He Knows You By Name

The woman stood in front of the self-scan booth unsteadily, eyes closed, and body swaying slightly as if it was trying to remain upright. She held a pie in her hand that she apparently was attempting to ring out.

“Can I help you?” I asked as I came up beside her.

“Oh.” Her eyes opened again, and she said, “I'm just trying to get my head together. I've got it.” Yet she stood there, rocking forward and back, pie still in hand, as if unable to process what to do next.

An older lady came up behind her with a loaded cart. Apparently they were shopping together; I assumed she was the first lady's mother. Together we helped the younger woman scan the pie, navigate her payment and bag the item. Then they turned to scan the cart full of groceries. It soon became apparent that the daughter was physically unable to proceed. She whispered something in her mother's ear, and headed out the door. Left alone, the older lady labored through the task of ringing up her groceries. Hooked to a tank that fed oxygen through her nose, which was also covered with the mandatory face mask, she struggled along until she finally pulled the latter down and gasped, “I can't. I just can't do this. She was supposed to help me, but she's been drinking. I thought I could do it myself, but I can't breathe. Could you please just cash out what I've done so far, and I'll go through a check-out lane for the rest?”

It was Easter weekend, and the checkout lines in the store were horrific; I assumed that was what prompted her to go through self-check in the first place. Sending her to go stand and wait in her oxygen-deprived state was unthinkable.

“I'll finish it for you,” I said, praying that none of the people at the other five booths I was responsible for would need assistance for the next few minutes. Quickly I worked through her remaining items, then put the bags back in the cart while she paid the bill.

“Thank you,” she said, and headed out to join her daughter. Relieved that we had made it through the episode unscathed, I put it out of my mind and went back to helping other patrons.

But moments later, she was back, still struggling while pushing the cart loaded with the bagged items. “I can't find my daughter. She was going to go sit in the van, but the van isn't where we parked it. People are telling me to call the police, but I don't want to call the police on her. I have to go look for her, but I can't push this cart while doing so. Can I just leave it here till I find her?”

“Of course!,” I said. “Tell me your name, and I'll mark it as paid so they don't do anything with it.”

“My name's Elaine,” she answered.

That stopped me short. My eyes bugged out a little as I showed her my name tag and said, “Mine, too!” With worries on her heart she had little time for seeming coincidences and hurried out the door. But I stood there a minute longer, knowing instantly that the seemingly random exchange was more than just that. Mine is not a common name. I knew it was spoken deliberately because it was meant to catch my attention. But duty called, and soon I was summoned by somebody else who needed help. I was likewise engaged with another customer when she came back in sometime later and retrieved her cart. I desperately wanted to know the end of the story, but apparently I had heard all I needed to hear. I pushed it aside and went back to work.

Sometime later I put the pieces together. My daughter-in-law works in an assisted living facility and had recently asked me if I had any stories I could let her use for an Easter devotional with her residents. “And if you don't have any, could you please write one for me?” she'd asked. I laughed at the last question, as I know from experience that I can't produce a story on my own. Inspiration has to come from above, and, to be honest, had been in short supply of late... a combination of earlier work hours that had taken away my usual writing time and the drifting of my mind in other directions as a result. Thankfully I was able to find a devotion written by somebody else to send her.

And then God gave me a story anyway... about how He sees us in our struggles with sin and sickness, and life issues...even just our own indifference to spiritual things, knowing that we are simply unable to get through life on our own. So He stands by, anxiously waiting for the fight to break us down till we finally speak the words He needs to hear before He can step in and act... simply, “I can't.” When we finally admit that we need more help than we can muster on our own, He steps in and offers what only He can do. He says 'I'll finish it for you...”... and He did so with His last breath on the cross. And now that gift of salvation is paid for and waiting for you to come and claim... because He carries your name across His heart.

“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

(Romans 5:8 NKJV)

Switched Seats

Photo courtesy of Mark Bridge

I tried.

I really, really tried to pay attention to the action on the ball field, but, as usual, the actions of the people seated around me proved to be too much of a distraction.

