Give Yourself Away Part 3

I think what strikes me is how little, not how much God is asking of us. And how readily we'd do His bidding, how thankfully and gladly we'd carry out His command, if we stopped pretending He didn't exist.

If God came in green tornado skies and spoke in a voice that made trees shake and fire appeared in a circle above you and He said, "Go listen to that hurting person for twenty minutes," you'd humbly and quietly ask Him if you should wear anything special? Maybe bring a dish? Perhaps buy the hurting person lunch? Isn't His command asking too little?

God has come to us and asked us to hold a beautiful little girl, and love her and feed her and change her diapers. And pray for her and hug her. And after a number of days he determines, He'll take her home. Sans the green skies, this sounds painful. But reminded of exactly who He is, what He knows, how He loves....

From The Screwtape Letters, Lewis' masterwork written from the perspective of one senior demon to a junior demon (so "The Enemy" is actually not The Enemy at all)....

"The assumption which you want him to go on making is so absurd that, if once it is questioned, even we cannot find a shred of argument in its defence. The man can neither make, nor retain, one moment of time; it all comes to him by pure gift; he might as well regard the sun and moon as his chattels. He is also, in theory, committed to a total service of the Enemy; and if the Enemy appeared to him in bodily form and demanded total service for even one day, he would not refuse.

"He would be greatly relieved if that one day involved nothing harder than listening to the conversation of a foolish woman; and he would be relieved almost to the pitch of disappointment if for one half-hoiur in that day the Enemy said 'Now you may go and amuse yourself.'

"Now, if he thinks about his assumption for a moment, even he is bound to realize that he is actually in this situation every day. When I speak of preserving this assumption in his mind, therefore, the last thing I mean you to do is to furnish him with arguments in its defence. There aren't any.

Your task is purely negative. Dont' let his thoughts come anywhere near it. Wrap a darkness around it, and in the center of that darkness let his sense of ownership-in-Time lie silent, uninspected, and operative."

Give Yourself Away part 2

Prayer Warriors: read closely.

I wrote a quick instant message of thanks to my friend at Avicom. She's very obviously the force behind my refrigerator full of food, and apparently headed up the Zoe Means Life meeting, and has been supportive and instrumental and overwhelmingly kind through the last weeks.

I told her that God was using her mightily.

And she told me that she knew. She could feel it.

A quick rewind: about six months ago, she was telling me she had never set foot in a church. It just wasn't a thing her family did. And that some relatives of hers went to 'Cultbrook' - a clever moniker for the Milwaukee area megachurch Oakbrook.

She wasn't bitter. She just didn't go. She didn't get it. Didn't understand why or how she'd need it. But that was then.

Since then, I've prayed with her and she's met Zoe. And she's been moved to help.

I told her that there are forces screaming right now that she's feeling anything. Howling that she has brushed against the strength and peace of The Spirit. And I told her that she has a unique bit of experience: she gets to see the face of Christ in the actions of people around her. Hear Jesus talk through His Church.

Those same evil forces are going to do everything they can to keep her from knowing. They're hoping they can get her to consider it all a feeling like a crush, or a fit of anger.

I want her to know. Don't you?

7But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Give Yourself Away part 1

3 Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, 4 while he himself went a day's journey into the desert. He came to a broom tree, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. "I have had enough, LORD," he said. "Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors." 5 Then he lay down under the tree and fell asleep.
All at once an angel touched him and said, "Get up and eat." 6 He looked around, and there by his head was a cake of bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.

7 The angel of the LORD came back a second time and touched him and said, "Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you." 8 So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God. 9 There he went into a cave and spent the night.

So, what did God do to a down-in-the-dumps servant? Did he chew him out for losing heart? Did he pat him on the back? Ask him how he was doing? What were his initial words of encouragement or guidance? The preaching came later. First thing God did was minister to his physical needs.

Elijah needed to eat and sleep. And eat some more. Because the journey was too much for him.

It might be more than societal instinct to whip out the casserole dish for those who are hurting. I can tell you that we have not cooked anything in a week, because the kind people at Avicom have cooked our dinners every night. We only encounter problems when we have to figure what Selah can eat.

Lesson 1 - make sure physical needs are met. You all are doing that for us in incredible, staggering fashion. Thank you.