I Recycle-All Sorts of Things

Our recycling day is Monday, when we put out our blue bin with cardboard, plastics, newspapers, etc. Or, on alternate weeks, the green bin, with yard waste.

Today, I’m recycling a manuscript.

A couple, or so, years ago, our Associate Pastor at church, Mary Alice, asked some church members to submit devotions for a booklet she wanted to put together for our church members, especially those who were on teams going on mission trips. Her plan was that we would all be reading the same words, whether at home in Waco, on vacations, or in China or Lebanon.It would be a bonding experience for us all. She enlisted some of us to write and gave each of us the theme and a Scripture reference. We wrote, sent our words to her, and she edited and compiled them all into a booklet. The response was positive, so she kept on doing it. Now, we do them for Advent and Lent and for the summer mission trips (which, this year, included China, Lebanon, South Texas, and many missions-related trips individuals and families made, all over the place).

There are, as you might imagine, deadlines for the submissions of these things, and I’m always pretty close to getting them in on time. I asked once if anyone was responsible and got them to her early, or did everyone else skid in just under the wire (or a little beyond the wire), like I did. “Oh, I do what most of my seminary professors did,” she said. “I set the deadline a little bit before I really need them, to give me some wiggle room.” Possibly not a good thing to admit, but there you go. And possibly not the sort of thing to tell me, who is now exposing it to all sorts of people. Anyway …

This year, I got the e-mail from her while we were in Tennessee, in May, asking if I’d like to participate again. I responded saying “yes.” I got the information about theme, my assigned scripture, and the deadline (June 19), a couple of days after we got back. Another e-mail, reminding us all about the deadline, arrived the next week, a couple of days before Peter arrived for a week-long stay. On Saturday, a couple of days after Peter left, I was sorting out all the stuff I needed for Fun with Friends week, and I picked up some books from the day bed and went to set them on a nearby bookshelf, where I saw a stack of devotional booklets from previous years.

The booklets that reminded me of my missed deadline!

“No, no, no,” I gasped. I sat down at the computer to check the date, praying, frantically, “Oh, Jesus, please, please let today be the 19th!” No, it was the 20th. I was already a day late. I really had read, several times, the passage from Judges that was my assignment, but I hadn’t gone beyond that. I desperately read through several different translations, looking for a word or phrase that would inspire me. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! What do I need to say!” And I wrote. I re-read it, then went back to organizing all the art stuff for the next week. Before I went to bed, I read it once again, then e-mailed it off.

At church the next morning, I apologized, and she graciously said that I was not the last one in, and did not at all make me feel like I was  the worst of the irresponsible people she had relied on. I appreciate that. It was the reading for last Friday, July 17th, and I thought I’d post it for you to read, too.

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Mary Alice includes information each day to let readers know what our mission team is working on and prayer concerns. Today our China team concludes English camp and teacher training.  Pray that children, teachers, volunteers, and everyone involved will experience God’s love in a radical way today, and that relationships might continue to grow beyond this week.

Gideon Threshing Wheat By The Winepress When An Angel Of The Lord Appeared To Him source: www.arkreligion.com
This illustration didn’t appear in the e-mail that went to church members. I just thought you might like it.

June 17
Scripture Reading: Judges 6:11-24
By Gayle Lintz

(A much abbreviated synopsis from The Message translation)

Angel of God: God is with you, O mighty warrior!

Gideon: With me, my master? … The fact is, God has nothing to do with us.

God: Go in this strength that is yours.… Haven’t I just sent you?

Gideon: Me, my master? … I’m the runt of the litter.

God: I’ll be with you. Believe me.

Then the Angel of God does some amazing things.

Gideon (who, up ’til now, doesn’t realize whom he’s been chatting with): Oh no! Master, God! I have seen the angel of God face-to-face!

God: Easy now. Don’t panic. You won’t die.

And Gideon erected an altar and called it God’s Peace.

Sometimes, when we step out in faith, however small or enormous the step is, we’re apprehensive; we’re searching for the peace. Sometimes, when we step out in faith, to go where we feel God wants us to go, it’s amazing! Or amazingly frustrating, or awful, or depressing.

The challenge is to always remember that we’re seeing things from our earthly perspective. And God is seeing it from his heavenly perspective. We might get to see the harvest of our labors, maybe sooner, maybe later. Maybe we won’t see them until, sooner or later, we see them from that heavenly perspective.

As I write this, I’m thinking about a group of people in a Bible study, who opened their arms in love to a stranger, including him, praying with him, sharing with him. Nine of them lost their lives to him. “Easy now,” says God. “Don’t panic. You’ll live. It won’t be just like you thought, when you got up this morning. But you’ll live. Welcome to My Peace.”

Reflection
We just never know, whether we’re out on mission, at home doing some important work, or just running errands and shopping at Wal-Mart, what’s going to happen. Usually, it’s just the regular, predictable stuff. But sometimes it’s wildly unpredictable, possibly fabulous, possibly horrible. Easy now. Don’t panic. God is with you.

Prayer
Oh Master God, I need Your Peace. In the hard places, the tragic places, the surprising places, the delightful places, the everyday places. In the far places and the near places, twenty-four/seven, I need Your Peace.

Mary Alice added this reference point for readers: One month ago today, Dylann Roof opened fire on a Bible study at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina, killing nine people, including the church’s pastor and state senator, Clementa Pinckney.  Let’s join together in praying for this church, these families, the shooter, this community, and all communities around our world – that God’s grace would spring up from these broken places and that God’s strong, abiding love would abound in the midst of violence, racism, and hate.