me on my feet.

Today is the last day of my workweek. It’s the day that ushers in my weekend. I feel the stress receding like the tide, and I’m catching my breath. It’s time for slowing down and getting small enough to let the peace and joy seep back in.

To gaze at the world with eyes of wonder again.

Sometimes, getting small is a very good thing.

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My favorite way of getting small is by going outside and staring up at the sky. When I realize how small I am, it focuses my mind on how big God is. Even the simplest thing such as gazing at the way moss clings to a rock has a way of shrinking my own problems, the ones I think I have anyway, down to size.

When I get small enough, and still enough, I can feel how close He is.

That’s when I can finally let my imagination come out and play. That’s when the magic happens and I begin to wonder things.

Things like how birds can stay on the bough slumbering all night without falling off.  Just once I’d like to be there with them in that deep green of twilight, right after the last bird sings. In that silence when evening falls and night noises rise and the call of the cricket and bullfrog bring it to life.

I wonder how it would be to ride on God’s shoulders during a thunderstorm while He walks among the clouds.

And when it rains like it did last night I will do like I did when I was very small and press my face to the glass and imagine a world parallel to this one where everyone shines, and everyone wears diamonds.

Get small with me?

Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. You have set your glory in the heavens. Through the praise of children and infants you have established a stronghold against your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? Psalm 8:1-4

 

Love your neighbor but cut yourself some slack too!

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Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:30-31

“Hey you, there.

Gripping the steering wheel on the way to work, I see you. You with the heavy sack on your shoulders. You, trying so hard to love your neighbor that you forget to cut yourself any slack at all. I see you.

I see all the worries you try so hard to press down. I see how valiantly you get up and go out the door while I have yet to touch the sky with My dawn’s light. I see how you pray on the way to work, trying to beat back the panic attacks that come like flocks of black crows beating their wings in your heart.

I know how you worry about everyone, both the ones near, and the ones far away. I know that each day you fear a phone call. One that tells you they are in the hospital or they fell, or worse. You feel like if you could corral everyone in one place, you could control circumstances…..keep them safe.

I see how you place them in my care and take them back again.

I see how you coast to a stop in the parking lot as you draw a breath and heave that bag and juggle that traveler’s mug full of courage.

Drink from My cup of peace.

My child, in your haste to do right by everyone else, don’t forget yourself.

Sometimes we try so hard to love our neighbor that we forget all about ourselves.

photo source: creative commons, some rights reserved by remittancegirl, on flickr

The One Thing

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One thing I ask from the Lord,
this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord
all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord
and to seek him in his temple.
5 For in the day of trouble
he will keep me safe in his dwelling;
he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent
and set me high upon a rock.

Psalm 27:4,5

I tossed and turned last night. Even my dreams seemed disjointed, unfinished. I always think of the Psalms when I feel turbulent like that. I find comfort in the fact that the writers must have felt just like us, more often than not. Something was causing a wrinkle in my peace. It was just one thing overriding all the others. Isn’t that how it is so many times.

You think, “If it weren’t for that co-worker.”

“If it weren’t for the problems with my son……my daughter…….my Mom…….my Dad.”

“If it weren’t for this addiction.”

You think if you could just get over that one hill that’s standing in your way of perfect peace and happiness then it would all be okay. But I am here to assure you, that as soon as that one thing is gone, another will crop up. The good news is that God can handle that one thing, right now today.

He might not remove it, but He can give you perfect peace about it. I know that, because I just prayed about my one thing this morning and He did what He promised, He removed it from front and center and put it in its rightful place, somewhere in the back of my mind. I can’t speak for later. I may have to pray that prayer all over again and it’s okay. I can do that.

Mind you, I didn’t pray for Him to remove it, I just prayed that I could find my peace in the midst of it. And I prayed for peace in it, just for today because that is all He has promised. He knows my mind, how it tends to skip ahead to the next days troubles and the next.

But like the manna in the desert, He promises enough for today and that’s all I ask.

This morning, I want to make my one thing the same as David’s. He was beset by trouble from every side and yet he knew the value of keeping his gaze fixed on the Lord. He knew God was His only real hope. He knew that gazing on Him wouldn’t make His troubles dissolve, but he know if he filled his mind with a beautiful vision of the future that he could stand strong today.

