Christian living

When the Son sets in our hearts

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“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.” James 4:1,2

“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it? “I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give to each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds.” Jeremiah 17:9,10

For the first time this morning I was able to pray minus the sound of gunfire from the dove hunters out in the desert. It has disrupted my morning peace for two days now. My brother and I were both complaining about it on opening day which was September first. He’d gone out to his driveway with his mug of coffee as he usually does when he is home and was looking forward to listening to his doves cooing from the trees in his yard. Now he is worried about the wild turkeys they have all enjoyed watching come through in the evenings.

We both decided we would put out some wild feed to keep a few close.

The staccato sound of the guns made me think of what is going on half a world away, in Syria. They say around 2 million Syrian people are now refugees and around half of these are women and children. Unrest is the state of the world today.

All my life, I have sat in church hearing of a time when there will be “wars and rumors of wars.” It was just a Bible verse and a time somewhere in the future, but real war was never anything that touched me. It was never something that surprised me or factored into my life in any way at all. It was just a part of what I heard in church or on TV.

But how many people around the world today must live, pray and sleep to the sound of gunfire and shelling? Living and breathing with fear and the possible loss of their own life or the life of their children. Knowing that any moment, they will lose what little shelter they have, grabbing what little they own and heading across the border to somewhere else.

Our world is getting crazier every day. There is no doubt we are in the last days, but who knows how long these last days will stretch out?

There is only one thing that will ever stop war for good and the truth is, not one of us is willing to do what it takes to stop it. Until we each settle the war in our own hearts, war will never end. The war in our hearts will only end when we invite Jesus in.

And I am not talking about lip service but life change. There is a tired, old argument that people use over and over. In fact, I heard it again on the radio just Sunday morning. A talk show host said: “I hate religion because more wars have been caused by religion than anything else.” And while I can understand why they make that claim, it’s still as wrong as wrong can be.

Guns don’t kill people and religion doesn’t cause wars. All wars start as a result of the evil in the confines of the human heart, and just because something is done in God’s name, doesn’t mean God is in favor of it.

When someone is truly transformed by the love of Christ, it will show by how eager they are to strive for peace, not war.

I am talking about a relationship here, not a religion. That’s what makes Christianity different from any other on the face of the earth. And when He comes in and makes a home in our hearts, peace reigns. Note that I didn’t say perfection, I said peace.

War is caused by the selfish desire to get what we want when we want it. Nothing more. And when power and money are added in to the mix it just gets bigger because more is at stake. Sometimes war is unavoidable. When the end result means peace for the world, then I believe it is just.

Universally though, the hope of this world, more than ever, is Jesus. Jesus, only and ever Jesus.

You might wonder why then, does Jesus say this?

Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.

In light of all the talk about peace, it doesn’t seem to make any sense, until you understand that while a relationship with Jesus most certainly brings peace to the individual heart and life, it doesn’t necessarily bring peace to the world. That’s because of one simple aspect of human nature.

We still want our way, not His way. When Jesus said that, it was with perfect understanding that He knows what we are made of.

When Jesus was born, King Herod was so threatened by the rumor of a new King, he had all Jewish babies living in Egypt two years and under slaughtered. And right before He was crucified, the religious leaders of the day were so threatened by Jesus popularity with the people, and by their loss of power, security and position, they had to put together a mock trial complete with false testimony in order to sentence Him to death.

And yet, He reaches for us still.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. John 3:16-19

I pray for our world today. I pray it finds Jesus. You might think that it looks pretty bleak and that there is really nothing we can do as an individual. But there is always something we can do. We can all shine the light of truth and love brightly, each in our own corner.

Right where we are. And pray.

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. James 5:16

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.

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.

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

Faith when things feel flat

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When I crept out to my prayer room this morning, the world looked washed out. It was mirroring what I felt on the inside.

Even the sunrise, always my favorite time of day, seemed dull and unspectacular. There is a fine coat of dust everywhere from recent storms that makes everyone want to run for their blowers or hoses.  I am burned out at work………I am in one of my ready to quit and move to the coast and open up a used bookstore moods.

