DO YOU REMEMBER THIS ARTICLE OF SEPTEMBER?

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

FLEXIBILITY....I GUESS GOD WASN'T KIDDING
Do you find yourself fighting the nature to be a control freak? I mean do you get stuff in your mind and you seem like you've been taken prisoner as your determination as to how things are to be must rule; must win? The body of Christ is more effective when it is limber. Rigidity doesn’t belong in the kingdom system. I was reared to be very uptight. Such spiritual arthricity still plagues my ministerial movement. One who truly grows in the Holy Spirit increases in flexibility.John 3:8 discusses that all born again are so supple they can shift or even reverse direction, much like the wind, day after day. Unbending stances have become a modern day call for respectable doctrine. Such didn’t arise from scripture as much as tradition. What goes unnoticed by us as we are stuck in it is that we don’t know we are stuck in it. We think church is the way…........Okay, so do you want to hear something sorta weird? I’m in the office at 5:00 trying to write this article for the blog. I’m in when no one else is to keep from being interrupted, right? So I decide you need to know about flexibility and the doorbell rings. I begrudgingly go answer it wondering what somebody wants when I’m trying to work.So I go to the door just now even in typing mid-sentence and it’s one of our sweet college kids with an envelope marked “Terry” on it. In it is a letter from his momma expressing having saved up this money, $200, for me to use as I wanted. People are always giving me money and I give it away when/as I think God wants. How nice of this servant heart. I started to put it away and decided to pocket it as I may run into someone tonight who needs it.So I’m back now at my computer pounding out the sentences on arthricity and rigidity when the door bell rings again. Brother! Urghh! I’m trying to write an article on being flexible here and if you idiots don’t quit ringing that stupid and irritating doorbell, I’m never going to get done! (Insert more Urrrrrghh here.)I get up and go to the door to find a 60-ish year old disabled man with an electric bill in hand. He explains he and his wife are disabled and she is on a breathing machine and they just can’t afford to have their electric cut off. He showed me his ID and the bill which showed he lives in the neighborhood. He needed 70-some dollars so I peeled off $80 and told him that not ten minutes ago someone was ringing this same door bell handing me money for anyone who needed it......Now, back to my story about flexibility. We all need to…..nah, I think that was it. Once again, God wrote the text!

There is more to the story.

Today Shane and the team led us in two songs and then David Combs baptized Mary W. He and Lisa had befriended Mary at the food bank and have been caring for her for months. It was a great way to begin our morning.

And then....at the invitation song Charlie B. came forward to be baptized. He looked familiar. I had met him once before.....when he rang the doorbell on a Wednesday evening asking for help with his electric bill. It was him! He came back to church to start life over.

Both Mary and Charlie are about my age. It is too exciting to see the love of God showing up in people all around us. Don't quit. God is working. We can count on it.