The wandering man at the festival

` I saw a man from within the crowd.  He walked alone.  He walked in circles sometimes.  Both days, he frequented our corner of the Hills Alive festival, which was held in Rapid City’s downtown park.  He looked at the ground mostly, not connecting verbally with anyone, though he did pause occasionally to watch children.  Given the 90-degree heat, I wanted to offer him a drink of cold water, yet an occasion with a photographer caused me to wait.  In pursuit of photographing a girl, the photographer crossed paths with the man, who seemed to not understand the camera.  He peered up into the lens, almost touching it with his nose.  Something about his reaction to the photographer made me hesitate to approach him with any water.  Perhaps my approach would confuse or scare him.  Later the crowd grew denser, and where the man went I don’t know, but I thought about him many times.  The whole festival was a wonderful time of music and testimony.  For the organizers to offer free admission is quite remarkable, realizing other festivals charge $100+.  It was entirely fun to see a friend from San Antonio hosting a booth there.  And I smile to remember a lady at a different booth who noted my use of the word “y’all,” reminding me all over again that Toto and I weren’t in Texas anymore.  Yet still today, I think of the wandering man.  The Lord connected me with him for a reason.  Praying for him was another highlight of the festival.  Without knowing his name or any details of his life, I am privileged still now to ask the Lord to protect him and provide for his needs.  May he know Jesus as his Savior.

Not a Sunday stage

The big stage doesn’t always attract.  People exit the building dissatisfied.  Some wonder why life feels flat.  They become angry and critical, and soon the whole subject of church has grown sour.  So we ask, “What are we looking for on Sundays?”  Perhaps consider blessings of a different size and shape.  Not all God's gifts are wrapped tall and pretty in the main sanctuary.  Consider the parking lot.  For me it’s been a wonderful place of prayer.  Last Sunday someone new inquired about piano lessons, and the inquiry sent me back to that hot, sweaty day in the parking lot a year ago when multiple people offered prayers on my behalf for this issue of piano lessons.  How I've been blessed to relive those initial prayers.  I stand in amazement to look upon the Lord’s blessings since then.  The parking lot has been a place I’ve found people needing physical help, such as the lady who fell between the street curb and the concrete steps.  Sometimes it’s opportunity to offer someone a ride to the bus stop or invite them to lunch.  Also reconsider maybe an unlikely place—the women’s restroom.  Sometimes the restroom serves as its name implies, as actually a place of rest.  Girls go there to find a tissue when they’re crying.  They go there to see if the crying made their mascara run.  Women go there to regain composure when the antics of their children have tested their last nerve.  Sometimes they’re there because the music is too loud or the seating is too crowded.  Basically there’s something uncomfortable for them, and they’re seeking respite.  It’s opportunity to offer help.  It's opportunity to listen, maybe talk, and see the Lord at work.  The point being that church is more than any single event in a single room on any given day.  The platform at the front of the room is not a stage.  It's not a concert.  Church is people.  We love as the Lord first loved us, and we look to know Him in whatever circumstances He brings.  May He give us joy for opening those packages that deliver to side doors and parking lots.

The openness of the 119th

I ask for many things.  The other day, it was for help while phone shopping among too many bundle choices.  A few minutes ago, it was for wasp-killing in the kitchen.  Somehow every time I wanted to swat the wasp, the cat was in the way, and we provided each other frustration and comic relief both.  The point being that I’m often asking the Lord for something specific, whether help with a phone purchase or a job or health or something else.  Yet I read Psalm 119 and see something different.  The psalmist speaks of praise and rejoicing and meditating on precepts, of delighting in the Lord and guarding against deceit.  Lots of whole-being things rather than specifics.  Lots of declaring His righteousness, obeying His statutes, and finding good in affliction, which are much bigger aspects of living than any single pesky wasp in the kitchen.  This psalm models for us a wonderfully open time with the Lord.  Enjoy letting Him mold our thought patterns overall.  Savor the openness of not knowing how exactly He will enter our lives each day.  Leave the ball in His park, so to say, to amaze us and grow us, without our always dictating a laundry list of “Help me with this” and “May I have that?”  Even my encounter with this psalm was by His orchestration. 

Fragmented, useful, & in perfect time

The timing was impeccable. All the postponements held their own human reasons, but now each was revealing the larger purpose of God. Only on this particular Sunday would the missionaries to Nicaragua be sitting with us on our back 2 rows. Exciting already was seeing the Lord’s message given through our pastor align with the message given to me, but then my heart leaped higher still to hear the guys going to Nicaragua explain how the Lord gave them the same message. At the end of the service when the one young man mentioned not understanding Spanish, my ears perked up. Evidently the only part he understood in our Spanish congregation that morning was my English portion. My fragmented Spanish usually fizzles out midway, and I start inserting some English. As much as I’ve wanted to know the whole Spanish vocabulary, here today I was amazed to see my fragments being actually useful. This young man echoed and expounded: “If God calls you to do something, go do it. Even if we don’t understand everything, we’re still supposed to go. The Lord’s grace will be sufficient.” Some of the other guys heading to the airport that afternoon didn’t know Spanish either, yet they felt called by the Lord and were pressing forward to go. I had testified about the Lord leading my husband and me to our Spanish congregation a year and a half ago, though I knew even less of the language then. In the beginning, I didn’t see how the Lord would grow my Spanish for use in the hospital and on the streets. Interestingly, earlier this Sunday morning, I attempted to rehearse my testimony but to no avail. My stomach felt strangely sick when I tried to rehearse, as if the Lord was diverting me from trying to memorize anything. I sensed the testimony was to be a casual conveyance of how the Lord is at work in the midst of our everyday living, always cuing people and places in perfect time. Because the testimony was unrehearsed, my Spanish was certainly fragmented, and the message was accentuated and dispersed for all involved. It was a fresh glimpse of the Lord's orchestration. All the more, I am encouraged to follow Him beyond what I can see. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding,” says Proverbs 3:5.