Conviction... my sojourn through the prophets

I start out every day reading my Bible. Right now I am actually reading the Message: Remix and have just completed my sojourn through the prophets.

Usually I cannot stand the prophets, because they are full of gloom and doom and weird images of 4 faced creatures with 6 wings and some sort of weird gyroscope thing. This time was different. Yes, there are some awesome stories, like Jonah and the whale, then the three dudes who survive the furnace; Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (all from memory thank you very much!)

This time God was talking to me personally in my heart. I heard not about some lame Jewish system thousands of years ago, but I heard about our Church, the state of this Union, this Country, County and Town. I heard about you and me. I heard about the savior King who was and is and is yet to come.

God is not happy. God is crying.

The rich keep getting richer and the poor get poorer and very few are calling His children to come home and living the life that God wants us to live. Malachi, the last one in the Old Testament, talks about tithing. People are giving God their leftovers, or the ragged ole ten they happen to have in their pocket. People are not raising the best sheep and goats and giving them unto the Lord, they are giving their lame and blind to God.

While I struggle to stay comfortable in my house with the air-conditioner out, there are people who live in cardboard shacks and eat bugs for protein. There are people in this very city who sleep on the street.

I made a difference for one, and it made a difference for me immensely. But I also get soooo caught up in my own stuff.

My prayer is to never be too comfortable. This sounds goofy to you, but I do not ever want to accept that some people are homeless, and some people have homes full of empty rooms.

Now I am going to read again the New Testament, and see and be challenged by the life of Jesus. That is the life I want to have, compassion, wisdom, selflessness, closeness to God, great friends, hope in hopeless times.

I am going to keep working on becoming... and I am not turning back. In the meantime... I am keeping my eyes and my heart on the one who was, who is, and has yet to come.