That's Not All
There is always more to the story. I got a real sense of this one day as my wife gave me an account of something my eldest daughter did. We have a baby monitor in the kitchen, with the transmitter being in the girls’ room. Our friends father was dying, soon to see face to face the very maker of noses and ears and eyes. We had been praying for the family for the last while and my wife overheard Hannah praying up in her room, by way of the monitor. She was lifting up her little voice and saying, “Oh Lord, Mr. Martin, Mr. Martin… oh Mr. Martin, oh Lord, Mr. Martin, amen.” If that isn’t a picture of the intercessory groaning of the Spirit, I don’t know what is. Just before this time, Hannah had come to my wife to tell her that she had asked Jesus to forgive her of her sins and to come live inside her. Suzanne was the same age when she did that very same thing.
We would not have heard that prayer if it wasn’t for some modern, useful, technology. That part of Hannah’s story might have gone unnoticed – not to the God who never sleeps – without a little electronic device designed for a completely different purpose. I think the Lord used that to refocus me quite a bit. “Out of the mouth of babes…” Also, it allows life to take on the story-like quality it should have. There are extenuating circumstances playing out at this moment, completely oblivious to me as I to them, that will nonetheless have a dramatic impact on me. They are little parallel universes; streams of happenstance connected to me in a way only the God of the baby Jesus could ever orchestrate. You see, they were confused before Christ was born. The prophesies spoke of him being from Nazareth, Galilee, Egypt and Bethlehem. How could he be from four places all at the same time? Well, that’s exactly how the story went. Within a two year period, Mary and Joseph had toted him between all those places. Perfectly good reasons for it too.
The gospels are a wonderful gift to us. In them we find Jesus. His life has been chronicled for us as the King, the servant, the Son of Man and the Son of God. Different perspectives and slants help us to take him in. He is multi-dimensional, rising above the page and staying with us long after we’ve closed the book. It’s interesting though, to read the end of the last gospel written, John, and find these words:
“Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”
What were these things? I’m sure we would find the same wit as when he said, “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” or “man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for man.” I would hazard a guess to say we would find similar scenes as when he stooped to write in the sand with his finger, or when he cast the legion of demons into the pigs. I think we would also find him touching the untouchable, speaking to the spiritually deaf, and feeding the multitudes. He was continually laying his life down. The cross was the exclamation point of his life. It was only needed to be done once. It is finished. Jesus said so himself. But he never said HE was finished.
BJ
We would not have heard that prayer if it wasn’t for some modern, useful, technology. That part of Hannah’s story might have gone unnoticed – not to the God who never sleeps – without a little electronic device designed for a completely different purpose. I think the Lord used that to refocus me quite a bit. “Out of the mouth of babes…” Also, it allows life to take on the story-like quality it should have. There are extenuating circumstances playing out at this moment, completely oblivious to me as I to them, that will nonetheless have a dramatic impact on me. They are little parallel universes; streams of happenstance connected to me in a way only the God of the baby Jesus could ever orchestrate. You see, they were confused before Christ was born. The prophesies spoke of him being from Nazareth, Galilee, Egypt and Bethlehem. How could he be from four places all at the same time? Well, that’s exactly how the story went. Within a two year period, Mary and Joseph had toted him between all those places. Perfectly good reasons for it too.
The gospels are a wonderful gift to us. In them we find Jesus. His life has been chronicled for us as the King, the servant, the Son of Man and the Son of God. Different perspectives and slants help us to take him in. He is multi-dimensional, rising above the page and staying with us long after we’ve closed the book. It’s interesting though, to read the end of the last gospel written, John, and find these words:
“Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”
What were these things? I’m sure we would find the same wit as when he said, “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” or “man was not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath for man.” I would hazard a guess to say we would find similar scenes as when he stooped to write in the sand with his finger, or when he cast the legion of demons into the pigs. I think we would also find him touching the untouchable, speaking to the spiritually deaf, and feeding the multitudes. He was continually laying his life down. The cross was the exclamation point of his life. It was only needed to be done once. It is finished. Jesus said so himself. But he never said HE was finished.
BJ
posted by BJ at 3:09 p.m.
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