It has been a whirlwind of a week for me. Starting last Saturday. It was the wedding rehearsal day for my second oldest son. Which was fun, confusing (lots of discussing who walks in before who, and what word in the song do we start to walk out to kind of stuff.) All in all a good day, a little surreal but good.
Then Sunday morning (church day not the wedding day because both parents on each side are pastors and well, pastors have church services we do weekly) my daughter and oldest son alert me to a shooting in a town 20-30 minutes away. Five lives have been taken and 18 more are injured. My heart breaks. This shooting is yet another hate crime. Thoughts are swirling, Why God?, How God? And then to happy nervous thoughts. Yikes, tomorrow is the big day…
Then Monday, wedding day. Great day. Lots of emotions – all happy. Then Tuesday, back to work for Christmas decorating day. Then Wednesday, finally a lull in the week. Followed by Thanksgiving which has its own set of emotions. What I am grateful for and who do I want to smack for getting in the way while food is being put in the oven and taken out of the oven in crazy amounts. And now finally Friday. Black Friday. Why do we celebrate a day of being grateful and then call the next day Black Friday? Weird. Anyway, no Black Friday shopping here. Just a quiet house for the first time in a week – ’cause there are extra friends and family around because it was Thanksgiving and a wedding in one week.
I am sitting back in my office – which was turned into a spare room for said friends and family. Life is slowly making its way back to normal or as normal of the days between Thanksgiving and Christmas can get.
I’m working my way through a study on Jesus via the book of Luke. The author, Erica Wiggenhorn, does a great job of leaving you daily with deep thoughts to ponder. Today’s is based on Luke 5:17-26. For those of you who don’t immediately know Luke 5:17-26 (if you already knew what this section of Scripture is about, you ROCK, because I would not have known without having read it this morning), it’s about the paralyzed man with the amazing friends who go to great lengths to get the paralyzed man to Jesus.
When I say great lengths I mean like physically carrying the man on a mat to the house that Jesus was in, only to find one way, through the crowds, to get to Jesus. Determined, they carry the man up the stairs (outside) to the roof, cut a hole in the roof, create some sort of pully system so they can lower the man through the hole to the feet of Jesus. That all took thought, skill, muscle and teamwork. Once the man is in front of Jesus he is both healed and declared forgiven for his sins. He leaves carrying the mat his friends had been carrying him on all night.
The author of the study (Erica Wiggenhorn) poses the questions “Are you that kind of friend? Do you have friends like that?” My answer is I hope so to both. Then she takes it further, “Are you that kind of neighbor?” If your neighbors are some of your really close friends NEVER move, because that is not so common in today’s world.
Then she says “When we become people who readily admit our own desperation for Jesus, the door opens – or the roof is dismantled – for us to become people who will do anything to bring our friends to the feet of Jesus as well as to have their sins forgiven.” She goes on to say “Are you and I ready to become mat-carrying, roof- raising, believing-the-best-for-others kind of people. Will we allow Jesus to make us people with such faith and audacity that the world is left in wonder?” (Unexplainable Jesus, pg 72-73)
As I sit here this morning, once more in my office, in my quiet home, Jesus I want to be that kind of person to my friends, to my neighbors and to those I don’t know. I want to clear a path for people to come to the feet of Jesus because He can handle any situation we lay at His feet. He can make right any wrong. He can heal, and He can forgive sins. He alone can make whole what is broken in our bodies, in our hearts and in our world.
Friends, will you join me in being people who take others to Jesus? Someone who carries those who can’t walk to the feet of Jesus? Someone who won’t stop until the hurting, the broken, or the lost are at the feet of Jesus?
Over the next month as holiday madness ensues, let us remember our job isn’t to be the best host, give the best gift, or have the prettiest decorated house… but to help take those around us, friends, family, neighbors, and strangers to the feet of Jesus.