A huge baseball fan, a natural gift for my husband on his birthday were tickets to a game at the local ballpark. Not just any game, this was a match-up between two long-time rivals, the Cincinnati Reds and the St. Louis Cardinals, two teams battling to reach the top spot in the Central Division of the National League. My oldest son was slated to go with him to the game, until his responsibilities at his church called him away on that particular weekend. I got to go in his place.

To be honest, I argued with my husband on the matter. Surely he should pick one of his friends who likewise love the game and who are knowledgeable enough to engage him in good conversation on the subject between innings or when the action on the field is slow. Jim knows from past experience that such battter chatter is not something I excel in. He teases me often about not knowing what sport is being played in front of me, let alone which teams are engaged, simply because I am so fascinated by the sights and sounds of the ballpark itself.

If our seats are high enough, there is all the action on the nearby river to watch, just visible over the far side of the stadium – the barges going up and down with their loads, boats doing the same, or people on jet skis chasing each other as the sun dances off the rippled water. Inside the park there are multiple electronic signs flashing messages to catch my eye, as well as the scoreboard itself, a media marvel so encompassing in the information and entertainment it presents that there is really no need to look at the field below it at all.

I am most distracted, however, by the people around me, from the vendors selling their wares up on and down the stairs to the interactions of the people seated in the rows surrounding me. By the time a game is over I find I've been entertained not by a baseball game so much as a life story I've picked up on in the nine innings or so that it's played out before me. I've identified the major players and learned their positions in the unfolding drama, information I can't help but glean from the conversations that take place just inches in front of my face.

On this particular day there were three. To our right sat a couple from nearby Columbus, and it soon became apparent they were not rooting for the local franchise. Bravely they wore their Cardinals t-shirts in the midst of a sea of Cincinnati red, loudly cheering on their team and laughingly answering the angry glares and stares of the local crowd by becoming ever more vocal. Their team was thumping ours, and they were loving every minute of it.

Below us to the left was a family of four which included two young boys obviously visiting a major league stadium for the first time. Sporting jerseys still fresh from their packaging and alternately holding hot dogs and mitts in their hands, they were clearly awed by the experience and enjoying every minute of a day they would never forget.

It was the family to our left that got to me, however, a mom and dad using a trip to the ballpark as a means to connect with their college-age daughters, boyfriends in tow. Because of the long-standing rivalry between the two teams, tickets were in short supply, and they hadn't been able to purchase six seats together. The best they could do was to get the four beside us and two in the row in front.

Determined not to let the separation deter him, the father continually initiated conversation with his daughter nearby, bending low to speak with her as she leaned back to respond. On and on they chatted about her recent engagement, friends they'd seen lately, even the amount of beer being consumed. Clearly the game on the field was just the excuse this dad used to catch up on what was happening in her life.

As the score became more and more unfavorably lopsided, the stands began to empty out. The out-of-towners to our right decided the lead was secure enough to allow them leave the game and beat the traffic home. With seats now open beside us, my husband tapped the daughter on the shoulder to offer her our spots beside her family. Pointing to the man sitting to our left, he jokingly asked her, “Do you know this guy?”

“He's my dad!” she responded, then laughed as she realized we'd figured that out. Gladly she accepted and was soon seated beside him, the free flow of conversation and love facilitated by the move and continuing once more.

It turns out it wasn't just a ballpark scenario after all. Sometimes in the game of life our eyes are so fixed on the field of play that we don't realize that the final outcome has a lot more to with relationship than points scored.

Many years ago I was the daughter whose heavenly Father was tapping her on the shoulder continually. He, too, appeared to have a lot to say about the details of my days...who I was dating, the friends I was hanging out with, and, yes, even my alcohol consumption. I occasionally looked His way to answer Him back before turning in my own direction once more, yet doggedly He pursued me.

I am forever grateful that a friend walking through life beside me took the time one day to tap me on the shoulder, point to God, and likewise say, “Do you know this Guy?” I realized I knew a lot about Him, having been raised in church and all, but I didn't really know Him. Carefully it was explained to me that the distance separating the two of us was the sin in my life, and that Jesus was offering to switch me seats. He would take my spot on the cross so that I might be seated beside my Father in Heaven. Gladly I accepted, and have been gratefully rejoicing in the love of my Father and the easy and open communication with God ever since.

