Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! (Verse 1)
I left the worship service at our church yesterday as the last strains of music reverberated in the rafters of the one-hundred-year-old building where we congregate each Sunday morning. Vanessa led worship, which always makes my spirit soar. The baby who used to use a hair brush as a microphone and sing all over our house is now leading us into the presence of Jesus. So I was doubly thankful in my joyful worship of my heavenly Father and precious Savior, Jesus. In fact, I felt really in love with my God as I stepped out into the foggy beach air to help man the coffee and donut station we've recently set up in front of the church for passers-by to grab something on the go or for people to stop by and talk with us for a few minutes.
There was the lady on her way to work at the CVS across the street from the beach. She grabbed breakfast on the way and talked with my friend, Mary, and me about her day. There was the man who struggles with alcohol. He'd had a bad week. Wound up inside for the sermon. Then there was Ethan. Twenty and on the streets. He saw us and the food, stopped his skateboard, picked it up and walked over to the pop-up tent for some breakfast.
"Sure," I said, "have some fruit and a donut."
"I'm really hungry," Ethan replied as he began eating breakfast while I poured him some coffee from the plastic urn.
"Are you on the streets?" I asked.
"Yeah. I have been for about two months now. My mom and dad kicked me out."
"Drugs, then?" I asked.
"Yes, but I don't use any more," he replied as he worked on his second donut.
"It's hard to rebuild trust, huh?" I mused more than asked.
"Yeah. It is. They always think all I want is money."
Our conversation was long. I know where he sleeps at night. I know he has a local girlfriend. I know he didn't really give up drugs. Maybe not the heroin of before, but he still uses. And I know he's heard the gospel and read enough of the Bible that he could finish some of the verses we shared together. And...he needed socks. But what really struck me in our conversation was this one statement of Ethan's. "I don't want to give up drugs. I like doing drugs. I'd have to give that up to become a Christian."
Deeply entrenched in some of us is that we have to come to Jesus cleaned up. I'm not saying Ethan doesn't have to be willing to relinquish his drugs to know Christ, but I am saying that we may not even have the ability to be willing without Him in the first place. I know the Father loves Ethan. How? Because He knew I'd be standing there and Ethan would be skating by. It was a set-up. For my joy and Ethan's sake. The young man had never heard that he could come to Christ just the way he is. That Jesus might embrace his brokenness like a mother loves and cares for her injured child.
Ethan's fingernails were chewed down to the nub and blackened with the dirt of his homelessness when I held his hands to pray with him. I asked for protection because he's afraid sometimes on the streets. I asked for clarity and peace. I asked Christ to show Himself powerful in this young man. Then I challenged Ethan to receive Christ into His life.
"Oh, I've done that. Several times." Ethan, honestly.
"I mean today, Ethan, August 25, 2013, give yourself away to Him and see if He isn't faithful to love you just the way you are."
"Okay. I will." Then he hugged me.
We found him some clean socks and he was on his way. But my heart went with him and I thought of him several times the rest of the day. I have a thousand reasons to make a joyful noise to the Lord! To lift my hands and move my feet and sing at the top of my lungs to the One Who has made me new, rescued me from myself and others countless times and filled my desperate longings with His indwelling Spirit. My God has taken from me those things that would destroy me and replaced them with abundant life! I wasn't stripped of anything worth keeping in order to know Christ. His life has given mine purpose and power beyond what I could adequately explain to Ethan. Ethan, who could now choose to follow a path, hand in hand with Jesus, that leads to joy instead of endlessly walking streets in search of a high that will destroy him if he continues to pursue it. And he is a picture of all of us straining to keep that which we will lose out of the fear that Jesus will take it from us and leave us empty. May Jesus pour joy into the void of my young friend's hollow existence so that he will one day, along with me, lift his hands to the One Who rescued him from a horrible pit, set his foot upon a rock and put a new song into his mouth.
I left the worship service at our church yesterday as the last strains of music reverberated in the rafters of the one-hundred-year-old building where we congregate each Sunday morning. Vanessa led worship, which always makes my spirit soar. The baby who used to use a hair brush as a microphone and sing all over our house is now leading us into the presence of Jesus. So I was doubly thankful in my joyful worship of my heavenly Father and precious Savior, Jesus. In fact, I felt really in love with my God as I stepped out into the foggy beach air to help man the coffee and donut station we've recently set up in front of the church for passers-by to grab something on the go or for people to stop by and talk with us for a few minutes.
There was the lady on her way to work at the CVS across the street from the beach. She grabbed breakfast on the way and talked with my friend, Mary, and me about her day. There was the man who struggles with alcohol. He'd had a bad week. Wound up inside for the sermon. Then there was Ethan. Twenty and on the streets. He saw us and the food, stopped his skateboard, picked it up and walked over to the pop-up tent for some breakfast.
"Sure," I said, "have some fruit and a donut."
"I'm really hungry," Ethan replied as he began eating breakfast while I poured him some coffee from the plastic urn.
"Are you on the streets?" I asked.
"Yeah. I have been for about two months now. My mom and dad kicked me out."
"Drugs, then?" I asked.
"Yes, but I don't use any more," he replied as he worked on his second donut.
"It's hard to rebuild trust, huh?" I mused more than asked.
"Yeah. It is. They always think all I want is money."
Our conversation was long. I know where he sleeps at night. I know he has a local girlfriend. I know he didn't really give up drugs. Maybe not the heroin of before, but he still uses. And I know he's heard the gospel and read enough of the Bible that he could finish some of the verses we shared together. And...he needed socks. But what really struck me in our conversation was this one statement of Ethan's. "I don't want to give up drugs. I like doing drugs. I'd have to give that up to become a Christian."
Deeply entrenched in some of us is that we have to come to Jesus cleaned up. I'm not saying Ethan doesn't have to be willing to relinquish his drugs to know Christ, but I am saying that we may not even have the ability to be willing without Him in the first place. I know the Father loves Ethan. How? Because He knew I'd be standing there and Ethan would be skating by. It was a set-up. For my joy and Ethan's sake. The young man had never heard that he could come to Christ just the way he is. That Jesus might embrace his brokenness like a mother loves and cares for her injured child.
Ethan's fingernails were chewed down to the nub and blackened with the dirt of his homelessness when I held his hands to pray with him. I asked for protection because he's afraid sometimes on the streets. I asked for clarity and peace. I asked Christ to show Himself powerful in this young man. Then I challenged Ethan to receive Christ into His life.
"Oh, I've done that. Several times." Ethan, honestly.
"I mean today, Ethan, August 25, 2013, give yourself away to Him and see if He isn't faithful to love you just the way you are."
"Okay. I will." Then he hugged me.
We found him some clean socks and he was on his way. But my heart went with him and I thought of him several times the rest of the day. I have a thousand reasons to make a joyful noise to the Lord! To lift my hands and move my feet and sing at the top of my lungs to the One Who has made me new, rescued me from myself and others countless times and filled my desperate longings with His indwelling Spirit. My God has taken from me those things that would destroy me and replaced them with abundant life! I wasn't stripped of anything worth keeping in order to know Christ. His life has given mine purpose and power beyond what I could adequately explain to Ethan. Ethan, who could now choose to follow a path, hand in hand with Jesus, that leads to joy instead of endlessly walking streets in search of a high that will destroy him if he continues to pursue it. And he is a picture of all of us straining to keep that which we will lose out of the fear that Jesus will take it from us and leave us empty. May Jesus pour joy into the void of my young friend's hollow existence so that he will one day, along with me, lift his hands to the One Who rescued him from a horrible pit, set his foot upon a rock and put a new song into his mouth.
No comments:
Post a Comment