Last week – amidst the rising tide of fear and anger and #aminext – I preached five times in three provinces, hugging my boys hard in between and making sure they’d made actual contact with soap and had the right gum guards and shin pads and cough syrup and sandwiches.
I saw beautiful things and I met beautiful people and I love every moment of doing what I do.
But the most beautiful thing I saw all week was coming home to this – these two beautiful souls who have in them so much of the beautiful soul I married.
And my thoughts are simply that –
Preaching and protests are important and there’s a time to speak truth to power. There absolutely is. Because sometimes the truth is dialled down to low-hum like so much apathetic white noise and the powers-that-be don’t hear it and we need to turn up the VOLUME because, Enough Already.
But actually, politics and policies don’t change societies and nations. Not really. Not deeply. It’s changed people who change a status quo. And the only One who changes people is Jesus.
A friend reminded me that Mary didn’t invite people over to see her baby. She didn’t try very hard at all. She just tended to Jesus. And poor shepherds and rich kings came to her, because they were drawn to His presence.
What if we – men and women – decided to stop hating, blaming, forcing? What if, instead, we just tended to Jesus? Because His presence in us – in our homes and our communities – is irresistible. People will come saying, Please, #aminext to get this changing grace?
Let’s remember –
God’s plan for humans has always been grassroots change seeded in homes and rooted in local church and sending green shoots into every corner of culture.
And as spouses and parents, our highest calling will always be to plant beautiful marriages and families because it’s the thousands and thousands of tiny decisions we cultivate in those spaces – moments mostly unseen by anyone but God – that grow into legacy and life-change – and swell unstoppable into world-change.
Our ministries, missions, careers and callings are demanding and fantastic and as Jim Elliot said, ‘Wherever you are, be all there! Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God.’
But let’s play schedule-Tetris, wisely and well, so our warm bodies are around to remind our boys that –
They. Are. Not. Trash.
They are image-bearers of a mighty God.
Let’s be brave and honest and help them understand:
Men do trashy things. Women do trashy things.
But Jesus took our trash to the cross and by His changing grace, He redeems and restores all things and we get to be alive in this time of God so obviously breaking open the hard ground of hearts. We get to flesh-out our God-designed destinies, because He transforms us from trash into treasure.
We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.
2 Corinthians 4:7
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Happy, happy, happy weekend!
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