Fresh Stuff

Here is the latest in my sonnet series. I hope you enjoy it.

Sonnet VII

My Treasure – A Sonnet To My King
By Jonathan D. Eller

Oh Lord, how sweet Your presence is to me.
Its worth exceeds by far the whole earth’s gold!
And yet I find sometimes I run from Thee
To cherish something not worth laying hold.
A foolish man I am, and there’s no doubt
To think that the created may compare
To He who made and stretched the heavens out
And notes each fallen sparrow’s end with care.
Yes, fool was I to choose something ‘fore Thee
When lovingly You wanted me to wrap
Up tightly warm within Your arms safely
And snuggle there with You upon Your lap.
“My son if you into My arms will fly
Your joy will grow as each new day draws nigh.”

October 14, 2008

A Hearty Thank You

To my good friend, DP, thank you very much for your hospitality this evening. The steak and the ribs were awesome, playing Wii was fun, and the fellowship with the guys was the best part. Thank you for helping to make that a possibility. (Also thank K, C, and B for being willing to open their home to a bunch of old college buddies!)

DP has set the bar pretty high, but any other readers that want to treat me to a home-cooked dinner, just let me know so that I can get you on my calendar! (After reading about how good TC's cooking is over at LifeSong, I may have to actively try to make that a reality!) Who knows, I may even return the favor!

There is nothing like getting together with old friends. (Oh, and by the way, C, your comment about how none of your dad's friends are old earned you some major brownie points with me, Chief! I always knew you were one sharp cookie!) It is hard to imagine that you can get together with people that you haven't seen in years and still be able to talk and cut up just like you did back in college. Heaven will be like this. I hope everyone has friends like mine!

The Least Of These

The past week has been a little disappointing. I had such high hopes for a spiritual feast on Thanksgiving. My heart was so full last Sunday night at the joint Thanksgiving service done by the three local PCA churches that I was eagerly anticipating Thanksgiving Day and some great connection with God. I had even been meditating on some scriptures that the Lord seemed to be bringing to my attention. Yet each day closer to Thanksgiving my soul felt drier and drier - like a turkey baked too long without being basted. In fact, even this morning on my way to church my attitude was so far from where I had hoped that it would be. When the time to worship started I was distracted and mildly frustrated. (Not a good place for the worship leader to be!)

I can't say that things got any better during my part of the service. My guitar strings were buzzing and sounded terrible. I couldn't get it positioned correctly and my arm and hand began to fatigue. It was some rough plowing. Thank God I have a great band behind me. Fortunately things picked up with the pastor's sermon. He has been challenging us as a church to reach out to our neighbors and used as his text the first half or so of Matthew 22.

God has truly called us to a great celebration. His party will blow all other parties away. He even provides everything that we need to be acceptable at His bash, and yet there are so many who refuse to come. Weird. And yet, how guilty are we - the invited - of acting like we are going to be scourged instead of going to a celebration? If we truly believed that God and His reward for us were all that, wouldn't we be eager to tell others? Wouldn't our lives be so full of joy and excitement that others would want to come? And then there are others who try to come but refuse His "party clothes." Thinking about this made me think of some of my loved ones who want to "come to the feast" but don't want to dress according to the code. It makes me shudder for them. Do I say that they aren't saved? I can't make that call, but I can't help but believe that they are in very dangerous waters.

Our church is at a place where I believe that God is calling us to reach out like most of us have never done before. I look at my sister's life and how God has strategically placed her in a neighborhood full of lost folk who love her to death. I look at my own neighborhood and realize that although there are some Christians living around me that there are many who don't know God at all living within a close walk of my house. This is what I am dealing with - breaking the inertia that keeps me from being a good neighbor and friend to the people who live close by. Dealing with the fear of sharing the gospel with anyone. I know it is an absurd fear - most fears are - but it is where I am.

I was talking with my good friend Bruce after the service and we were both feeling kind of low and worn out. We've both been taking a little time in the Lord's crucible lately, and I confessed to him how dry I had been feeling this past week - lonely for the Lord's presence. (Isn't it funny how being lonely for the Lord will often disguise itself as loneliness for other company? But I digress.) He suggested that it was perhaps the enemy's attack. We talked for a little bit longer and in the course of that discussion decided that we should do some servant evangelism together soon. (See Steve Sjogren's book Conspiracy Of Kindness.) As we left the church we passed a car broken down in the middle of the road. I stopped to ask if the guy driving needed help, and he could only answer me in Spanish. I went to park the car and looked up and there was Bruce! He was stopping to help too.

Now you need to understand, I am utterly NOT mechanical. I know next to NOTHING about what is going on under the hood of a car - especially if it isn't doing what it is supposed to be doing. However, Bruce is VERY mechanical. We helped the fellow to get his car out of the road and then Bruce went to work on the car. I used the little Spanish I knew to talk to Carlos and before you knew it Bruce had the car running again! We didn't say a word to Carlos about God or Jesus - I probably could have if I had been in practice - but as we went on our way I felt like I had just touched the Lord's fellowship for the first time in the past seven days. Is it possible that we met the Lord broken down on the road? Matthew 25:40 would seem to indicate that we did.

Perhaps God let me get dry and hungry for His presence so that I would sense it so clearly when I encountered it with Carlos this afternoon. If so, may He not let me forget to seek His presence even amongst "the least of these."

And God, please bless Carlos and help him to learn who You are!

Quote Of The Day

Although my successes and the successes of those I love have brought me tremendous happiness, I have never made the mistake of making them the sources of my joy. Instead, I have found that God’s love for me--and the Sonship I have been granted-- are the continual sources of my joy. I say continual because, like God Himself, they never change.

- Jim Laffoon @ Our Daily Blog