Spirit Whispers – Part 1

Spirit Whispers – Part 1

Jagged hair framed the haggard face of a thirtyish-looking woman. She wore no makeup. Her bulky pants looked like they belonged to a short, fat man—but matched her XXL gray sweatshirt. She stood by McDonald’s on Main Street.

I stopped to take a second look. The woman held a cardboard sign with four words that have long represented an accepted spectacle across the American landscape of free speech: “Will work for food.”

iStock_000008405256SmallBack in the 1980s, sign-holders in our small town were a new phenomenon. I’d not seen this kind of thing before. The way my heart pounded, you’d have thought I’d just witnessed a car wreck. Who would do that—overcoming personal shame enough to stand out there on public display?

I hurried into McDonald’s and spoke to the assistant manager in chopped sentences.

“There’s a woman…and a sign…she’s in trouble…”

He nodded and politely informed me that the owner had already offered her a job—which she flatly refused. She was hustling far more money with her sign.

In that moment, I grew older and wiser.

Homeless Series - No TrespassingA man in a torn overcoat stood shivering in blinding snow by the grocery store. Who would fake that? His sign said, “Stranded—anything will help.” I bought him some hot soup and a roll from the deli. He seemed thankful and asked for money, but I didn’t have any cash. I returned to do my grocery shopping, but later, as I left the store, I noticed the soup and bread abandoned in the snow. Untouched. Uneaten. He had moved on.

Now I was irritated.

Nearly a decade passed. I continued to struggle with walking or driving by people holding cardboard signs. The Good Samaritan story pinned me with guilt if I did nothing. On the other hand, what about the sting of feeling scammed? Giving money without accountability didn’t seem like a good use of resources. How would I juggle compassion with suspicion?

Eventually I came to know a woman who’d lived a transient lifestyle. Continue reading

God’s Voiceover

God’s Voiceover

Last night while lying in bed with the light on, I looked around my room. In the quiet comfort of home, I studied family photos on the wall. On my dresser stood a half-finished painting I started last summer—a landscape of a place I love. The feather comforter over my body felt light as a cloud. A fan gently droned in the corner. How easy it is to take it all for granted—to go to sleep in clean sheets, peace, and safety.

HandcuffedAcross the world from me in a Sudanese prison cell, a woman’s fate hangs in the balance. Though she has just given birth to a baby girl and has her toddler son with her, she is shackled like a criminal for being a Christian. She faces 100 lashes and death by hanging. But she will not renounce Christ. By the time this posts, I don’t know if she will be alive or dead.

Streetside Beggar PeopleI thought about that all day. It’s easy to pick up the concerns of the world. In my mind, it compounds very quickly. For instance, at this moment, thousands of children are crossing our southern border desperate to stay in America. Iraq is being overtaken with terror beyond belief. Many days it feels like I only have two choices: get overwhelmed or get numb. I’m not the ostrich type.

Yet as I laid in the stillness of my room last night, I wondered…God, where are You in all this? What on earth is happening? What kind of world will my children and grandchildren face?

I do feel we are living in a critical time of history with many unprecedented changes. The Lord is shaking the earth so that everything that remains is unshakable. Hebrews 12:27

But in times like this, what is our hope?

For years now, I can’t even count how frequently I see the number 722. On clocks, receipts, airplane tickets, confirmation numbers, license plates, you name it—722 comes up every other day. A pastor friend once said: when you see a number sequence more often than coincidence, search it out in Scripture. So I looked up every possible verse and read the context around it.

Though the study proved interesting, only one verse stood out:Continue reading

Unplanned Honesty

Unplanned Honesty

He told them to open their Bibles, ignoring their muffled sighs. Teenagers.  You’d recognize their expressions—rolling eyes and sluggardly movements. The teacher read from James anyway:

“You who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’”  James 4:13-15

He closed his Bible and solemnly told his students a personal example. His parents had wanted to be missionaries. Then, they both discovered they had cancer. Even our best plans, he explained, can be altered without warning. Little did the teacher know, that he would actually demonstrate his point.

He meant to give a well-thought-out Bible lesson with a meaningful illustration. The teaching was supposed to start and finish on time, like a Sunday sermon that ends by noon for the football game. Yet something totally unplanned happened.

photoAs he shared about his parents’ illnesses, his own grief welled up like a mighty, churning river and overflowed into the room. There he sat, weeping uncontrollably. The eighth-graders remained frozen in their seats, completely absorbed in the moment. Not a desk creaked. No one even dared to swallow.Continue reading