I pray that’s your desire today. Put that one thing, whatever it may be, squarely in the Lord’s hands.

He won’t disappoint you.

See Me

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A letter to our youth obsessed culture:

See me not as a “Senior” but as a person.

Don’t cast me aside as if I no longer have any value. Don’t look at me as having passed my expiration date. People don’t have those. There is life, and there is death, and while I have breath, I still have life. I still have opinions. I stll have feelings. 

If you are a health care worker and you are looking after me? When I tell you I have to use the bathroom, don’t tell me when you can get to it. Can you imagine just for a moment how you would feel if you had to ask another person to help you do that? One of our most basic of human functions? Think of me the next time you are rushing to the bathroom when you think you can’t hold it anymore. I have been through a lot in my life, and I don’t deserve that.

Don’t see just my wrinkled skin, watery eyes, see the value of all my years added up.

There is much I can still teach you. Much you still have to learn.

I know it makes you uncomfortable to see me because I am a reminder that you too will be here someday. You will see the rights you once had slowly dwindling away and your friends and loved ones die one by one. You will remember your youth and how you felt, who you loved and how they loved you.

You will remember smooth glowing skin and strong legs that never got tired.

See me. See me with your heart and you will see the value of my soul which is priceless to God.

See that all of us equal here.

Because I have laced my days together with Gratitude, with a big “G” I can be at peace even here. I may look alone to you, but I’m not. I have the best company you can imagine because He dwells with me. Here.

Here in my sunny chair, in my little room, I take comfort in the God who saw me in my Mother’s womb. He sees me the way I was then, a newly born soul.

Soon, very soon I will be born once more and this time forever.

See me.

For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts,[a] God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand—
    when I awake, I am still with you.

Psalm 139:13-18

photo: flickr by Nutch Bicer, some rights reserved

To the Atheist Pinner

Confession

I awoke this morning with a prayer on my lips. Not so much a prayer than a bunch of whispers strung together in the dark. It all started yesterday with the story about the man who was taking a morning jog in the town where his girlfriend lived. Three teenage youths were sitting on a porch and one of them said, “Hey there’s our target.” And then pulled out a gun and shot Christopher Lane in the back. All because, “They were bored.”

This kind of thing is happening more and more. All these events prompt us to ask just what kind of world are we living in? What makes three teenaged youths feel like life is so bleak that they have to manufacture a murder for excitement? What brought them to such hopelessness? I see it in their eyes in the mug shots. It is so easy to hate them, their insolence. But I want to know what got them there?

There were other questions that I spoke into the half-light this morning as well. Questions like why is my own church closing down to put in new carpet and a coffee shop when I know for a fact that children are going to school hungry a few short miles away. I am having a hard time reconciling that. I am still praying about that one.

Another thought came through…….and this one was loud and clear. What am I doing with my days? How will they measure up when I am standing before God and He asks why I didn’t give a reason for the hope within me?

Then on Pinterest I ran across a pin that said “Pinned to Atheism” below it, and I had to follow the thread. Nothing I saw surprised me much, and saddened me more than anything. There was one comparing prayer to something I can’t even name here, with a picture. And there were all the references to our Old Testament God who is portrayed as a cruel old man in the sky who takes pleasure in striking people dead.

If I could talk with you, this is what I would tell you. I can identify with some of what you posted, I really can. That is, I could if I didn’t know God the way I do. And honestly, sometimes I think if we had done a better job at loving in the church it would take the sting out of your hate.

But then again, Jesus loved perfectly and they killed Him for it.

And I understand your difficulty in seeing how a loving God could ask Abraham to kill his only son. If I didn’t know the context and the whole story, and if I hadn’t personally experienced the depth and breadth and love of God for myself.

You see, Abraham had a faith and grasp of the love of God that we can scarcely understand. And Abraham had a promise in his pocket. A promise that he would be the father of a great nation. He knew that could never happen if Issac died. He also knew that God loved Issac even more than Abraham did. He trusted God with what he loved most in the world.

And God will never ask anyone to love more than He already has.

You ask, “What kind of God would do that?”

