Recently, in a bible study I’m involved with, we read and discussed the story of the prodigal son in connection with a study we are doing on redemption and forgiveness. It made me remember that at the bottom of a pile on my bureau was a seed of a poem that I wrote a couple of months back sort of as a cautionary reminder to not even step foot on roads that led me to a lot of trouble and heartache – and quite a distance from God – last fall. God prompted me to share:

Let me squander not
Your grace

To seek the trough
once more

The Lord has the busiest pen….

Do these

stars

I see

still exist

or

is it

their Light

that

just

remains ?

On my commute home last Wednesday I noticed a particularly bright star in the sky.  I wondered briefly if this was a named star I’d learned about or part of a long forgotten constellation (Big Dipper or Little Dipper? – that was all I could recall).  And then I remembered that some of the stars we see no longer exist – that it’s just their light, traveling so far for so long, that we see.  And this poem came to me. And then I thought about how it is also an apt description of believers: – we no longer exist – it’s His light the world should see.

The devil’s head is crushed

every time

we praise the Lord.

I gave this poem to a few of our family friends on Easter along with their little gifts from us.

He is who He said He was

He raised people from the dead. He fed thousands.

He washed feet.

He touched the thrown-away people of the world.

He called them

His friends.

He

transforms

lives.

And He

desperately, desperately, desperately, desperately

loves

You.

Every six weeks, for three weeks in a row, my son and I take care of the two-year-olds during the early service at our church. My biggest blessing of 2006 was the realization that my 11-year-old can’t wait till it’s our turn (“Is it our turn to be with the two-year-olds?” – And if it’s not: “Aw, man!”) – that the Lord is growing someone who loves to serve. Another blessing of this ministry is God’s little lessons for me. He gently prods me to keep it simple.

In thinking about a craft to bring the kids this weekend, I was thinking about phrases and pictures I could print out and have them paste onto paper. My header is what came to mind:

Jesus takes care of us; He is all we need

This is such a blessed message for ME…I have been struggling lately with trying to get out of a rut of turning to other things besides Him. My answers are right there.                    God is so incredibly good.

Lord, on a night where many of us have eaten until we were uncomfortable,

Teach us to be hungry:

Hungry for your Word.

Hungry for knowledge of your will for our lives.

And help us to remember that these were the things that Jesus was hungry for:

“My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.” (John 4:34)

Tonight, during my dinner break at work, I picked up a book that had been donated to the library’s book sale: Ever Increasing Faith by Smith Wigglesworth. Besides having a funny name, I knew this guy had been an evangelist so I brought it with me to read at dinner. I read a little bit of the intro and the first chapter/sermon. While flipping through, I caught a glimpse of a phrase from a later chapter and it stuck out at me and stuck with me:

The Holy Spirit will make us epistles, ever telling out that Jesus our Lord is our Redeemer…

Not that the Holy Spirit will create an epistle for us but that by the Holy Spirit we will become epistles. Wiggleworth’s chapter, Life in the Spirit, is based on Paul’s encouragement to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 3:3: “…clearly you are an epistle of Christ…written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.”

I love that I serve the Author of Life and the Word Made Flesh. And I am thrilled that He’s allowed me to be even a mere character (as in the letter ‘k’) in the story He’s weaving. And, as in what Wiggleworth exclaimed, I also get to be a royal storyteller…I get to tell – I am sent forth to tell His story!

*****************************

There are some people in my life who are hurting right now. And every part of me wants to tell them that there is hope in Christ and for them to know that I have begged God to heal their lives. I ask for your prayers for them and for me – to share what God’s laid on my heart. May I ever tell out…..

Put God first

and things will

fall into place

or, if they don’t fall into place

as you might wish or want them to,

they will at least

fall into perspective.

I believe that He allows us to find ourselves in positions of great need

so that
we’ll
throw ourselves
at His feet

so that we’ll
WANT,
again,
to be at His feet

at His feet,
full of faith,
for healing

at His feet, as eager students, for exhortation

I believe that He allows us to find ourselves in positions of great need

so that
we will come to Him
- and to nothing or no one else –
with our deepest needs

so that we’ll
have
the faith
and fuel
to know that

at His feet,
we have all we need.