On Easter Sunday our Pastor began a sermon series entitled “Walk Across the Room.” He is challenging the body to daily consider the question “Who am I going to walk across the room for today?” He furthered challenged us to pray for God to open doors and opportunities for us to “walk across the room.” Sounds simple enough, right? But the practical applications have been huge in my life.
I began praying that day, and by evening, Tim and I both looked at each other and said, “We missed that opportunity. Why didn’t we ‘walk across the room’ there?” I was humbled and broken.
Throughout the week, as I prayed, I would be strongly aware of a still small voice saying, “That was it…you missed it.” …or…”Yeah…you pretty much blew that.” …or…”That was IT! That is exactly why I put you right here, right now, today…that hug, that word, that look.” Please don’t misunderstand. I have no self-aggrandizing view of my own importance. I have been utterly overwhelmed at the constant ways I have heard answers to this prayer…that I failed…that I obeyed…astounded at the simplicity in the profound idea that God can and does use my life to shine even a small ray of truth, love, or hope into the life of another of His beloved creations.
But perhaps the most daunting impression of the last two weeks has been that God would not only choose to use me in spite of (and sometimes through) my own frailty, weakness, and fear,…but that He would use me despite my fathomless ignorance. I am terrified at the potential for destruction that exists within even my words, when I use them without regard for what I just don’t know. In two successive days of last week, I learned of two utterly tragic situations. Both of them existed for years. Both touch people that I regularly interact with. Both were completely unknown to me until last week. Both left me knowing they had been revealed to me by a divine design. Both left me hearing a still small voice say, “I’m glad you are asking where you can be My hands and feet. Just know that if we are going to do this ‘walk across the room’ thing, you are ill-equipped, prone to clumsiness, and very likely to say something stupid. I just want you to see how imperative it is that you only walk across the room…with Me.”
The opportunities aren’t new occurrences. It’s just my awareness that’s shifted. The lesson isn’t even new. I’m just more poignantly and personally aware of the consequences.
So the issue isn’t so much taking Jesus to people who don’t have him, but going to a place and pointing out to the people there the creative, life-giving God who is already present in their midst. … Ultimately our gift to the world around us is hope. Not blind hope that pretends everything is fine and refuses to acknowledge how things are. But the kind of hope that comes from staring pain and suffering right in the eyes and refusing to believe that this is all there is. R. Bell
I know that there are better, safer, more reliable, more honorable and trustworthy ways for God to communicate hope. There are certainly better, safer, more reliable, more honorable and trustworthy people than I to use as a vessel. I don’t comprehend it. I only know …seeing we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we faint not;…we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. 2 Corinthians 4:1,7