The kind of God who would love so much He would lose what He loved most to get back a people who were willfully turned against Him.

The kind of God who didn’t hesitate to volunteer Himself up for a terrible death for a people who for the most part were uncaring and disinterested.

I wish you knew Him. I wish the church did a better job at loving so you wouldn’t have so many easy targets. I did notice that none of your boards targeted Jesus. It is tough to find fault with someone who spent their entire time on earth going about doing good. If we all did a better job at following His example, I have a feeling it would diffuse some of the anger I saw on your boards.

I did notice that one of them said something like, “I don’t need a God to tell me right from wrong, I have a conscience.”

But where did that come from? Why do we instinctively know that some things are just plain wrong and nobody argues about it. We know things like murder and stealing are wrong. C.S Lewis did a masterful job at explaining that one.

As I rounded the corner on my morning walk, I saw the fingers of light come down out of the sky and I thought about the source of that light as the strains of “You Never Let Go” came through my iPod. I felt something that I feel every single day when I see that and I never ever take it for granted. The thought dropped in like a pin: “We love because He first loved us.”

I can’t imagine not knowing the source of that light. I can’t imagine how hopeless it would be to believe in nothing bigger than your own thoughts, nothing bigger than yourself and what your eyes can see around you.

I want so much for you to know my God. And if you were here I would tell you about all the things I have seen and heard and felt that cannot be explained any other way but Supernaturally. I would tell you of lives changed in the twinkling of an eye. I would tell you of the healing I received and how I will never forget it, and I would tell you how He came to me one cold and foggy December day and touched me with a love that I can never quite put into words.

I would tell you of the breadth, length, height and depth of God’s love. A love I know to be real.

And how He loves you so, even if you don’t believe in Him.

Like Peas and Carrots

Elaine and Me

As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend…….Proverbs 27:17 NLT

My best friend will never brag about herself. In fact, you have to dig deep to find out all the different things she has done in her life. I have written about them all before, but today I just want to give her a shout out because she inspires me so.

I like to describe her faith as living and active. She doesn’t lock herself in her room in pray, she prays on her feet, running to the next task. You hardly ever see her sitting down.

She has a built in radar for people in need. In fact, they seem to gravitate toward her. Yesterday, as usual, I was adrift in my own thoughts as we all filed out of church when I almost stumbled over Elaine bending down to talk to the woman sitting next to her who still hadn’t gotten up. The closing music was loud, and she had to bend get right in the woman’s ear to hear what she was saying.

It turns out the woman had injured herself and was in pain. Through tears she thanked her and assured her she was okay. We watched from the back as she got up and walked toward the front of the church to greet someone.

I can’t tell you how many times this kind of thing has happened when we’ve been together. In grocery store parking lots, she won’t leave if she sees an elderly person who looks lost.

She has paid for the person behind her at Sonic more times than I can count and has slipped twenty dollars bills to people in need, also more times than I can count.

She asks me Bible questions because tells me jokingly, “I don’t have to read it, I have you.” But she reads it, I know she does. Because she lives it. She walks the Jesus walk. She sees the broken, the lonely, the down and out because she has been there herself. She has no illusions about how much she needs a Savior.

Her Bible hero is John the Baptist and her favorite song is “Take up your Cross” by the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir and I have watched her live that song over the years.

Yesterday at the Care Home she noticed that her Mom’s room hadn’t been swept since last time. Instead of making a scene, she just quietly went over to where the broom and dust pan were kept and did it herself in full sight of the aides. She made her point and the room got swept.

She has been known to break out into a dance in store aisles. She always says, “Sometimes you just gotta give it a little dance.”

One of the things I most admire about her character is that I truly think it would cause her physical pain to tell a lie. And even if she did, it would show on her face, like the character Jim Carrey played in “Liar, Liar” her eyes reveal everything. She could never play poker.

She reflects the joy of the Lord and it is a privilege to go anywhere with her because I love to see how she interacts with strangers. She is quick to laugh and is fond of saying to me, “I am your entertainment” which is true because she’s a natural comic who loves to joke around. She truly loves to see people smile, and I think everyone she works with will attest to that.