If you have been a Christian longer than a year or so, there will be days like this. Days you don’t feel like praying. But you do it anyway. There will be days when you don’t see the burning bush behind every bloom, the resurrection in every sunrise. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t so. There will be times you get up and do it anyway because you know that even though you don’t feel it? It’s still there.

He’s still there.

That’s the point when you’re faith becomes something real. When faith comes before feeling.

Today is one of those days for me and it’s okay. I have lived long enough to see and feel many miracles, and I know they are unfolding right now even as I write this. I have learned to be grateful for these times because it lets me know that what I believe is not based on feeling but on fact.

And another thing I have learned is that gratitude is the quickest way I know to let the light flood back in. And not just hollow thanks, mind you……thankfulness born out of knowledge of what He’s already done, doing right now, and doing in the future.

But as it is written: “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9

That’s where I am today. A little bit in the clouds.

A little bit flat. And it’s okay, because I know my God and I know that when He says He’s preparing something? That doesn’t only mean the distant future.

It may mean in the next five minutes.

So I wait hopeful and sure.

Because I know my God and I know He always has another miracle in store. For you, for me.

He can’t help it, it’s just what He does.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen……..Hebrews 11:1

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A Provision Story

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She’d moved the thing for years, and when it finally teetered to place on its graceful clawed feet she vowed never again. Then she cried. It was the last thing of her Mom’s to move over and the most stressful.

Like an unwelcome but distinguished guest it stood innocently in one corner while the contemporary one stood on the other side as if they were fighting for space; a face off in the dining room. We mourned the loss of our empty wall. It went with nothing else in the room.

Because her parents had moved everywhere she did, the china cabinet came too. It was her Mom’s most prized possession. For years Elaine has had the emotional and physical stress of moving it, and with each move it had become more of a millstone around her neck. She had horrific visions of the thing crashing to the ground like a redwood, the irreplaceable glass in shards on the ground.

After her Mom went into assisted living she thought surely someone in the family would want it. No one did. It went on eBay. One woman actually laughed in her face when she told her the price. And believe me, the price was very fair considering what it was.

This past Monday, we decided to try our hand at antique dealing. We were committed to an all day mission; to finding it, in addition to around 500 assorted glass pieces a home.

The first guy was friendly and talkative, but not very interested in anything else.

When we walked in the second place, there were three women at the counter and all three heads swiveled in our direction.  One of them looked at us stony-faced from behind her computer the whole time we were there.  The only time she actually cracked a smile and chortled was when Elaine said, “I have been stuck with all this crap all these years now, 25 boxes worth.”

The second woman, the spokeswoman of the group, almost threw up the sign of the cross with her fingers at the mention of glassware. “We only do furniture.” She must have said it 4 times. It was obvious she didn’t know an Occupied Japan Toby from a Matchbox car. Don’t worry if you don’t either.

Ms. “Only do furniture” wasn’t interested in the China Cabinet.

Our next stop took us 15 miles away to downtown. We refused to be discouraged.

We entered through the alley, starting to feel a little like beat-down used car salesmen, but still holding out hope. A man looking like a cross between Garrison Keillor and Norman Bates sat hunched over and peering intently into his computer screen, very loudly crunching on Sun Chips.

I couldn’t even catch her eye. I know my friend, and one of her pet peeves is people eating loud foods in her ear and clacking loudly on the keyboard and this guy was doing both. I wondered how long she would last. It was a test.

We thought maybe he would stop eating as he bent closer to look at the pictures she held out via her phone, but as he paused with one chip poised in the air, he leaned even closer and took the whole thing in his mouth and crunched even louder. I almost laughed out loud.

I saw his eyes flicker with interest as he got up from the chair, wiping Sun Chip dust on his slightly smudgy jeans as they talked. “Well,” he said, “will you be home tonight? I would like to see what you have, and my friend might be interested in the cabinet.”

He came around 5:15 and looked at everything she had for sale, including things which were not. He seemed to be making himself at home but it was educational, he seemed to know his stuff. He then called his buddy and gave him directions to our house.

His buddy pulled up later in a 2012 Super Sport black corvette. After inspection, he said he did in fact, want the China cabinet. He said he had 6 others at home by the same maker. He took a few other things as well, including a gun that had belonged to her Dad. “The safety is faulty,” she told him, but he didn’t seem to mind as he pointed it in my general direction. Elaine told me it might be good if I stepped to the side. I agreed.

