Just 1 Reason

We stopped and picked up Jeana, a 17 year old from my church, who was also “along for the ride”. Naomi and Jeana chatted in the back seat, having fun painting their faces with purple and blue make up and taking pictures, giggling and jabbering all the way. Such a sweet sound. Stacy and I spent most of the drive talking. Actually, Stacy did a lot of talking, and I did a lot of listening. I don’t remember all that we talked about, but I know that I felt like I was seeing “Christianity” from a perspective that I had refused to ever see before. You see, Stacy didn’t go through the spelled out ministry protocol that I had been taught to “qualify for” to go out and minister. She just did it. She loved Jesus, and gave His love away. While I “prepared”. For 10 years.

I’m not saying that I was taught to spend 10 years preparing to minister and never share the light and love of God with anyone until I was matured, finished and “arrived”; but somewhere in my walk, I let everything outside of the 4 walls of the church dissapear and focused completely on ministry inside of the church. Which does take more preparation to stand before the people of God and lead them and shepherd them. The problem was, I made it ALL about them, and from the appearance, ALL about me; yet it really wasn’t, because inside, I died. The vision God gave me when I was first born again, the passion that burned in me to share His love with the unlovable, the broken, the abused, the addicted; to take that same beautiful, unconditional love that reached down into the pit of my life and saw past all of my failures, addictions and hellish lifestyle and brought me tightly into Papa’s arms, and be that love to others who were in that same pit. The pit of running from drug to drug, man to man, even having a baby just to feel loved. The pit of self-hatred, God-hatred, religion-hatred, family-hatred and rejection from every side. His love reached past it all when no one else and nothing else could! And all I wanted to do was bring that love to others who were wounded and hurting and miserable and lonely and addicted and desperate and searching for love just like I was.

But then I started Bible school. And my pursuit was holy, and right. I was hungry to know His Word. I wanted to KNOW Him! The first year. By the second year, apparently I had lost my focus. My focus was now “the call”, “the church”, “the ministry”, and “the qualifications” to achieve it all. Only I didn’t realize that my focus, what I was pursuing, the passion that drew me, had changed. Until now, 10 years later.

We decided, at the prodding of the teens in the back seat, to stop for a bite to eat at Burger King. I had no idea that feeding my body wasn’t the only thing God had planned at that Burger King. It was also time for blinded eyes to see, and deaf ears to hear. My blind eyes. And my deaf ears.

I ordered my food first, and Stacy was next. Jeana and Naomi were behind her, along with about 10 other people waiting in line for the only employee taking orders at the counter. The manager was running around like she had fire ants living in her pant legs, and the look on her face reflected the same. I think if she has been allowed a whip to snap at her employees to get them to work faster, she would have gladly used it! She was pretty intense to say the least.

I took my receipt and moved a couple of steps over to wait for my food while Stacy ordered hers. Only Stacy wasn’t interested in just ordering her food. She was interested in the teenage guy named Jordan, who was taking her order. And she was interested in him knowing just how much God loved him.

Jordan looked like your typical “I don’t care about this job, I’m just here to make my party money” kid. He had done some kind of piercing to his ears that made them look like he had taken a knife to them to accomplish the task, and the gaping holes were obviously infected. Do you think I paid any attention to that though? No. Sadly, no. I paid attention to the wigged out manager behind the counter, the 10 people waiting for their burgers and fries behind us, and my journey to a “fabulous glory service” awaiting at the Lewis house. Blind. Blinded by the rat race of this world. Blinded by selfishness.

Stacy asked him what happened to his ears. I asked him nothing, thinking it was so kind of me to not “bring attention” to whatever mistake he had obviously made trying to be so cool. He told her that he had quarter size “plugs” in them, and they became infected really bad. Of course, all said in the typical “just the price to pay for cool” tone, and laughed off by him as not any big thing. But apparently it was a big thing to God. Because He cares. Even when we don’t. Even when we don’t know how. Because He knows how valuable we are. Even when we don’t. Because He’s Papa. And we are His.

