Wreaking Havoc!

What a night! I like to try to immerse myself into the story when I read a book. Imagine myself being part of the story, maybe not always as the super hero but at least on the sidelines watching everything unfold. Try to get in the mind of the author. Sometimes this takes a toll on me though because it becomes too personal. As the students and I walk through the sermon on the mount this has been the case more than once. From the beginning some of the verses are against my nature, peacemaker, sometimes I prefer to just hash the thing out and be done with it.

Tonight was the first night we had our prayer room set up. Pretty sure it was the uncool thing to do. We took the ping pong table down in order to have a place dedicated to prayer.

I have had a devotion that is due tomorrow for my Evangelism/Discipleship class and had everything ready.

Then tonight...Jesus showed up and turned everything upside down/inside out. Love how he does that. I grew up hearing that life was easy when you decided to follow Jesus. I was taught that Jesus was a lot like a magic potion. Pray and life would be OK. Leave your problems at the cross and everything would be easy. After all isn't that what Paul did. He followed Jesus and the thorn from his side was removed. Oh wait, God said NO. Possibly the greatest missionary of all time struggled. Why shouldn't we?

I refuse to teach about the magic potion Jesus. Tonight I was teaching from Matthew 6:1-5ish and recapped chapter 5. Talked about how this was not the norm. Jesus teaching were hard, challenging, and sometimes even disturbing. Then chapter 6 opens by saying don't do this so people can see you and think "Hey this dude has it figured out"; but do it secretly expecting n0thing as thanks. Talked about how hard it is to follow Jesus sometimes. It goes against what were do naturally. Pretty sure I wouldn't make it as a salesman trying to sell Jesus as a product. Felt like I was not running smooth tonight.

Having said this and all Glory to God, tonight I watched as Jesus did it again. Turned a young girls life upside down. He wreaked havoc in this ladies life. The uncool prayer room became holy. Instead of having a dedication ceremony we christened it with a girl deciding to follow in the ways of Jesus. I was asked to go in there and talk to a couple of young ladies and asked my wife to go for me. So thankful for that. She was able to share with the girl what it means to follow Jesus. I got to watch my wife walk out all choked up after experiencing this. Yea it would have been cool to be in there but its not about me and being able to bring one more person in to experience this was amazing.

Pretty sure what I was going to do for my devotion just got turned upside down, He did it again...