We took the high school youth group evangelizing Friday night. At the end of the first week of summer vacation there were swarms of kids wandering between the movie theather, Starbucks, Taco Bell, etc. The harvest is plentiful.
We broke up into two groups. One group walked around with some of the high schoolers and forced them to talk to people they didn’t know. Step number one is getting rid of that fear of man, and I was proud of them.
The other group stood on a corner between the theather and the mini strip-malls and gathered people to them. By the time we joined them, there was quite a crowd and it was by God’s grace we didn’t get broken up on claims of mob action. There were a few drunk teenagers who would ask questions and then start screaming when they realized we had answers; that was warfare. There were a couple who were uncomfortable with the whole conversation, but actually warmed up after a short while and programmed Timothy’s phone number in their cell phones. One of those guys – also a little intoxicated – told us he was embarassed for us. The best was when someone in a red van who had already driven by several times to yell at the crowd, chucked a ham sandwich out the window at our youth pastor. It would have been a solid hit, but he saw it coming and moved almost out of the way. It was a meaty ham sandwich. By the end of the night, though, seven kids prayed with one of the leaders and gave themselves to Jesus Christ. Our youth pastor, who has done a little evangelism in various countries, said of those kids that he’s never seen such a hunger in America.
Matthew 9:36-38//But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”
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Real Men Love Jesus
Timothy is blessed to work in an environment in which he is able to listen to worship CDs and sermons and pray. Today especially, he’s the only one in his office. He just sent me the following E-mail:
I miss you. I’m rocking Cory Russel’s Ancient Paths (CD available through the One Thing bookstore) … I’m really falling in love with Him, Lex. It’s scary and beautiful – I’m letting go and there is no returning from here. My heart feels it will never be able to bear it. The one thing I’ve always longed for is the one thing my heart is dying to run from. It’s fear is that it will become completely powerless to this Love. Oh, what a wretched Liar my heart is, professing to know and understand love and desire without ever knowing or being willing to go to the source and remain immersed. It screams!!! “You won’t be able to breath!!! You’ll die there!!! The current is too strong, and you can’t touch bottom in this place. No one can hold their breath for that long!”
Then He just whispers to my spirit, “I breath for you here; I am the Breath of life. Your insecure heart only has ideas, and those ideas lead to idol worship where you truly die. I AM. Don’t settle any more – break free and run, Run, RUN!!! In My river you don’t swim; you don’t keep your head above water. I AM the River of Living water; I AM the River of Life. You don’t need to breath when you dwell in Life itself. It will sustain you beyond mortal ideology. Your entire understanding of what it takes to be alive has come from dead things. You’ve mistaken concepts of time and measure as Life. To understand Me those things must be put to death in you. You can’t beat them into submission and keep an eye on them. You have to kill them. I Breath for you here, because I AM.”
I am undone.
Favor
Timothy and I went to buy a computer last night. Drove all the way out to the Apple store in the mall, wandered around a bit trying to avoid sales people we didn’t trust, and called Marky for the inside scoop because neither of us have ever owned a Mac before. We settled on a purchase a little bigger than we’d intended and prayed over the display as Armando went to see if they had that one in stock. By the time our new MacBook Pro (fancy-smanshy) was on the counter in front of us we both felt peacefully about it (as peaceful as you can feel about spending that much money on anything).
My credit card limit could not have bought a printer at the Apple store, so I had the bank card that my mom and I share. Armando – apparently shooting for employee of the month – needed something with my signature on it, which of course was miles away in the car. Timothy sprinted.
It was like a bad after-school drama. The moment he left I looked down at the card (and I wish I could say it all happened in slow motion, but it really didn’t) with my maiden name on it. Hmm. An ID and a credit card with two different last names on them seems fishy to me, and I’m no where near as savvy as Armando. What do you do when you’ve missed a mid-week service and paid a toll, only to find all signs pointing to “scam artist?” You pray.
I paced between the counter and the hall whispering in tongues and giving the Pro – with its built-in video camera and its beautiful, probably 50-million DPI screen – right back to Jesus. I told Him I wasn’t worried, because if this is the computer we are meant to have I knew we would not leave the store without it.
That’s when Armando decided he wanted to go home. His shift ended an hour ago and, darn it, he was tired. I did not object, and the girl who stepped up to finish our transaction seemed more concerned about losing Armando his commission than the two different names on the cards. I paused for a second considering which last name to sign and we left with our new Mac.