So then Stacy says, “Can I ask God to heal your ears?”, and this is where I want to crawl under a counter. Not out of embarrassment, but because my brain is assaulting me with reminders that “this is not the place, customers are waiting, they may be in a hurry, he is being paid to work not pray, and we are holding up the WHOLE PROCESS of THE WAY THINGS ARE SUPPOSE TO WORK HERE”. In that moment, I’m expecting him to roll his eyes and say “whatever” just to get us to move along. But he doesn’t. He tells her yes. Then she asks if she can hold his hand while she prays!! And to my surprise and shock, he says yes and gives her his hand! All she says is “God, please heal Jordan’s ears, Amen.” That simple. But she doesn’t let go of his hand. She looks at him and says “Jesus loves you Jordan. He loves you, and He made you, and He knows you and all that you’ve done, and all about your past, and He doesn’t care….He just wants you to know that He loves you, and none of that matters. None of that will keep His love from you.”

Now, one thing about Stacy is that if she’s on a mission from God, she is in no hurry. None. Whatsoever. She doesn’t even hurry up her speaking. If anything, she slows it down so he won’t miss one word that she’s saying. And in the midst of my freaking out inside about the line she was holding up, I noticed Jordan’s eyes. When she started telling him that Jesus loved him, his eyes were locked on hers, locked on God’s love through hers, and I watched this boys soul open up and every wall come down, and that simple truth that “Jesus loves him” penetrate down to the very deepest part of him. He didn’t move. He didn’t say a word. And he didn’t take his eyes off of her for one second. He was like a child in a dessert dying of thirst who had happened upon a well, and he wasn’t going to stop drinking this water until his dying thirst had been quenched. He even had tears in his eyes. God just changed this kids life forever, and I could see it with my own eyes.

I could also see myself clearly, and I was so grieved, so sad, so ashamed at what had happened to me. I had become “conformed” to the ways of this world. I had always thought that meant drinking, smoking, swearing, living it up in a lifestyle of lust. It’s not. It’s being conformed to this worlds purpose. The purpose of the world in that restaurant was “business”. Meet the needs of the customers with the paying cash, and do it as quick as possible. Honor the people’s time that were behind me in line by moving through as quick as possible. People were there for their burgers, and that was the purpose of that establishment. But was it? Is that really why the Great Creator of this Universe and the God of all heaven and earth allowed this Burger King to be built there?

While my brain is freaking about the people in line, God speaks to me. He says, “if Jordan had 3 missing fingers, and I chose to give him brand new fingers right now, do you suppose any of those people in that line would be concerned about their burgers?” Of course my answer was no. And as I witnessed God reaching into Jordan’s soul with His love, as Stacy shared with him, I noticed the people in line weren’t even paying attention. I mean, they were, but it was as if she were just standing there this whole time ordering food. It was like God put a sheild around Stacy and Jordan, and no one but me could see what was going on. Even his crazy manager who was running around behind him like a chicken with her head cut off didn’t notice. How?? I don’t know. But I know that God cared about this boy more than He cared about anyone getting another burger to add to their waistline that day. And I know that we aren’t suppose to conform to this worlds system. The only reason we as believers are still on this earth after we are born again is to bring the love of God, salvation, healing and deliverance to those who don’t know Him. And He said “Go into all the world”, He didn’t say “Get all the world to come into your church”. Not that the church doesn’t fit in somewhere. That’s what He would show me once I got to the Lewis House.

Stacy got her food and walked away, and Jordan was trying really hard not to break down crying so he could take the orders of the rest of the people in line. Stacy didn’t walk far though. She took her reciept and started writing on it. She wrote down everything she just said to Jordan, and then she handed it to him. She wanted him to have something to take home that would remind him that God interrupted life for him, just to bring him the truth about His love for him. I watched once again, as Jordan completely stopped taking the order he was in the middle of, took the time to read what Stacy wrote, and to soak it in, and tell her thank you. And the customer in the middle of the order once again seemed totally oblivious to anything at all going on, as if God had them in a bubble and they didn’t even know someone else “broke in” on their time.

I left there with tears in my own eyes and an overwhelming grief and repentance in my heart. Tears for watching a soul be transformed right before my eyes, and grief for realizing how blind I had been for so many years. How far away I had become from the purpose and passion that once burned in me so deeply. Oh God…..what have I been doing all of these years? What had I become? When did I forget??

To be continued…….