Soul food from unusual sources . . .
Don’t you just love it when someone comes along who has a greater ability to express the ’silent restlessness’ of our soul than we can? I call such unrest my ‘hungering and thirsting’ for fresh manna, mixed with the virgin oil of Truth. For the past two years I have been gleaning my own ’soul food’ from studying the life, words and ways of Jesus, who happens to be the Truth . . . about everything!
Speaking of food, Art and I went to McDonalds for breakfast at 6:a.m. the other morning. Love their coffee! (Starbucks eat your heart out). David Rodway, a local pastor, had contributed a column to our local morning paper which I was perusing as I sipped my Java. This line grabbed my attention: “…like any minister, Jesus proved a prepared messenger is more important than a prepared message.” Said I to self, “Been there, done that!” The perfectly- prepared-message thing, that is!
Rodway went on to quote another preacher who once remarked:
“I get so worked up about what’s happening in the world, I forget to declare the Jesus of the Gospel! Jesus did what he did to rescue us from ourself. (Good thought for 6 a.m. coffee addicts! Not that it’s sinful, or anything like that!)
“Jesus believed in comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. He exposed hypocrisy in all its forms. He took to task those who exploited others through their religion. In the process Jesus loved the un-loveable even though it meant others hating Him for doing it.”
The pastor/writer ended the column with a challenge to the church:
“….it’s about time to give up the theological grand-opera and start practicing the scales. “If my people, who are called by my Name, shall humble themselves and pray, then will I hear from heaven and will heal their land.”
My comment: Certainly, prayer is a good scale to trill on to keep us in tune with the Father, just as Jesus exampled to us. However, He also exampled, that, after he prayed he went down to where the people who needed Him were. So many folks seem to get ‘holier than thou’ after times of prayer! They’re so heavenly they’re no earthly good! Something wrong with that picture! Prayer should prepare us for mingling with the afflicted!