It's important that we deal with the question now, because we can be certain that we will hear it again. When the game of life is over in this world there will be a moment of accountability in the next. Victory or defeat will be based on the answer we give when asked about the One seated on the throne, “Do you know Him?” How wonderful it will be to reply, “He's my Savior, my Joy, my Life, my Hope, my Strength...”

In other words, “He's my Dad!”

“Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?' Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'”

(Matthew 7:20-23 NIV)

The Fourth is Free

When first-of-the-month shoppers combine with Super Bowl devotees in full party preparation mode, the end result is a grocery store madhouse of people filling their shopping carts to later fill their bellies with the wares to be found on the grocery store shelves. Lines are long at each register and tempers are short.

Wanting to cash in on this early February spending frenzy, the store details incredible savings on certain products in the weekly ad to draw the buyers in. One such deal occurred in the pop aisle, where all brands and flavors were on sale.

Buy three, get one free. It seemed simple enough. But you’d be surprised at the amount of confusion that one short sentence can create.

The signs in the soda section weren’t much help. One advertised that 12-packs of pop were selling 3 for $11, or $3.67 each. Yet another read that if you bought four such 12-packs, the fourth was free. So were they 3 for $11, or 4 for $11? Both! No wonder the shoppers were confused!

In the midst of the shopping madness, grocery store cashiers tend to rush each customer through their order as quickly as possible to get to the next person waiting impatiently behind them. Yet after a week of scanning cans of pop, it’s hard not to notice when a shopper puts just three 12-packs on the belt instead of four, thus missing out on the freebie. The question is what to do about it. There is a temptation to say nothing at all, to just scan the groceries as they come down the line and push the person on through, justifying the action with the thought that the customer knows best what he wants to buy. Yet it takes just a minute to explain the deal to them and offer to scan an extra pack of pop so they can go back and get what’s coming to them. Some people are simply in a hurry to get out of the store and don’t care about the extra savings. But in this time of tight budgets, most people are genuinely grateful that the matter was brought to their attention.

Life can be difficult to understand, as well. We go about our days looking for signs to guide us and send us in the direction of the best deal to be found in all areas of our lives. Conflicting information bombards us, and too often what seems to be good information one week is like the prices on an out-of-date sale ad, simply invalid the next. Truth appears to be as elusive as the good health, emotional stability and financial success we all seek. Sometimes even our spiritual guides are not the help they should be in navigating us through this life to our forever Home.

Our Christian walk can become much like an over-busy weekend in the grocery store. Like everybody else we have too much to do in too little time, and we tend to rush through our days trying to get it all done. Yet in our interactions with people it’s hard not to notice when they haven’t fully grasped the concept of grace, that their salvation has already been paid for by Christ’s death on the cross. Many are still trying to pay for that which has been offered to them for free. It’s theirs for the asking, as well as the favor found in a Christ-filled life on this earth in terms of health, help, and hope for the future.

The question is what to do about it. As a grocery store cashier and a Christian, I live in both these scenarios. And to my shame I have to admit that I’m much more likely to point out a missing sale item than an overlooked salvation, verbally, at least. There are reasons, of course - one too many rebuffs from people who are so consumed with the here and now that they can’t consider the hereafter. It’s easy to say that salvation is a personal matter and everyone has to figure it out for themselves. Yet I can’t get past the fact that somebody risked my rejection in telling me. My soul was saved and my life dramatically changed. How can I possibly do less for somebody else?

The sale prices in our store ads are good for just a week. Salvation is likewise a limited time offer; it ends when a life does or the world does, whichever comes first. If we’re too busy, too timid or too lazy to tell somebody about it, for them it could be too late. Eternity is simply too long to think of missed opportunities.

A free pack of pop is good only as long as there are cans left in the carton, but eternal life is just that - good times without end. Consider which is the better deal, and then let your heart of compassion convince you to get the word out. God will be glad you did.

