How Long?

Thoughts
If you’re a parent, aunt or uncle, or have ever worked with children, you’ve heard the dreaded question, “How looonngg before we get there?” Often times the question even comes with its own demonstrative actions: kicking the seat, shaking as if their skin is crawling, near fainting, etc. And, unless you’re one of those Parenting magazine, role-model parents, you often have your own manifestations: quick response, “gentle” reminder for silence, etc.

Yet, on a different level, we often have similar questions of God when things aren’t moving as quickly as we feel they should. We begin to throw our own temper tantrums. Questioning why God does it for everybody else but always leaves us out. (As Dr. Oliver McMahon says, “If you can’t say ‘Amen’, say ‘Oh, me!”)

If there were anyone who had the right to question God as to why he was in his condition, the lame man in Acts 3 did. Having been daily sat by the temple gate, this man had doubtlessly encountered Jesus, the Healer. Describing the last week of His ministry, Matthew 21:14 says, “And the blind and the lame came to Him in the temple, and He healed them.” Others, listed in his same condition, were healed by Jesus, yet he remained a lame beggar. Within days the Healer would be crucified and taken away, leaving the beggar with no hope of being made whole.

While I’ve never been lame physically, I’ve certainly felt the agony of being spiritually lame, overlooked and untouched by the hands of the Healer. There have been moments when it seemed that all hope was lost. But it’s not just me. Daily I pass others who are in the same thought pattern and belief. You see them at your work place, in your business transactions, and at family functions…Hurting people who have lost the hope that they will ever be otherwise.

Thankfully, there were two freshly anointed believers going to seek the Lord at the hour of prayer. Though he had seemingly been overlooked by the Healer Himself, the Healer had empowered two ordinary men to reveal His glory. Peter and John gave this beggar, who had been faithfully carried to his temple position by caring and concerned individuals, what no one thought possible…he was made whole.

In one of his most memorable speeches, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed this question of how long? Speaking against the generations of injustices and racial prejudices, Dr. King resounded, “How long? Not long!” Perhaps, the Church and the believer must work to push the past behind us and embrace our faith in a God who is able. May this be the day of our healing?

Application
When have you felt that you had been passed over or forgotten by God?

Has there been a time when you were touched by God through circumstances and people you were not expecting, in moments you thought were gone forever?

Who might your stories encourage in the midst of their despair today?

Prayer
Father,

Thank You for Your faithfulness. There have been times when I thought You had passed me by. Times when I thought You did not care for me. But I want to say thank You for ministering to me through the hands and lives of others. You have never left me, nor forsaken me. You are a faithful God with ways and means that are far beyond my comprehension. May my faith be stirred and my worship strengthened for You today.

In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Carried Along

Thoughts

You’ve probably heard me say this at some point in the past–and I’m sure you’ll hear me say it again–Acts 3 has been one of the most transformational passages in my life. In honest reflection, most of us either rush past the significance of the passage or tend to brush through it due to a familiarity with the event. However, a small pause to engage the text reveals some foundational spiritual principles that can change our approach to the physically and spiritually broken.

As I sat to read this text several years ago, I was absolutely arrested by what was happening–and had happened for years–in the text. Here are the basics of what we know:
- There was a lame man, who had been lame from birth.
- He was being carried along.
- He was daily set down at the gate Beautiful.
- There he begged for alms from the worshippers entering the temple.

It seems pretty simple–and it is. The lame man had a daily routine that consisted of begging alms from the temple worshippers. However, this day would be different. He would receive a contribution that would far exceed that of generosity, compassion, mercy, or money. Today, Peter and John would give him Jesus, who in turn would give him the ability to walk!

Yet, on this particular day of reading the text, I was not so much concerned with the events of the lame man or of Peter and John. Rather, I was enthralled by the unknown individual(s) that positioned this man for the moment that would forever change his life. He “was being carried along, whom they used to set down every day at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful” (Acts 3:2). What the text so briefly rushes by seems to be committed individuals who were deeply concerned about the welfare of this particular lame man. But beyond their daily duties of carrying this lame man to his position, what would have happened if they had failed to do the mundane, unrecognized, and seemingly unspiritual task of taking this individual to the temple to beg for money? Would he have received his healing? Would he have etched out a survival without these unknown helpers?

