Old Man River

Early this morning I had a chance to spend some time on the riverfront of the Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau, Missouri.  Some friends are having surgery today at a hospital there.  I went to pray with them before surgeries started, and I decided to spend my morning devotional time on the banks of Old Man River.   It was a glorious, bright morning; unusually cool for the blistering hot and dry summer we've been having in the Midwest.   People who know me know that I pretty much define life itself in and around rivers.  I can turn a river into a metaphor, a principle, or a sermon ad nauseum.  This morning was no exception.

We're experiencing drought, as is much of the country.  The Mississippi is as low as anyone can remember.  I watched two tugboat/barge assemblies struggle to get past each other in the now narrow main channel.  Still, the river moves with resolute determination.  Old Man River might look slow and lethargic from a bridge, but he's moving pretty fast when  you stand at the riverbank.  Drought or flood stage, the river perseveres.  That's exactly the nature of God.  We experience the droughts or flood stages of life and assume God has cut and run.  In fact, God never yields in determination to reach lost hearts, to give hope to the hopeless, to embrace the lonely, to shatter injustice, to change lives, and to transform the world.  The Mississippi never relents.  Neither does God.

That's says something about those of us who would be followers of Jesus as well.  We are to have the same resolute perseverance.  God is determined on our behalf, even to the point of dying on a cross.  A world in need of hope and transformation needs a Body of Christ with that kind of determination.  Too often we let our discipleship become like a pond.  When life is good, and blessings fall like steady rain showers, we're full to overflowing, and we're all about being happy servants of Jesus.  But when life becomes like the scorching sun and searing dry wind of a drought, and we let our spirit dry up.   We wait on practicing spiritual disciplines, on growing in Christ, on serving others, and on witnessing to our faith until we feel full of the rain of blessings again.  We're called to be like a river.  Sometimes there will be drought, sometimes there will be flood stage, and sometimes it will just be steady.  Keep moving.  Move with resolute determination, just like the Mississippi and just like our God.

I'll see you around the next bend in the river.

Weird Christmas, 2012?!?

I got to thinking about a weird possibility for Christmas 2012.  Here's the deal; there's not a thing in the world that I need, materially, that I don't already have.  (Most of what I have I don't need.  It's excess.)   What would it be like if I just didn't get any gifts for Christmas this year?  I would tell the people who know and love me to just keep on loving me and everyone around them, and that would be my gift.  And most of the adults I know, with some notable exceptions, have everything they need and more as well.  What would it be like if I told all the adults close to me that they would not be receiving material gifts from me this holiday season?  I would give gifts only to the children in my life; everyone under 18 years old.

Now, what if most of the adults who worship with me weekly had the same weird idea?  Let's say 500 of us will receive material gifts this holiday season, nor will we give them to our adult loved ones.  Now, imagine that we each would have spent at least $100 on Christmas gifts for the grown-ups we know and love.  Suppose that each of us set aside the money we would have spent on holiday gifts in 2012.  Now imagine that our gift to each other would be to bring that money to one, big, celebrate-the-birth-of-Jesus Christmas Eve offering on the evening of Sunday, December 24th.

Would would it be like if the people and leaders of our church prayed in yielding, discerning petition before the living God starting now, humbly asking to align with God's own heart?   Picture this:  based on how the Holy Spirit leads us, we send a check for $50,000+ to our brothers and sisters in Mozambique to dig five more wells in order to save thousands of lives and baptize hundreds more.  Or we just fund the next Habitat for Humanity project in our community.  Or we start a Hope Center, where anybody can come with any human need or crisis and find the love of Jesus and the helping hand of the Body of Christ.  Or we go to our local food bank and say, "Here.  Feed that many more hungry children in our region."  Or we take the gift to a struggling school system and say, "Take this.  Let's work together to start a program of one-to-one mentoring for student on the edge."  Or we go to a nearby small community with a church that's struggling to stay alive and say, "We're with you.  Let's take this money and partner together to make new disciples for Jesus Christ right here in this community!"  Or maybe God will lead us in some other direction completely off our grid.

What would that be like?  Could that be a God-event that would just push us beyond the edges of our own limitations, change us, and make us more like the Body of Christ?  Or is it just weird.

I'll see you around the next bend in the river.