I wonder...

I wonder…

Here are some things I’ve read, heard of or thought of… I wonder about…Please don’t think me irreverent…

• Did Eve ever eat anymore fruit after her run in w/an apple?
• Did Moses really look like Charlton Heston from the movie?
• (I’ve been in a small earthquake so I wonder...) Did it feel like an earthquake when the walls of Jericho fell?
• Did Noah sleep well during thunderstorms?
• Did other giants fear David?
• How did Elijah and Elisha keep from getting burned by chariot/horses of fire?
• Why was God so quiet between the OT and NT?
• Did Jesus ever get a runny nose?
• Was James, Jesus’ brother, ever tattle tale to try to get Jesus in trouble?
• I can understand the wild honey, but…Why did John the Baptist ever like locust?
• Did Paul really understand how much trouble he created with his marriage teaching?
• Did John ever have nightmares after seeing the original “Apocalypse” movie?

But in all my wonderings, there are some things I have never had to wonder about?

I never need to wonder about...

...whether God cares about me…

...Do I matter to God?

...Does he still love me even when I’m not a good person?

...Does God still want to change people’s lives and give them freedom through His grace?

If one of those last few questions still make you wonder…God Love? God Care? Do I Matter? His Grace make me free?

• Take a look into the face of a baby in a manger and ask the question again…
• Take a look into the face of a carpenter whose time has not yet come, but he know it will…
• Look into the eye of an itinerant preacher, as he sheds tears at the death of his friend…
• Watch the anguish on the face of a man called “Rabbi” by many, when he looks over Jerusalem and cries… How often I would have gathered you to me like a mother hen does her chicks…
• Ask the man who was born blind, not because of his or his parents’ sin…
• Ask the woman at the well or the woman caught in adultery…
• Ask the addict that now has his family back because he trusted…
• Talk to the married couple whose many years together have been weary, but say, “He’ll get us through…”
• Look to a hill outside the city of Jerusalem and watch as a beaten cast out carries a wooden torture instrument to a place they will crush his body on it…
• Listen as the thief cries, “Remember me…”
• Watch the man called a “messiah wanna be” by the crowd, lift his voice and say, “Why have you forsaken me…”
• Now…quietly listen as he speaks…. “It is finished…”

Then…Then…

Look inside the tomb, listen to the fishermen, stand with the crowd on the hill as Jesus finishes his work on earth by rising, eating breakfast and returning to the Father…

Now… ask… Does God care?

If you can’t say yes… I hurt for you…

And I pray you will be in a place that at least once before you leave this earth, you might know, as Paul said so wonderfully… “that He (God) would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, ¹⁷ that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸ may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— ¹⁹ to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge…”

Join me in this prayer...

Jesus, for those who may be distracted by the current struggle of being at home with little to do, and those who need a distraction away from this unusual time...May each of them be allowed to know the enormity of your love…May each of us, in the midst of our fear, our anger, our questions about the future…in the cooped up tensions of our heart…in the want for things to be normal…in the stress, the hurt, the pain, the wonderings of our heart Lord…find you to be real to us in a way that is personal to each of us…and Lord, you know us, you know exactly how faithless we can be…Would you pour out your help through your Holy Spirit on us, free our hearts and minds as we allow your peace and presence through our surrender…help those of us who can’t turn loose of the “stuff” right now, you don’t love them less but you want them to have more…

So Jesus, we look to you, we ask because you told us to, and we pray… for ourselves, for each other, for our leaders, for our medical workers, for those on the front lines in so many industries that are serving…we pray…Your grace sufficient in each life…Amen…