Be One Whom He Seeks

“Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.” John 4: 23 (NIV)

There are times I mourn some for lost spaces, little nooks and crannies where I’ve found a moment or two of solitude for quiet reflection, even talks with others that began in hushed tones and, as often as not, broke out in laughter. There was the small memorial chapel complete with waterfall/fountain that even worked for a season or two that became a storage facility and then was removed.

There was the space with comfy couches arranged around a fireplace that really worked – or works still for all I know but it's become a multipurpose room now. With a fire going we’d gather around and talk about a Bible verse or story or some sort of personal train of thought and our discussions would range from here to there with tangents and such until a game of some kind would break out. Eventually the group would quiet down as the fire calmed to embers. On a New Year’s Eve some of us would nap there until the word went out that it was time to go and freeze our butts on Colorado Avenue for the Rose Parade.

There used to be a library with real books filling the shelves with Bibles, concordances, journals, expanded studies of all the books of the Bible. It's a craft center now. You could go in there and pull down a book on nearly any Christian topic of the day and study. There was always a current (and several earlier renditions as well) Book of Order. Groups could gather there for in-depth discussion and discovery.

Now reading the verse above I have to chastise myself. Solitude can be found anywhere you set your heart to look. Worship can take place along any pathway, in the midst of a shopping mall, on the beach, on the bike (pedal or otherwise), and in the trenches of everyday life. It’s up to me to find my spot, to make it the Lord’s for His purpose.

And there are still spots that can be found on the campus I refer to here if you find the right time and know where to look. The seekers can find them and there is always time for worship. We must leave space in our lives for quiet contemplation and worship, to make/take the time and find the location holy for His purpose. If we do this, worship while our bodies, even our souls, are busy doing other things, then we become the ones whom the Father seeks.

In His grip,

jerry

I Am Saddened

(photo courtesy of 'Storyblocks')

I was saddened when I heard the news, the news that fifty-eight people had been killed and over 500 others gunned down in a senseless act by one man. This feeling is akin to that devastating shock I felt as I watched the plane crash into the second tower in New York just as my TV had warmed up for my morning bit of news while I was getting ready for work. Mornings turned into mourning.

Senseless acts, both of them. And countless more between and before and sadly, countless more to come after. We live in a broken world and nothing will fix it except for the unrelenting application of God’s grace obtained for us by the resurrection of Christ. And that will only work in partial doses until God’s Kingdom is established in full, on the earth. I am afraid they will remain senseless to us, that we will never truly understand the ‘why’ behind the actions of people who visit atrocities on innocents.

I won’t try to explain it here, I can’t.

What are we to do?

I am saddened also by what I’ve seen as I scroll along my Facebook news-feed. Saddened by those who see fit to politicize such a tragedy before the scope of it is fully known. You know the ones I’m talking about. They are on every side of the issues being bullied about from their social media pulpits. ‘We need more gun laws!’ elicits the response ‘It is our right to bear arms!’ We may well need more laws or to actually enforce those we have and it may well be our right to own and carry weapons. However, our duties lie elsewhere.

I was saddened by those who chose to take aim at protesters while praising the heroes of the day. The message to the protesters was weakened by doing this just as the message of praise for the hero was diluted.

Just as I’ve been saddened by the politicos in response to this latest mass shooting I was saddened by our response to the 9/11 attacks. ‘United we stand!’ they said. ‘We will never forget’ we said and so we pooled our resources and we ‘got them’ all the while destroying more innocent lives by many times than what were taken from us on 9/11. We missed an opportunity for a Godly response.

What are we to do?

I suggest we let the dust settle. Take a knee, take both knees, to the turf and let the dust settle. Let it settle all around us, on our shoulders, upon our heads, and on our backs while we are bowed over in prayer. Prayer for the souls of the dead, for the healing and recovery of the wounded, and for peace for all those folks who were there and experienced a terror words can only go so far in describing. We should humble ourselves first and let the impact settle in around us. Pray for God’s Kingdom to come and come quickly. We need to pray for the heroes of the day, those who shielded others, those men and women who ran into harm’s way to stop the madness – pray for their emotional scars to be wiped out so that heroes can walk upright and be ready again. So the lambs and doves can sleep without trembling. Pray so the angles need not shed more tears.

Friends, let us stand down from our stumps and get off our soapboxes and instead kneel by our beds at night, by our desks during the day, and humble ourselves while the dust settles.

In His grip,

jerry