I don’t think we ever spend time together without laughing. We laugh at things other people might just skip right over and invariably we see it at the same time. The other day we watched a commercial and perfectly in sync, belted out the same song. It was totally unrelated to the commercial except that it said something about flowers.

I think we compliment each other like peas and carrots.

One of my favorite memories is a vacation we took in Monterey. I had told her I was getting the Abalone no matter how much it cost. I had waited for years to go back to this restaurant just to get it. Anytime the menu says, “Market Value” you need to be careful. And it did. When it came it was nothing like I remembered, also much more expensive than I remember.

On my plate were three scrawny shells. I think they were baby Abalone. It was delicious, but nowhere near worth the price. I told her I was going to at least keep the shells so I wiped them off, wrapped them in a napkin and stuck them in my purse. Oh, did she get a kick out of that. She said, “I can’t wait to see the waiter’s face when he comes back. I am going to tell him you ate the shells too.” She didn’t.

She loves telling that story.

Our relationship is such a blessing in my life and I thank God for her every day.

It is altogether rare to have a friendship like we have and I know it. To me it is a beautiful illustration of how we are all different and unique as believers and yet when we all join together the pattern we make is like one big beautiful quilt, God’s crazy quilt.

It will be quite a finished product when He’s all done.

Kingdom Work is whatever we do

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“Work willingly at whatever you do, as though you were working for the Lord rather than for people. Remember that the Lord will give you an inheritance as your reward, and that the Master you are serving is Christ.” Colossians 3:23

I make my way down the stairs, heavy bag slipping off my shoulders and cast myself into the sea of voices. I dodge bleary eyed people like myself intent on one of two things, coffee or food. The great migration of mammals to those canisters filled with magic to wake the senses, spark the brain to life.

I pause by the fruit bins, the fresh offerings they give us to entice us to eat better, to be healthier so we can feel better so we can work harder. I pause, my phone at the ready, wanting to capture it all, this teeming life that flows down around my ears right now.

I hear the opening strains of Billy Joel’s “River of Dreams” and for just one moment, with the backdrop of voices and back slapping and greeting, I feel like life is pulsating around me. And though it’s so close, I feel I am standing on the shore. Not quite in. Not quite out. What would it feel like to feel fully in? Here.

All in like poker.

I wander, looking at angles, how I would photograph the fruit bins, the sign hand scrawled suggestions. The cafe workers, everyone else. This wondering and wandering is part of what makes me, me. All I want is to go back to my station and write……..of this life.

I make my way to the coffee and wonder why it is that donuts always look so much better than fruit. I window shop and watch plates sailing by. Breakfast burritos, pastries, plate piled high with eggs, bacon and English muffins. I take nothing, remembering the banana I brought and the cottage cheese waiting in the sack I so hastily threw together this morning.

Still, I watch, I observe. I wonder.

How it would feel to be fully engaged? Here. 

If I were here to take pictures, or talk about writing or my faith how easy it would be. Oh, I am engaged. I am here, I am early, I am ready to work. People on the other end of the phone tell me they am glad I am here. I sense their confidence in me………Still.

To be fully engaged is: eyes wide open, pulse quickening, fully focused, doing the thing God created you to do engaged.

For 18 years I have been less than fully engaged and that makes me wonder who or what I have robbed.

When I was back home I said, “I wonder what kind of world it would be if everyone loved their jobs?” My Dad said, “I wonder how it would be if people just wanted to work?” Maybe he’s right. People didn’t think about liking their jobs in his day. They just got up and went to work no matter what, to support their families.

Maybe he’s right. Maybe I think too much. Maybe we all do.

And yet, at this job at which I am less than fully engaged, there are people God has wanted me to impact, and people God wanted to impact me. Lives colliding not by accident but by Divine Appointment. He has held me here for a purpose, that I know. And this job has stretched me in ways nothing else could.

It has thrown me out of my comfort zone over and over again, so that I had no choice but to depend on Him.

And in these 18 years of twelve hour days I have carved out a livelihood, a gift God has set before me. And in those 12 hours of each day I get two hours to do what I want. Who else has that?

And somewhere, sometime, God will show me what my real job was here. And it will have nothing to do with building computer chips. It will have everything to do with contributing to people and building a kingdom.