He couldn’t hear a thing, and his voice boomed throughout the house. The cats hid under the beds. He regaled us with stories, this good old boy who did two tours in Vietnam and came home with a purple heart, and who just happened to collect antiques. Who would have thought?

The next day he and his buddy backed up a trailer while I herded cats.

He came in laughing and booming out instructions to his friend, who repeated everything he said under his breath in a very raspy voice sounding much like Red Green, that goofy Canadian guy who fixes everything with duct tape. It was like a comedy routine.

I watched from the window with a blow-by-blow description for Elaine who was pacing nervously from room to room. I gasped as they tipped it end over end and slid it into the trailer.  And we both let out a breath when we watched the tail lights receding down the street.

It wasn’t just the end of a piece of furniture it was another step closer to freedom for her.  One step closer toward her own life again.

Later that night we drank a toast in celebration, but not before we said a prayer of thanks for a God who provides in some very creative and humorous ways. “When I heard that guy crunching those chips,” she said, “It was like God was telling me that He was gonna do this for me, but that I was going to have to jump through a couple of hoops first.”

Before he left our new friend left his business and cell number. When Elaine showed him some projects she has done, he said: “If you need anything for any project, just call me. I have a whole workshop at your disposal.”

We smiled when we remembered how we prayed, asking God for success, for a sale. And I am always amazed at who and how He comes through. A chip crunching antique dealer and a purple hearted vet who said yes to his wife’s request for a house filled with antiques.

God is so good.

A moment in the grass

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When do we lose it? I thought this as I lay back in the grass, with not a little trepidation beforehand. We were all in my brother’s backyard and it was three-way catch sitting on the ground. All at once, Lauryn lay flat on the ground and insisted we do the same. It was part of the game. Of course Grandpa did it right away. Squeamish Aunt Lori was more hesitant. I was thinking about the big pile of dog doo I had cleaned up back there the day before.

She patted the ground and smiled. Insisting again that I join in the game. And I did. How could I resist that smile? Laying there in that grass, I actually thought I heard it say something. I heard the grass talk. It has a voice if you listen, and kids hear that stuff. As adults we are too far off the ground to hear it, in more ways than one. Laying in that grass, with birdsong and her laughter in the background, I thought. “This is a moment I will always remember.”

Slices of life,  of time. Some of them indelible in our minds, others pass by without notice. Sometimes the biggest things are learned in the smallest actions.

It’s time to remember how it was to see a hill and immediately roll down it. It’s time to run through sprinklers. It’s time to be excited about life. That’s one of the best ways I know to let others know you know the author of Life. Some say we will know Christians by their love, and that certainly should be one of the first things people notice. I say another is:

They will know us by our joy.  

It is a by-product of knowing Jesus. And no matter what happens in life, no matter what is going on. Joy should be your backdrop. Absurd joy in absurd moments. It always takes me by surprise when it happens to me, but it really shouldn’t.

It’s why Paul and Silas were able to sing in jail.  And why David could write a song of praise even when he was running for his life.

Join me today, won’t you? Do something kid-like. And encourage someone else to do the same.

1 Peter 1:8-9 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Feeling like Mary today

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I thought maybe the ocean had taken my words out with the waves, never to be brought back again, but I was wrong. I will always have more words, because there will always be more life.
I smile when I say this, because I get a vision of all the writers in Heaven going for that corner spot in the patio….quills in hand.

And I think of everyone else doing what each of them have been made to do each in their own bright respective corner.

In many ways I am still processing vacation……..still reliving moments that I know I will never forget, like that iridescent pearly residue left behind after the waves wash over the shore, some things remain. And sometimes I feel like Mary when she pondered in her heart all that the angel had told her, all that God was still telling her.

And in case I don’t, I have the evidence the ocean did not take back. It never gets old, walking for miles on the beach stooping to exclaim over treasure the sea leaves. “Now don’t show me yours until we get back and then we will compare” I said, feeling the wonder. Feeling like a kid.

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As I picked up my new devotional book this morning, I remembered Mom saying, “I’ll buy that for you, I didn’t buy you a Birthday present.” As if she needs to, she has given me her whole life already, ever since I was born.

