Usually, when God speaks to me, I write in my journal. The pen keeps scribbling on the beautifully man made paper until I'm pretty sure all his words are written down. But this morning....as I was reading a woman's piece of how she refused her strongly physician-advised-abortion for her son who would surely not live hours past his birth and how Jesus spoke and ministered to her and her husband during the pregnancy and his 20 minutes of life outside the womb....I was awestruck by her intrepid tune out of the doctor and the nurses with all their calm but firm scolding. She could have spared herself the grief and taken her son's life. In the end she knew she would've only given herself more grief. But she listened to Jesus during the rest of the pregnancy, through the labor, through the 20 minutes they got to hold him and there after. He ministered to them through her son. Oh, what a beautiful testament of Jesus' gentle faithfulness.
The fleshly part of me wanted to take that story and post it for all my 1,300+ contacts and ask them how in all the world they can carry through with their pregnancies, hold their children and still talk women's rights crap. But Jesus instantly reminded me that screaming won't accomplish anything...because that's exactly what I'd be doing. Screaming like all his other children who scream at the lost children. Screaming our moral convictions over political issues, moral issues, church issues...etc. I don't have to scream to get my point across with my kids. I don't have to scream them into obedience. Why scream at anybody else? Jesus never screamed. He worked justly throughout the OT and then toppled over tables in the temple after seeing people lie cheat and bamboozle customers. But he never screamed before, during or after his life on this earth. He never screamed at the lost. He never blamed or shamed them for their sin ...much less in the jaded way that we humans do. He spoke with authority, spoke in parables only the unbeliever could understand, and drew many too himself without ever screaming.
Jesus said, "remember that article you came across last night and rolled your eyes over because the forwarder's comment was also with a scream? Remember how you said you were tired of the screaming?" He's right. I am tried of all the screaming we children of God do. There's a lot of God talk too that gets thrown into would-have-been-normal conversations. It's that kind of stuff that repels and turns people away. We rob ourselves of potentially beautiful relationships with strangers that way. Relationships where we could have effectively introduced others to Jesus' love, grace, mercy....to Jesus.
I love him. I really love him. I love how he gently reminds me things like....we don't have to be part of the screaming crusade any longer. And for some reason....he wanted me to make our conversation blog public. Ok. I hope and pray he brings me someone today to gently minister to of his gentle, unwavering, firm and gracious love.
Love Him.
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