Resting Place

When Zaccheus had you to dinner

He must have been embarrassed to bring you in

To his clutter and evident preoccupation

With the love of money, and fear of lack.

But you came to his heart anyway

And he watched as your eyes roved about

Touching the furnishings and disarray

Cluttering up his life.

And he fell in love with this Jesus

Who loved him enough to come sit awhile in his garbage,

The radiant Son of the Living God

Somehow seeing the gold inside of an ugly man.

After that first visit, he couldn’t clean house fast enough!

He threw out old treasures,

Abandoned love of money and fear of lack

To create a suitable resting place for God.

Arise, O Lord and come to your resting place,

My heart laid bare and open for you to dwell!

A heart that loves the things, people and places you love,

A suitable home for the heart of my God.

He Chose Me!

I remember many years ago, in gym class, watching the athletes choosing their teams.  Watching the team pool dwindle, finding myself last or next to last, the one the team gets stuck with at the end.  Zaccheus, I imagine, was like that last pick. 

“Oh, no, we got stuck with him last time!  It has to be your turn now.  He can’t hit a ball for nothin’!”

So, he didn’t even try anymore, to fit in, to be on anyone’s team.  But he found a way to get even.  He made himself a big shot by stealing people’s money as the county tax collector.

You can imagine that when Jesus stopped and set his sights on Zaccheus that day in Jericho, everyone was shocked, perhaps dismayed at Jesus’ choice of company.

But think about how this rejected, unwanted man must have felt to be Jesus’ first choice that day.

“There must be some mistake. Does he really mean me?  He chose me! He’s coming home with me today!”

And knowing that God picked him out of a crowd, chose to spend the day at his home, changed everything for Zaccheus.  “Just for the chance to be with you, to belong to you, I will give up my lifestyle, and pay back four times what I’ve stolen.  Just because you chose me.  Just because you believe there is something worth loving in me, I will be that valuable person you somehow see through all the crud.”

So we, too, get to be like Jesus, to look past boorish behavior, smelly clothes, obnoxious words, and pick the Zaccheuses of this world to befriend, share a meal, sit down and visit with them, because we see what Jesus saw when he looked up in the tree that day in Jericho so many years ago.

I want to love what you love.

I want to hate what you hate.

Want to hold dear to my heart,

All that you hold in yours.

Help me to see what you see.

Help me to hear what you hear.

To hold dear to my heart,

All that you hold in yours.

Invisible

I pass through a crowd

Keeping to myself,

Making no eye contact,

Holding my arms

Tightly at my sides,

I touch no one.

My mind tells me

I am insignificant.

No one notices if I’m present or absent.

You don’t look at me;

I don’t look at you.

I am invisible.

But you shatter the lie,

Seek me out,

Look me in the eye,

Confront me with the truth.

“You are not invisible!

I see you. I value you. I love you.”

“You are not invisible.

Therefore you are responsible

For what you see around you,

And what you allow others to see in you.”

My heart tells me I am significant,

Endowed with an instructed tongue

That knows the word that sustains the weary.

I am who I am, what I am, where I am,

For such a time as this.

Hands Off!

Don’t touch me there!

Hands off!

I got that scar 5, 10, 15 years ago

And it reminds me everyday

To keep you and everyone else

Out of my life.

But Jesus came

Bearing scars of his own,

And an invitation:

“Touch the nail prints,

Put your hand where the blood flowed from my side.

Let my wounds give you freedom

To let yours go.”

“You can trust me with your scars.

I can’t promise it won’t hurt.

But I can promise you freedom

From the prison you have locked yourself in.

You thought it would keep you safe,

But it just kept you wounded,

Alone in your painful memories.”

“May I? Yes?

I am peeling back the layers,

Uncovering disguised feelings,

Reactive behaviors,

Exposing the roots.

Scraping, cleaning,

Replenishing the soil,

Pouring in the oil,

The water of the Word,

The light of my presence.”

“No longer are you defined by your scars!

You are safe in my arms,

Healed by my wounds.