His.

When you’re nursing a hurt

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You’re walking around in your day minding your own business. Maybe it’s even a good day and you have had some things happen that can only be described as a “God touching you on the shoulder” moment. Something happened that you just know was God arranged.

Basking in the glow of that light you can almost still feel warming your shoulders,  you are blindsided by something you never saw coming. Oh how it hurts, I know, I have been there. I have asked the questions right along with you:

Why me, why this, why now? And in the silence, the hurt you find yourself in the middle of searches for a safe place to go.

It feels like you have been through enough already. Didn’t all those tears you cried in the dark of night, didn’t those add up to something? David’s couch swam with tears too, even he wasn’t exempt, but somehow that doesn’t make right now any better.

When the wound is raw, it is tempting to ignore that good thing that happened in the wake of the pain that threatens to swallow it up. You’re not sure whether to sit in a corner and lick your wounds, or pour it out to anyone who will listen. And though it’s tempting to dump out hurtful words to the one who hurt you, don’t do it.

Because wounding them doesn’t take your own away, it only multiplies your own pain.

But don’t you hear me God?  I’m your child. The injustice of it all. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right, but it happened. And now?

There is something you need to do. You need to let Him be your justice. He can’t work on anyone else’s heart unless you release yours. You be amazed what happens once you do this. Our God is so big and generous that He not only wants to heal you, He wants to heal that other person too.

And when the Bible says that He binds up the brokenhearted? Friend, that is for right now, not some vague time in the hereafter, it is here…..now…….as well as after.

Who doesn’t have pain? Who doesn’t have sorrow. This is a universal fact. What follows that there can only be a universal answer:

It’s found in the person of Jesus. He is the only one who can actually do something about it. In fact, He already did. That dead old thing was wadded up, crumpled in a ball and tossed into the fire long ago.

This is what we can know as believers. He can meet that ache right this moment by the power of the Holy Spirit who is your comforter. Right now……He can reach in and put His hand into your heart where it stings the most. Don’t doubt that He sees you.

He sees your every effort to focus on the positive, to keep moving forward even when it hurts. And He will reward it.

He had to do that once, you know.  And with you in mind, He did it.

He could never forget you. You are in His thoughts day and night.

And there’s nothing that happens to you or to me that’s too big for Him to handle. That is the hope I hold out to you today. The world needs love, but more than love it needs hope.

Visit to Aunt Mag’s

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Every so often, I post a memory from the life of my best friend, Elaine, (as told to me by her.) A disclaimer for her family members: the events happened, but at times it’s tricky getting inside someone else’s mind, even someone I know as well as I know her. Some things may not be exactly how you remember, but how she remembers once it gets spit out of my mind and gets to the page.

Once a summer we would all pile into the car at the hottest time of the year and drive from California to Texas to see some relative or another. It was always hot and sticky in the back seat and I was always sandwiched between my brothers, one of which I loved, one of which was just plain mean. Invariably, he would do something that would get the wrath of our parents crashing down on all of us. My Mom would grab whatever was nearest her and aimed for anyone she could reach.

In my Dad’s world, stopping the car for any reason was considered an unsuccessful road trip. His idea of a rest stop was peeing by the side of the road. He thought anything less than straight through constituted failure, and if we were the cause of the stopping, we got the belt, usually the buckle end, and as any self-respecting Texan knows, unless you have  a belt buckle as big as a hubcap, it doesn’t count for much.

There was a motel along Route 66 that had places that looked like real tee pees you could stay in. I was enamored of it and every summer I begged to stay there. I didn’t cry because my Mom had told me that tears and emotion were useless so I knew that would never work.

My memory is foggy at this point because something makes me think we did, but we could have just stopped and looked. A likely scenario was that maybe my Dad relented just once and the experience was so awful he used that ever after as excuse to keep on driving.

This particular trip one of the stops we made was my Mom’s Aunt Mag’s house. It was an old farmhouse just like you’d see in the movies. Aunt Mag prided herself on her cleanliness and her house was always swept clean.

