Eureka!!

I have had a revelation. This morning. During my four book "read-a-thon". Particularly in two of the books. First, revelation had to do with fasting. I am trying to develop spiritual disciplines in my life and have found a book entitled, "Spiritual Classics: Selected Readings for Individuals and Groups on the Twelve Spiritual Disciplines", edited by Richard J. Foster. This book is good for me because it gives small "snipets" of other's works on the disciplines which makes "digestion" easier. This mornings reading is from Catherine Marshall, wife of Peter Marshall(known for his chaplaincy in the US Senate), who was embattled with criticism of others. In obedience to Lord, she fasted a whole day from any criticism. She states that she wasn't sure what the Lord could be trying to teach her through this exercise but when the day was complete, well, hindsight, 20/20, we get the picture. She discovered that she was more gracious to others. Thoughts of peace and harmony were on her mind. Creativeness flowed. She discovered that criticism was a heavy weight to carry around. I can almost hear the, "Duh" on your mind but I am a slow learner. The point is this, fasting is a much needed spiritual discipline and it has nothing to do with the absence of food but rather with the absence of a needed discipline.
The second moment this morning that really caught my attention was from Philip Yancy's book,"The Jesus I Never Knew". I have to say here that I have never read any of Yancy's work, but after reading this one I will be reading more of it. He is a remarkable writer that really touches on the uncertainties in his own life making his dialogue... "real"? I guess real is the word I'm searching for, maybe "tangible"? Hopefully you get what I am saying. This morning I am reading the chapter on the Ascension. Yancy states that this part of the Gospels is the most difficult for him to understand and I on the other hand, have not even given it much thought. As he begins to map out his problems with the Ascension, I begin to see his point, and a good point it is, why did Jesus leave? The Good News would have seemed to have flourished at even greater speed if Jesus could have showed up at the next Sabbath at the Temple. Or even better than that, the next Sanhedrin business meeting. Can you imagine the faces on those stuffy-shirt fundamentalists(I use the term not as a jest, but rather in its truest sense)? It would seem to me that the message of hope and love would have taken off like a rocket. But as it has been my understanding of things, God never chooses the easy path. In His infinite wisdom, He chose rather to put the keys to the kingdom in the hands of a bunch of undisciplined, scared, ignorant men. What was He thinking?! The part I missed, Yancy makes. The men to whom He entrusted this great task had something no one to that point in history had, Jesus in them. Yancy uses the illustration of dandelion seeds being blown off of the stem. Jesus left Himself in the disciples in Spirit, more to the point, the Holy Spirit. Jesus Himself said that He had to leave in order to send the Comforter, so He did knowing that this was the better way, exponentially. Little Jesus' all over the place and eventually all over time. God is, as my pa-paw used to say about those he saw as intelligent, "A pretty smart feller."
One last point. In the same chapter Yancy makes a statement that is something that will be with me today and probably many days to come. The statement has to do with the parable that Jesus tells His disciples about the sheep and the goats, where the sheep and goats are separated and judged according to the action or no action taken in regards to the poor, naked, hungry, thirsty, imprisoned people. Jesus says that we are to be about the business of ministering to these people because we are in essence doing it for Him, or as He said, to Him, Jesus in disguise as Mother Teresa put it. The statement Yancy makes is the reason we are not ministering to these folks, and the statement is this, "we are looking in the wrong places". These people are not typically in the institutional church. They are not usually welcome. I know what some will say, "They are welcome", but the truth is they will not stay long if they even come in because they are not like "us". We have created in the institutional church the mentality that we are the mold to which all must fit. "If you are not like us, there is obviously something wrong with you", is what we will never say, but our actions prove the point. The mandate Jesus gave is this, go to where they are. Go to the alleyways and byways. Go to the places that no self-respecting church goer will dare go. And minister to them as though they are Jesus Himself. What an example Jesus gave. What a life we are to follow. Seems all to obvious now. Till next time...
SIM Church Planter