The Others

I'm reading this morning in Luke 14 as Jesus tells this parable about the Great Festival. He speaks of a man who invites all these people to a party and then sends out a messenger to tell them the party is ready to get crankin. But as the messenger reaches each of the people they all have excuses as to why they can't come: I've got work to do; I just got married; etc....

So the man sends his messenger out to find other people - the lame, the crippled, the blind, the poor, the outcasts - and tell them all to come and enjoy themselves. Go out to the country - find anyone who desires to fellowship with me - and bring'em. Let's party. BUT, as for those who got the first invitations and didn't come...they won't even taste a morsel of how good this was.

Here is where Jesus seriously gets in our crawl and disrupts our everyday. I mean, is He saying what it sounds like He's saying? Honestly, I think we can contextualize and interpret this parable all kinds of ways and do it just in such a way that it makes us feel a little bit better about the possible ramifications. But I believe the one thing that is clearly being said here is that when it's ALL said and done - the show's over - many of the people who will meet Jesus face to face are not the ones we expect. It will be the others.

All the time we watch as people who have received their invitation take it, put it up on their bulletin board, mark their calendar...but then the messenger comes calling and says, "It's time to party with my master"...and here come the excuses.

God is asking us this morning: "What are you doing with MY invitation?"

The Quicksand of College

I've had several of my college students share with me lately that they're struggling - they're spending less & less time with God and more & more time feeling like they're buried underneath the weight of all they have to get done and all that's expected of them. For anyone who's been in college, you know this feeling.

What is difficult to communicate to someone, and regrettably it seems we each must discover for ourselves, is that this is simply about choices & priorities. There are 2 things that you must demand of yourself in college or you will all of a sudden realize that your legs are stuck in the quicksand and there's no one there to pull you out. You must find fellowship and you must spend time in God's Word. Period.

So many students go to school looking for a church just like the one they've grown up in at home. They don't find that magical connection, they get discouraged, they quit looking and they quit going. And when you cut yourself off from the fellowship (and everything that comes with it) of the local church - a body of believers - you will begin to spiritually crash & burn.

And quite frankly I don't know how to even expand on this - as if it needs my validation. If you don't spend time filling your heart and mind with God's Word, you will fall flat on your face. Read Psalm 119:9-11, think about the implications. Hiding God's Word in our hearts is LIFE! It's your spiritual bread, water, oxygen.

If you're in college and you're facing this struggle to any degree, do NOT give up. Demand these things of yourself. You won't regret it. And you'll find that your studies (hello! you're in college!) will begin to improve as well. Don't believe me? I dare you to try it.

The Art of Waiting

We put our house on the market last Monday. Friday, the first person who looked at it, bought it. Crazy! Sort of...but not really. As Morgan and I had been praying about this decision of grand proportion, my prayer was that if we were supposed to sell the house that it would sell for what we were asking, believing that our house was worth that amount, and that we wouldn't have to bend, negotiate or compromise. We didn't. At all. And yet in the midst of praying, expecting, trusting God, when He actually does what you're praying for it's as if you're shocked. He is so good!



So now we've put in an offer on a home that we fell in love with the instant we drove into the driveway. We're trying not to get excited for fear of being let down or disappointed. We prayed, we calculated, we submitted our offer, and now.......we wait. And wait.



I recall Paul saying something about not worrying or being anxious, but instead praying. And then praying some more. And somehow through that process finding this peace that only God can give. I hate it - we all do - but it's in that waiting that we draw closer to God more than any other time. It's in the waiting that we either learn a little (or a lot) more about trusting Him or we decide that we can handle it, manipulate it, and control it better than He can. And you know where that leads!



So, we wait. And remember that "those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength". I think it will be worth the wait. Don't you?