I walked to work reading this article in its entirety and I walked down thinking about how all of this impacted me and I realized something at the time I was thinking about: I don't care right now.
Confused yet? Keep following.
I looked at my bracelet, my belt and a rosary-styled necklace I had on. Total count: I had seven crosses on. Seven while reading about the crucifixion and how do I feel about this? I don't care. I don't want to go to church Sunday and pretend that I do and I can't think of where a Good Friday service is happening now because I'm not connected to church around here.
I walked off the bus and thought thought thought about what on earth to do after reading this stuff on Good Friday. After thinking for several minutes, I started praying, "God, what would You have to do to get me home? What would I need to do to get back home...?" I was listening to a song by Atreyu at the time. My iPod has 559~ songs on it and the iPod was set to shuffle. This song, "Ravenous" was well ahead in that list with a few songs after it. The very next song I heard: "I Dare You To Move" by Switchfoot.
Okay, God, I hear You.
That started an interesting weekend. Friday night, I talked to my friend through the night and most of the next morning about different things concerning Christianity, why I don't believe macroevolution works but microevolution does, why Christianity seems elitist but isn't and other things like this. After a while of that, we talked about his faith a bit -- he likes looking at different structures and concepts, but never found one to settle on. The discussion was honestly pretty cool. One thing that he pointed out was that he liked the idea that I didn't immediately jump to the "Jesus therefore fills in this gap" conclusion; even though I believe in Him, I can't present Him as pure logic because faith is not entirely logical. Faith is a jump that every person must make.
Of course, I believe if you make the jump, then Jesus will catch you.
So Saturday, I went to see Polli's family. While there, I talked to his mom a bit and she invited me to church. As I was forming words for an answer, that song from Friday came back for a moment.
Okay, God: I hear You.
I would have said yes anyway, but now there was urgency. So I agreed to go. We had dinner and later thought about the invitation. I asked again about the invite and what time we were leaving (8:30 AM) and played cards with Polli until I went home around 11. Got home, played with my younger brother, woke up my roommate (I'm sorry, Byakuya. I love you, though ^_^), and went to bed around 2AM.
I was woken up by a knock at the door at 8:10 or so, so I lay there for another 10 minutes, then finally got dressed and packed my church essentials:
- a Bible. Yes, I brought one because I have one. What's the point of owning one you don't read? Yes, they did project the verses onto a screen. Bring your own anyway.
- paper. To take notes or draw.
Polli was up and his mom arrived as I was finishing my dressing cycle. We got going and I headed to church a bit. Felt good and well-rested. My younger brother said he wanted to go, but was sleeping like a champ....
...an undefeated world heavyweight champ...
We arrived on the scene and we took some seats in the back area, but near the front row of that area. The service went on and I took the words in. I didn't sing them, I took them in. I read them, I heard them, I thought about them. I thought about whether I believed them or not; mostly because I'm particular about singing things in church I don't mean (I know, weird, but it's who I am).
As the preaching went on, I drew. I took notes in the form of speech bubbles. The preacher was passionate and I loved that. I just liked him. After the message, Lisa (Polli's mom) walked to the front for prayer. I just stood there taking things in still. People were singing and praying. I listened. I watched.
And watched.
And listened.
That went on until Polli touched me on the shoulder. He had this look that I've only seen a few times since I've known him. Everything about the look said, "What do I do now?" I smiled a knowing smile. Just before that moment, I thought about walking with Lisa to the front, but held back, asking God if He wanted me to go; again, not a fan of walking to the front of the room for an altar call just because that's what other people are doing.
Seems like that was a good choice to make.
When we arrived there, we were surrounded by loving, well-meaning people that prayed for us for a while. Some of the prayers were general, some of the prayers were based on human understanding, some of them were God-inspired, some of them were in tongues, some of them made me wrinkle my forehead, sometimes it seemed like they wanted more to happen than either God or Polli were ready for. Honestly, I didn't feel like I needed anything more than to be there with my friend.
I prayed for others even as the people there were praying for me. I don't think they understood that, but it was ok as God was in the mix. I simply was content that God was doing what He wanted to. I was thankful that Polli could be there and more so that his mom, who prays so much for him, could be there to see him come to God like that. We spent the rest of that service and well into the next service praying with and for him. Some of the prayers seemed misguided, all of them were loving loving LOVING. I think it had been a while since they had seen him there praying like that and they wanted to get him moving as fast as they could into everything he'd missed.
My thoughts? Adorable. I think that he's off to a good start and God is a good finisher ;)
It felt good to be there. I stepped away for a moment to grab our things from the seats in the first service and came back where people were laughing and crying. As we talked, I brought up how, although I was happy about the small thing (which is no small thing) that God did in meeting me, I was happier for Polli and his mom. Then there was banter about, "Well, yeah, but it was probably even more awesome that He touched you...." and so it went. I smiled politely. Polli turned and hugged me (he hadn't heard anything as he was caught up and loving it).
I spent a while listening to the others talk for a bit and we headed off. We stood in the parking lot while Lisa went to the bathroom. We talked, we hugged some more. He didn't want to go to work...
Afterglow sucks sometimes lol.
After that we went home. He told someone at work briefly about his experience. He came in a little late, left a little early, and I like to think he appreciated the day a bit more. Resurrection Day (as I like to call it) isn't a one-time thing. It still happens to so many people at any time.
Funny aside: Lisa was asked to stay after service to help greet people for the second service that day. Turns out, they didn't need her at all. I smell a setup lol.
Another side note: Polli said no one knocked on my room door. I am not insane: someone did. Again, I sense a setup.
All of these things have my mind racing on things to say about so many different topics:
- prayer
- worship
- friendship
- connecting people to Jesus
Quite a list. I could dive in for weeks, but you know, I only have one verse on my mind right now:
"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."-- John 13:34-35
It's doing this that lets the world around us know that God touches lives; we love each other more. We don't try to outdo someone else. We don't save the most people. We don't sing the best songs. We don't preach the best sermons. We don't obtain the most members. None of that. The hallmark of being a disciple of Jesus is loving more.
We love more.
You know, disciples want to be at the top of the class. To be strong. To shine brightest for their teacher so they get the praise and the attention and this teacher tells his disciples, "Don't do that. Instead, love each other. Take care of each other." This is the love Polli got today. A group of people got together and they loved loved loved him and I could feel that.
Best feeling ever.
Only God knows where we're going from here, but He knows that whatever He says, I'm listening and that I'm down for whatever and that is plenty for now.
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