Bobby and I were transfixed by a nest of dirt dobbers near the front porch and we exclaimed out loud, “What are those?” My Mom hissed, “Ssshhhh. Your Aunt Mag would be horrified if she saw that.” Neither she nor my Uncle could see very well. She threatened us within an inch of our lives if we got into any trouble.

That was no problem, we stationed ourselves near the front porch where we sat transfixed for the duration.  We were amazed that each time the door opened, those things flew out of the nest and into the house and when it opened again they came back out. In and out, in and out, we sat and watched. We were easily amused.

Aunt Mag was impressed. She didn’t know what we were watching. She exclaimed, “Well, aren’t these two just the most well-behaved children, where’s the other one?”

That would be our other brother, the one who must not be named. He was most certainly somewhere kicking a dog, pulling wings of a butterfly or stepping on frogs.

Another thing I remember about that farmhouse was that there was an old spigot of water out back. It had been there for years with a constant drip. The water had carved the rock below into a perfect conical shape, like an inverted volcano. No body had disturbed it all those years. Our Mom warned us to leave it where it was. Our brother who must not be named  took it, of course.

Last time I saw it, it was in his possession.

picture credit: Mindy Georges, some rights reserved, flickr creative commons.

If I could reach behind those prison walls……

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“This is what God the Lord says—
the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out,
who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it,
who gives breath to its people,
and life to those who walk on it:
 “I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness;
I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will make you
to be a covenant for the people
and a light for the Gentiles,
to open eyes that are blind,
    to free captives from prison
    and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.”

Isaiah 42:6,7

I don’t know what you did to get you where you are, in prison or jail. And it really doesn’t matter. I’m not here to debate your guilt or innocence today. Just share hope. I am here to tell you that the playing field is equal at the foot of the cross. That, my friends is good news. It’s the good news the early Church was so excited about. And it’s what I am excited about today. You’re in good company. Just about every hero of the Bible was in prison at one time or another. Back then, being a believer got you prison or death. In some parts of the world it still does.

They felt the weight of the iron chains and they heard the same slam of those iron bars. I never have and I never want to. But I want to tell you that if you have heard them, and that’s where you are right now, hope is not out of your grasp.

You might have thought it was over when you entered that cell. And let me tell you, most people will applaud the fact that you are there. They might even want you there for good or dead. And if you have done something to deserve it, then I don’t feel bad you are there either. But I do feel very bad about the prison your soul is in if you don’t know Christ.

But I do feel bad for your eternal state if you have never felt the love His redemption brings.

All is not lost. The hope that the early church had can be yours too. None of us is too far out of the reach of His love. His love is like the sun, it’s everywhere. The hope that modern-day believers have even as they are facing prison or death in China, In Indonesia, and many other parts of the world can be yours too. They have hope because burning in their hearts is the knowledge that they know this prison is temporary. They have something worth sharing. And they won’t stop, even it means loss of their physical freedom here on earth.

You say, well I don’t want to be here at all. I want to be out there. I want to be free. There is only one person who can truly make us free.

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. Romans 8:1,2

But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. Romans 8:11

Listen, there are all kinds of prisons in this world, prisons of illness, prisons in our minds, prisons of addiction. Everyday I see people walking around in the free light of day, imprisoned. I can see it in their faces, they have no hope. Jesus saw it too and moved with compassion, He said, “they are like sheep without a shepherd.”

But I am here to tell you that the most dangerous prison in the world is the one you don’t know you’re in. You can’t ignore yours, they can. I can.

There are many people living the good life, flying here and there, surrounding themselves with the best this life has to offer. And you might want what they have, sometimes I  do too, but don’t. Their prison might look a lot better than the one you’re in, but the bars are just as solid. And if they have never taken that step of faith that God requires, they need deliverance just as much as you.

I am not saying prison is easy or admirable, or good. I am sure it’s terrible.

But much more terrible is the eternal sentence we face without Jesus’ pardon. It’s something we all have to decide.

My prayers are with you. My hope is that you will listen to the people who come in with the Good Word. Don’t close your ears. Don’t scoff. Don’t make others feel weak if they go to those meetings. I know they have them there.

It’s freedom they’ve found.

And you can find it too.

Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Rejoicing in my freedom today.

Photo credit flickr: Some rights reserved, by Janrito Karamazov