In the realm of the broken and spiritually lame, those who have the freedom of their bodies and the compassion for others must not minimize the effectiveness of their mundane labors. Be it in prayer or an act of help, we have the daily and momentary opportunities to position someone for their healing. And, as we will discuss tomorrow, this daily activity might continue for prolonged seasons. Nevertheless, God is looking for those unnamed individuals who will, through prayer and actions, carry the broken daily to the presence of God.

If you ever begin to feel like your ministry is mundane and minute in the Kingdom, recall the one(s) who daily carried this lame man along. He was nearly 40 years old. That’s a lot of days!

Application
Is there someone in your life who was responsible for praying for you while you were unable to reach God for yourself?

Who are you daily positioning before our God and Father?

How can you encourage someone else to keep doing the simple things in their life and faith today?

Prayer
Father,

I’m not sure how those carriers felt in the lame man’s case, but I know that I often times begin to lose heart and faith in the situations and people I am praying for. Thank You for this reminder. Because of the faithfulness, even in the unspiritual act of carrying someone along, they participated in a miracle. May You guide my prayers today. I want to be a carrier for You. Show me who needs to be picked up and positioned in Your presence for Your touch.

In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Wonderful World?!

There are few passages that arrest my attention as does Acts 3. Each visit serves to deliver a new perspective on my life as a believer. Throughout this week, I pray you will be challenged by the thoughts that emerge from this profound chapter.

Thoughts
From my second office, Starbucks, I am writing today’s devo with the sounds of Louis Armstrong’s Wonderful World flowing through my ears. I’m not sure there’s an individual that when he hears this song isn’t brushed away to reflection. Indeed, a pause for reflection reminds us of the incredible blessings we are surrounded with each day.

Yet to an individual like the lame man in Acts 3, such a song serves only as another reminder of just how broken his life is. In the scenes of the text this individual is being carried to his daily position. Though it indeed is filled with beauty (the gate called Beautiful), it lacks the plush business chair, desk, and executive-ness that would typically be associated with such riches. And, while the foot traffic is extremely heavy, it has nothing to do with him. Unless, of course, you were to consider the distractions of a beggar’s voice and a maimed body laying outside of the temple.

Over the last few days, I’ve tried to let this scene play through the recesses of my mind. With every broken and disfigured body I see, I am reminded of the blessing a functioning body can be. As a lame man, this individual spent his entire life outside the gates where worshippers gathered daily to meet with the Creator of all life. Yet, he would never have an opportunity to appear before Him, question Him, implore Him for His healing. He was not even allowed inside the temple. Furthermore, the proclaimed Healer, this God’s Son, had spent the last week of His life healing people in his condition (Matt. 21:14). He might respond, “And, you have the audacity to sing of this wonderful world…to worship a God that made me this way and then doesn’t allow me to enter His temple to worship Him?!”

Can you feel the tension? Perhaps at times we need to remove the lens of our religious spirits and allow the raw and real emotions to surface. At some point this individual must have confronted the feelings of being singled out by God, forsaken by his Creator, and locked out of an encounter with Him. I would challenge that we encounter individuals every day with similar thoughts. Our churches, the place where we believers wrestle with and encounter God, do not accept them in their present conditions, even if this is nothing more than their feeling. Our Christian lingo speaks of God’s providence, a further insult to them, and His love. Yet, they only feel rejected and neglected.

May we truly allow ourselves to grapple with these tensions and how such individuals outside of the church might feel about the God we so passionately worship…(We’re not going to stay here, but we must understand those who are here before we can get them to the Healer.)

Application
Has there ever been a time in your life when you questioned God concerning your conditions in comparison with others?

Have you ever felt like God has left you outside of His presence while everyone else went in?

Who in the sphere of your life might be battling with thoughts like this lame man?

Prayer
Father,

I love You deeply. I cannot imagine one day of my life without You. I am so grateful for Your numerous blessings: health, job, family, faith, etc. Today, I ask that You would allow me to feel what this lame man might have felt. I realize this is a dangerous request. But in order that I might understand how to best minister Jesus to these individuals, I need to reset my religious presets. I want to genuinely understand where they are in order that I make lead them to You. Give me eyes to see today.

In Jesus’ name. Amen.