It is not safe to remain! It is not the place but the Presence that upholds you! This is your only certainty. Go! Walk where no man has walked, yet you find footprints.
-Erwin McManus
Abba I am a lover of Your presence. I want to be where You are. Thank You for today.
This morning I watched Your glorious sun rise from the top of the parking garage. Afterwards I ate breakfast at New Life United Methodist Church. As I was sharing a meal with my homeless friends on Resurrection Sunday I began to realize that there isn't a better place to spend today. My biological family may be miles away from me but today I spent the morning with my brothers and sisters! Home is where Your presence is, and I've never felt closer to You and Your Kingdom than when I am spending time with my broken and wretched brothers and sisters just like me. My heart is overwhelmed with love at times like yesterday when one of my homeless brothers bought me a hot chocolate while we were talking at Travonna. Or a father turns to his son and exclaims "we're going to eat good today son!" as I give them four McChickens and some fries. This is the Kingdom of God and it is so beautiful.
Giving is more contagious than hoarding, love can convert hatred, light can overcome darkness, grass can pierce concrete.
-Shane Claiborne
Today we are free, Today You set all of us free. I want to spend my life joining with the broken sinners and evildoers of our world crying out to You, groaning for grace. I want to spend my life worrying about nothing and loving everyone. Jesus I cannot thank You and praise You enough for setting me free, for Your redemption, for Your sacrifice, for Your resurrection. I'm alive to live for You. Hope is rising up in me. No place I would rather be than here in Your love.
But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language. Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.
-Colossians 3:8-11
It doesn't matter if we are gentile, uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, tax collector, homeless, prostitute, addict, leper, failure, broken, HIV+, sinful, or anything CHRIST IS ALL THAT MATTERS, AND HE LIVES IN ALL OF US!
My past is washed white as snow, my wounds are nothing but scars now, I have stripped off my old self and I put on my new self in You my Creator, my God, יהוה.
Naive Orleans - Anberlin