A Stranger at My Door?

When a strange child shows up at my door, it doesn't matter how clean and pressed he is, I don't let him in if I don't know him. When my child shows up at my door, it doesn't matter how dirty and unkempt she is, I let her in...because she is my child.

The first child is turned away from my door as a stanger. The second child is welcomed in, bathed and fed, as my own.

Many think that we make ourselves acceptable to God by cleaning up our lives. We think that God will welcome us in because we are spruced up and snappily dressed. God lets us in because we are His. No amount of filth can keep Him from claiming his own. After all, our Father's job is too clean and feed his children...and to keep them clean and fed.

Romans 8:16
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God

"Not So Loud"

I hope the wrong person doesn't ever see this. I suppose that's extremely unlikely.

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So, the kids at my church, early teens, were sitting in the sanctuary, practicing a fun song that, I thought, had a great message in it. (It was for VBS, as I recall.) At the end of one rendition, some of the girls cried out, and one in particular, with her hands above head, "Whoo! We did great!"

One of our deacons, whom, I doubt not, is a good man, was sitting across the isle from the kids. I suppose, at that point, he felt he had to prove he is an old fart. He must’ve because he looked at the girl and said, “Not so loud.” Sheesh!

Among the many things that adults screw up is that we teach our children to march and sing, "I'm in the Lord's Army!" We think that's alright. Then, when they get a little older, we try to turn them into the dried up cheese wedges that our parents turned us into.

We think everybody's supposed to be so quiet, calm and, dare I say, cold in God's house. We fear praise and worship and don't want our little, nice redundant services interrupted by some child being "silly' and making any joyful noise in the House of God.

We wonder, though we shouldn't have to, why our congregations are waning in both number and spirit. When any one among us tries to cry to God in joy or pain, the rest of us "sticks-in-the-mud" do our best to shut them down. It seems to bother us when we see genuine joy in someone else. Joy we wish we had.

I don't want to be too hard on this deacon. As I've said, I believe him to be a good guy. I'm sure he never gave a second thought to the repercussions of his actions. Of course, part of the problem is, we don't think, we just do.

Mark 10:47. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out, and say, Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on me.
48. And many charged him that he should hold his peace: but he cried the more a great deal, Thou son of David, have mercy on me.
　

Lifting Momma

After I’d been out of the Regular Army for a year or so, I received a call from an Enlisted Reserve recruiter. He informed me that I could sign up for a year in the Reserves without any further commitment. If I liked it, I could re-enlist; if not, I could just stay home.
This seemed like a good idea, so a month later, after a physical and some paperwork, I found myself sitting in a medical class at the 377^th Combat Support Hospital on Bonnie Oaks Drive in Chattanooga. I was training to be a U.S. Army Corpsman. (If you’ve spent any time in the military, you know that translates to “medic“.)

It was very exciting time for me as I’ve always found the medical field to be fascinating. I learned how to take blood-pressure, patch knife and bullet wounds and deal with a myriad of medical conditions one might find in a combat situation. I learned many things, but one in particular would turn out to be more valuable than I then realized.

After Dad was gone, Momma’s health began to slowly ebb away. She had broken a hip and shoulder and later developed renal disease along with a number of other physical maladies. In short, her body was not as strong as it once was. Oftentimes, she found the task of simply getting out of her seat to be a formidable one.

She did have a lift chair, but often still required help. She said everybody, but me, lifted her wrong. She would brag and brag on me for the method I used. She always said that when I lifted her, it didn’t hurt.

It really wasn’t that complicated. Everyone else wanted to grab her by the hands or arms and try to tug or wrench her up from her chair. Not me.

I got close to her, put my cheek next to hers, put my arms under her arms then lifted her with my own weight and legs. This allowed me to gently raise her from wherever she was sitting with little or no effort on her part. (Just like I’d learned in Corpsman School.) This would always result in me giving Momma a big bear hug, which she and I both thoroughly enjoyed.

All this is to say, I’ve often thought just how similar that is to our relationship with God. He doesn’t keep His distance; He gets in close. He lifts us with His strength and not ours. He moves in very, very near, embraces us, drawing us close to Him, then lifts us right up out of the mire and sets our feet on solid ground. Frankly, He wants to be intimate with us! He wants nothing less than to be cheek-to-cheek with us…His loved ones.

Too often we think that we can raise or kids or save the lost from a distance. It’s not that we don’t so much care; it’s that we don’t care so much. We just don’t want to get overly involved. Becoming that familiar with someone means getting to know them in a way which can make us uncomfortable. Getting that close means knowing how someone feels, how they smell, even how much they weigh. You might even get some of their smell on you. You might even get injured. Honestly, all that reality can be a bit terrifying!



Still, have you ever seen a diver with the Coast Guard wrap his arms around a floundering swimmer, gripping him with all his might while they are both being hoisted into the safety of a waiting helicopter? Have you ever seen a loving father crouch all the way down to the floor to embrace his little girl, wrapping his arms around her and bringing her up to eye level from where she once stood below him?

To this day, I can still feel Momma’s cheek next mine when I would kiss her and tell her I loved her. I have those memories because I wasn’t afraid to get close to her. If I had simply stood back yanking at her poor old week arms, I would never have experienced that intimacy. I would’ve only hurt her.

Alas, the problem with avoiding proximity is that we also avoid reward. The warmth, affection and tenderness are our reward. The joy is the reward!

Moral? If you really truly want to help someone, you have to get down on their level, embrace them like you mean it and lift them with you. After all, isn’t that what Jesus did? Didn’t He come all the way down to our level, when we couldn’t get up to His?

One thing I know, He had to reach way down for me!



“When He reached down His hand for me,

He had to reach way down for me!

I was lost and undone,

Without God or His Son.

When He reached down His hand for me.”