May 11, 2020
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Gladness for your hearts
Attack and stone. Today’s news is a far cry from “a large number were added each day to the believers.” What’s happened? They shook a little more dust off their feet. They fled to the surrounding countryside and continued to proclaim the Good News. Paul spoke words of healing to a crippled man in Lystra and he stood up straight and walked. Jumped up, actually, and …  the people cried out with joy, “the gods have come down to us in human form.” It’s either all or nothing.
Barnabas and Paul tried to stop the people from worshipping them, with little success.
Turn from these idols, turn from us! Turn to the living God, the LIVING God who made heaven and earth and all that is in them. You Gentiles were never left without witness, he gave you rains from heaven and gladness for your hearts.
The crowds could scarcely restrain themselves.
Ah, to be in a crowd. Rubbing up against each other, shouting and singing in each others’ faces, happy they are, all on a new day, afraid of nothing, happy for joy in the morning, happy to be part of a celebration of healing, in rapture before these walking gods, touching, touched, in love with the fingers of life.
I want some of that crowd today, sitting in place, sheltered from risk but deprived of the (at least imagined) blessing of other people and their hugs, handshakes, smiles, their acceptance of our mutual universal family belonging kinship, steeped in grace.
But enough. It’s probably as good or better in my imagination than it would ever be at Sam’s Club, or Memorial Stadium, or at a concert hall, or even on the beach.
Well, actually, the beach might be even better than my imagination.
Not to us, O Lord, not to us. Oh, yeah. I forgot. This is God we are discussing, this is God we are learning to worship. To YOUR NAME give the glory, it is YOUR mercy, and YOUR truth.
We are given gifts, always gifts from the GIVER. Heaven is the heaven of the Lord. And the earth he has given to the children of men. Thank you Jesus, thank you Father, thank you Holy Spirit. Breathe on us here on the earth you have given us. My lungs hold you in, release you slowly, and breathe you in again. You are my teacher, and there is so much to learn. There will always be.
Jesus wisely made a condition: whoever has my commandments. He said much more, but I’m held captive by this simple whoever has. How do I go about this? Are these commandments simply given, or must I learn them? Are they difficult to learn?
Birds fly, flowers bloom, and I … learn? Actually Jesus didn’t use the word “learn,” he made it simpler, he just said “has.” Who can argue with that? Why am I even stopping here and asking?
Do we all “have” his commandments? Each of us in our hearts, in our minds, even as we are not yet born? We can imagine so, and we can imagine not. Darn, I’m asking questions again. Stop it!
And observes them. Perhaps that’s the main thing. What I do, not what I say matters to you, Lord? Whoever loves me will keep my word. “Let the little children come.” Become like a little child. Return to your native naivete, your second childhood, be reborn. In the series The Chosen, (get the app and watch it that way) Jesus speaks to children and they understand. Their questions are not skeptical but curious. And so they learn without skepticism, with growing curiosity instead, in their conscience, in their mind, in their bodies. They become the Good they were made to be.
Then we became old. We outgrew childish things. Perish that. Become like a little child. This is only possible through prayer? No, that’s about losing demons, not adulthood. They are certainly not the same, are they? Jesus simply says, promises, this: The Holy Spirit who the Father will send in my name will teach you everything and remind you of what I’ve told you.
This is assurance worth its weight in gold. So I choose to seek this second childhood and sing a song, with the birds, gladness in the face of storms and sun, for you have set my heart free.       (Acts 14, Psalm 115, John 14)
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