“All who call out to the Lord will be saved. How can people have faith in the Lord and ask him to save them, if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear, unless someone tells them?”
(Romans 10:13-14 CEV)

Water Woes

I stepped out onto the back deck with my first cup of coffee of the morning and immediately sensed that something was wrong. I heard a strange noise I couldn’t identify but that sounded vaguely like running water. Looking up to see if a sudden shower was perhaps splashing raindrops on the leaves of the trees overhead before reaching the wooden planks I was standing on, I saw only sunlight and clear skies above me. Drawn by the sound to the left edge of the deck, I looked over the railing and was surprised to see that the stream which borders the yard was running like crazy, the water rushing down it’s path into the woods behind the house. The spring storms were long gone, and the summer had turned hot and dry. The local crops and ground were desperate for rain that had been withheld for weeks. Surely I would have been awakened by a storm of the severity to produce as much runoff as was flowing past the house, yet there was no sign that the surrounding property had received any relief from the deepening drought. Something besides rain was sending the water downstream. Resolutely setting my coffee cup down, I decided I’d better go take a look.

I hiked upstream to the top of the property, veering left around the fence to walk up the road, assuming the water was running down the ditch from somewhere up the hill. The brushy fence line along the side of the pavement blocked my view of anything beyond it, but the farther I went, the less clearly I could hear the water, till I gathered that I was going to have to stick to the streambed itself if I was to find the source of the flow. My feet sunk in the muck of the waterlogged footpath that crossed the stream to the neighboring lot, and I noticed water pooling around the culvert that emptied out from the other side of the road. Yet the water wasn’t coming out of the pipe, but forming a large puddle in front of it. Suddenly I noticed a spot where water was bubbling up from the ground itself. A broken water line was surely the culprit! Soon the water company was notified and before long a repair crew was said to be on their way.

Hours after the pipe had been replaced and the workmen had pulled their trucks off the property, I sat thinking about how my attention had been alerted to the problem in the first place. It was the sight of something unusual in my everyday surroundings - water flowing where none should have been - that caught my interest and led me to investigate further. And surely God uses the same tactic in drawing people to Himself. They see one of His followers exhibiting behavior inconsistent with what one would expect in the circumstances surrounding him, such as fearlessness in the face of a terminal illness, strength in time of overwhelming sorrow, or great calm in the midst of a calamity of some sort. Such responses lead the observers to look deeper into the life and beliefs of that one whose reaction is out of the ordinary. They track what they see to its Source, and oftentimes their lives and futures are forever changed as a result.

I know that the words written above are true, because they describe a similar situation that happened to me. Decades ago now, when I was first dating the man I would eventually marry, I had fallen in with a group of people who worked hard all week, partied hard every Friday and Saturday night, and then recuperated on Sunday to do it all over again the next week. I was surprised when I met Jim to learn that he didn’t live the way I and everybody else I knew was living. Rather, he found his joy in his relationship with God and the fellowship of people who knew Him. He talked about the church service that week and his Bible study group meeting with as much excitement as he did the latest softball game he’d played in, and it amazed me. I’d gone to church my entire life and believed in God, but the idea of being friends with Him and having fun in His presence was foreign to me. Intrigued, I eventually followed my boyfriend’s happiness and contentment to it’s source in a relationship with Jesus, and found that joy, peace and love can bubble out of a soul the same way that water bubbled out of the once-dry ground in my yard.

When the work crew first arrived on the scene that day, they told my husband that the extremely wet spring we’d had, followed by a hot and dry summer, was causing the ground to compact and break the pipes. The same thing has happened to some of us. A once-thriving relationship with God may have given way to a dry season in life. The increasing pressure surrounding us finally broke our hearts and brought us back to the love relationship we once knew with God and the Living Water that flows out of the same.

The repairmen went on to tell us that there were a dozen or more such leaks all over the city, and they were having trouble keeping up with the calls for assistance because of a shortage of help. And isn’t that God’s problem, as well? He says that the fields are ripe unto harvest, but the workers are few.