I remember the tears I cried that first sunset at the beach all alone, flipping back to all the events of the past week. How I wished everyone I loved could be sitting right there with me to see it.
And how the next night, E. turned to me and said, “Are you going to cry again?” And then I said, no and we laughed.

Finding that starfish on the shore and me feeling squeamish as a girl scooping enough sand around it so that I wouldn’t feel it move, and yet knowing I had to save it. Seeing the waves take it back…….

The feel of Lauryn’s hand in mine during Sesame Street live, what a gift when a child offers you a hand, it is something almost Holy. It means they trust you to keep them safe.

And everyday, God tells me to do the same. Live with my hand in His. And I do. It’s the best way I know how to live. Really, it’s the only way.

 Sometimes the benefits of time off remain long after you get back.

A life built around Him

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This was stuck on the bathroom mirror. It was on a card I sent them years ago, I guess my Mom couldn’t part with it……

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This is in the corner by the microwave, right by a drawing I made (also years ago). This prayer just about spells out their life. They go from dawn to dusk watching my special needs niece. They are fatigued in body and soul most every day, but their house is still a place of peace and refuge for many of their friends and family and there is always a fresh pot of coffee for whoever drops by.

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A reminder on the porch of who they serve……..and what He did for us all.

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My Mom’s bookshelf. My Dad has several and spilled to overflowing in several places in their house, but hers is tidy and organized.

I think it is very important to have reminders in your home. I have several pieces of art and knicknacks in my own home, but the ones that give special comfort are the ones that remind me of who He is and that He is near, always.

And the last one, written in my Dad’s own hand……posted on the kitchen cabinet.

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I dreamed a dream

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I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t go fill in one more blank on my sermon notes. I couldn’t listen to one more sermon. Not this Sunday. I felt full to the brim of being edified, pumped up, praised up. I thought……what if. What if I devoted that hour to going out and asking God who He wanted me to help that day. Who he wanted me to pray for.

What if I gave Him full permission, power, control. What if I gave Him his authority, his Lordship. His rightful place in my life. I wonder how different my walk with Him would look?

I dreamed of  what would happen if I stopped doing church and took the church out to the world. I dreamed of thousands of people spilling out onto the streets.  Churches set up in parks feeding the homeless, and places where the lost and lonely gather.

I dreamed a dream of empty pews.

And then I dreamed of people streaming back into church with new purpose. Remembering why they were there. I dreamed that churches would look more like hospitals and a place where you could always feel welcomed, loved, accepted.

I remembered how Jesus sent them out two by two. I imagine how excited they all must have been, buoyed up by a fresh dose of Holy Spirit power, looking forward to doing and seeing wondrous things, miracles.  I wondered at Jesus’ timing when after he got done instructing them He added this dire footnote:

“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. Be on your guard; you will be handed over to the local councils and be flogged in the synagogues. On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”

“Wow, Lord…..I can’t wait to go now!” Jesus can be a little scary. And honestly? A bit of a wet blanket at times. But He’s also never boring. Following Jesus is anything but boring. And follow is just what He asks of us. No matter where that road leads.

There’s a time for everything in its season, and sometimes you need to go to church and be built back up after the world has used you for its punching bag, I know,  I’ve been there. There is a time for being mended, and I have had holes in my heart mended in church more times than I can count. But then I get comfortable. I get complacent. And I sense Jesus tapping me on the shoulder and saying, “Now that I have mended you, go mend someone else.”

Sometimes the best way to stay afloat yourself is by helping someone else.

I think if the gospels and Jesus are not just a little disturbing then I wonder if you have really grasped the full message. If Jesus is not just a little unsettling then I wonder if I really know what he requires of me. Follow Me. Follow me even though you are afraid of where I might take you. 

That is scary for a clinging to the side of the pool person like me.

But Jesus is a God of His word. He said He’d never leave me and I believe Him. And in a way, I am thankful for my fear for it keeps me close to Him.

I dreamed a dream. But I think it may happen.

I have been reading about what it really means to follow Jesus in the book Follow Me by David Platt. I highly recommend it. Not very comfortable reading but sometimes we need that.