And one day, like me,

You will offer your scars

As a testimony of hope

For others’ healing.”

All About a Wedding

I just returned this month from a 14 day prayer journey in Italy.  It was amazing!

Our prayer journey to Israel four years ago was all about birthing, and especially birthing twins.  Our prayer journey to Italy developed a wedding theme early on.  As we drove around the first Italian cities we visited, Milan and Florence, we began to see brides and grooms and wedding parties on the sidewalks on their way to or from a wedding.

We visited two churches, the Basicalla of St. Nicholas, and the Santuario di Santa Rosalia on Monte Pellegrino in Palermo, where we had to hurry with our prayer time because a wedding was about to take place.  As we prayed we watched people bring in white flowers, ribbons, candles and roll out red carpets for the brides to walk upon on their way to the alter.  And God spoke to us about preparing Italy, and ourselves, for the Wedding his heart is longing for.  So we prayed and prepared the churches for the weddings about to take place, the immediate ones in those places, and the readiness of the Bride, God’s Church for her wedding to the Lamb of God.

In Venice we sat on some shaded benches overlooking the water and along came a stunning bride and groom with a troop of professional photographers who posed them and took photos.  We watched as tourists followed the troop and captured their own photos of a bride and groom they would never know.  

There’s something about a wedding, fresh hope for a new life filled with love, alongside someone who will know you and be known by you.  Even with the disastrous global divorce rate, and the high rate of infidelity in Italy and around the world, the wedding is an in your face declaration that this union will be different.  This time the vows mean something.  This time the two will become one for always and will make an impact on the world as a couple that neither could have made as individuals.  This time the man and woman will not cave in to their conflicts, but will work through them and become stronger and more glorious in spite and because of their wounds along the way.

Because it’s all about a wedding.  Jesus coming to this world and loving to the point of ultimate sacrifice, to redeem the very ones who called for his death, who heaped upon him the sins he carried – none his own.  But it’s bigger than that.  It’s not only the individual lives that come into the Kingdom.  Jesus longs to sew together the churches, to form his Bride, to adorn her in robes of righteousness, jewels of service to God and one another, to present to himself a Bride without spot or wrinkle.

So the day will come when the Spirit and the Bride say “Come”. 

Come Lord Jesus.

Just How Good our God Really Is!

When the grandchildren come over to play with me, one game we always play is "guess which hand". They sit on the bottom step of my 13 step staircase and I offer them two closed hands, one of which holds a tiny ladybug magnet.  If they guess the right hand and find the ladybug, they get to go up one step.  If they guess the wrong hand, they stay where they are.  The one who gets to the top step first is the winner, and he gets to be the one with the ladybug, while I join the others back on the bottom step.

Sometimes when the kids are over, even when we're not playing the game, I go to them with my hands clenched and say, "guess which hand".  No matter which hand they pick, there is a treat for them, a candy kiss or a tiny toy, for no other reason than I delight to give them a gift and watch them smile.

Father God plays that game, "guess which hand", too.  Not with stuff we need.  Like he doesn't hold our rent money in one hand and give us the chance to guess it, or lose it.  No he freely meets our needs, but more than that, he plays "guess which hand", and both hands are loaded with things we want, not just things we need.  "He opens his hand, and satisfies the desires of every living thing." Ps. 145:16.  Our desires, think of it, those things we long for in our hearts, spoken or unspoken, held out to us in his open hand, just for the delight of seeing our smile.

God is soooo good.

My Calling

Who will paint my portrait,

Sing my song,

Recite my worth,

When I am unable to believe in myself?

Who will see past my harsh demeanor,

Ignore offensive words,

Look deep inside my heart,

And remind me of who God made me to be?

Who, like Ananias, will see as God sees,

Visit the murderer,

Touch the outcast,

And call the terrorist by a new name, “brother”?

“Whom shall I send and who will go for us?

Who will see as I see,

Speak what I say,

And call things that are not as though they were?”

Here am I, Lord.

Send me.