The truth of the matter is that people are at the breaking point all around us, and we don’t have to be on a church payroll somewhere to offer assistance. All that God asks is that we first let Christ flow freely out of our lives, and then that we be ready to point others in His direction when that running stream in a desert place draws the people around us in for a closer look.

“…Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have…”
(1 Peter 3:15 NIV)

Package Deal

Many years ago when my husband, Jim, and I were newly married and living in Washington state, we worked in separate divisions of the same company, he as a computer analyst, and me as a field forester who spent her days in the woods. Then one day came the announcement that the computer department was going to relocate to the company’s central office headquarters in Dallas, and Jim was asked to make the move. Excited as he was about the new opportunities that awaited him there, he realized that the job possibilities for foresters in that busy metropolis were slim at best. Our company had no land holdings in the area, hence no need for timber management professionals. Jim told those in charge of the relocation that he could not transfer unless they provided a job for his wife in the company office, as well. We were a package deal. So, because they needed Jim’s computer ability and management experience, I soon found myself behind a desk in a nice office, learning how all the field data that I used to spend my days collecting fit into the company’s forestry computer models. While it was nothing I’d ever done before, the work was interesting and good experience for whatever would come next for me in my career.

In the middle of our four-year stay in Dallas, Jim switched jobs and went to work for another paper company in the area. Soon came the news that he was again to be transferred, this time to Ohio. Once again he instituted the “package deal” concept in his employment negotiations, insisting that a job would have to be provided for his wife, as well, before he could agree to relocate. Amazingly, the company complied and I soon found myself employed as a computer programmer of forestry systems.

Gratified as I was by my new employer’s generosity, there was yet one huge problem in this scenario, that being my complete lack of training in computer science! My once programming class in college was little help as it wasn’t even a computer language the company was using. It was one thing to plug numbers into a computer model that was already written, as I did in Dallas, and another thing entirely to write the computer program behind the model. I felt absolutely lost at sea and managed to keep the job only with the help of a crash course in programming, fervent prayer, and a total reliance on God to supply the wisdom I lacked. Again and again He came through for me until I was eventually laid off when the economy forced widespread cutbacks in the paper industry.

Lately the enemy’s been reminding me of the days when I was part of a package deal in Jim’s job situations, highlighting the fact that I brought little to lay on the table myself in those scenarios, and was hired only so that the companies involved could acquire my husband’s computer expertise. What the devil mocks in my job situations he likewise scorns in my ministry efforts for the Lord, whispering that I only have the opportunities to serve that I do because I’m a “package deal” with my more spiritually effective husband.

I’m not alone in receiving his accusations. In recent years I’ve met many spouses in ministry teams who, while never verbalizing their thoughts, have believed him when he’s intimated that they hold the positions they do solely on the basis of who they are yoked to in marriage. We feel unqualified, unappreciated, and , worse yet, unnecessary to the work of the Lord.

And we couldn’t be more wrong. God wonders why we listen to such lies, when He’s written in His Word repeatedly that we all have received a measure of faith, (Romans 12:3), that we all have gifts and callings (Romans 12:6, 1 Corinthians 12:7), and that in the latter days He will pour His spirit out on all flesh (Joel 2:28). Each of us has a work that we were specifically created and anointed to do, and God will hold us personally accountable if we allow the devil’s lies to keep us inactive and unfruitful.

Getting what you need on the basis of somebody else’s qualifications is not always a bad thing. Just as I found myself without the resources I needed to accomplish the programming tasks I was assigned, I’m even more unqualified to work my way into Heaven. I simply haven’t got the sinless life and absolute purity that God requires in His Word. Once again the solution to my predicament is found in prayer. Jesus comes alongside me in response to my request for help and provides what I cannot - a perfect sacrifice in payment for my sins. And He makes me a promise… that someday when we stand together at Heaven’s Gate, the door will be opened and a welcome provided… only because He smiles with His arm around me and proclaims, “We’re a package deal.”

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”
(Ephesians 2:8,9 NKJV)