(clockwise from bottom) tamiscus, luther, and debbie (luther's sister), and a partial erin
tamiscus and bryan share a moment
tami laughs while remembering something
there was a surprise party waiting for me when i got home yesterday. not in my honor or anything, but a surprise as i didn't know it was going to happen. a party that i did not organize. it grew out of the hearts of everyone else and they just needed to party so bad they came together on their own. a very nice way to end the day after 12 hours of work.
there were three great things about this party.
number one being the fact that luther had plans to play multiplayer halo with his friends, but instead decided to come over at erin's call to offer a party for the evening. think about that for a moment. this young man, a man of 23, decided in his heart that he would rather be at one of these parties THAN PLAY MULTI PLAYER HALO WITH HIS BUDDIES! (perhaps you need to be a young male enamoured of video games to know the magnitude of this. or maybe you just need to be the girlfriend of one.)
and secondly, luther invited his sister to come along. the parties have been such that luther felt it worthwhile, somewhere in his heart, to invite his sister to come and experience one as well.
and lastly, there were at least four separate occasions when the joy and laughter between us was so intense that most of us were red faced and could not breathe. the good kind of laughter. rare to even experience this kind of soul cleansing laughter once in a month, not to mention four times in four hours.
this is what i'm talking about. offering the kind of experience of the love, joy, peace, etc. of the spirit of god that it would cause a man to leave his HALO, and come. and in coming, invite those he knows to come along as well.
the kingdom is now. the party has begun. and i can only see this growing. pray for wisdom and freedom for the spirit to be at work. to bring healing to the lives of those who enter here. and to repair spiritual damage. to help bring them to a place where i can one day say, "you know all of this great spirit you've been enjoying? well, i have a confession. you've really been drinking the holy spirit. i know, it seemed like some other brand, but it has been the real deal. no lie. i know you have drunk some nasty foul tasting and smelling stuff people claimed was holy spirit. but this is it. this is the real thing. for you have tasted and enjoyed for yourself, and this is what i've been serving!"
names and faces keep popping into my mind of people i want to come to the party. friends, acquaintances. even those i see in the grocery store, or out and about. people who look like they could REALLY use a party.
which brings me to another thought i've been having.
for some reason, i got the impression in my dealings with "christianity", that it is a religion largely defined by NOT DOING things. yet, when i read scripture, i see commands to DO things more than i see the command to NOT DO things. and strangely, the things you are taught how to DO are really only the doing of things to help you NOT DO things.
and over the centuries, through this theology of NOT DOING, we have concocted rules for ourselves. biblically based rules, mind you. i understand why there are there. but at the root of it, many of these actual things are not in scripture. so we spend our time trying hard to NOT DO things that scripture has never asked and completely ignore much of what has actually and specifically been asked of us. for example:
i know why the admonition to "not masturbate" is so prevelant within the church. the whole "lust & the heart" thing. i get it. but yet, scripture never actually tells us to specifically not masturbate. we use that as a guide, as a measuring stick for moral upstanding and "biblical, godly living", but god has never asked it of us.
on a contrast, jesus HAS asked THIS of us:
Lk 14:13 "But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind..."
i asked myself a question, and now i ask it to you. let it penetrate and sink in.
did you spend more time last year "not masturbating" (something god NEVER asked of us), or throwing parties and inviting over the poor, crippled, etc.? (something god HAS asked of us)
join the party. do something else...