Our enormous table was full for breakfast this morning. Seeing it full makes me smile. So many extras—and yet they belong. Hospitality, we call it, and it is highly praised in scripture—from the time of Abraham, who begged three strangers to allow him to prepare a feast for them to the time of Lydia, who prevailed upon Paul and his companions to bless her home with their presence. God opens our hearts and homes to His people.
Following a war against unwanted timber and green briar, which left us scathed but triumphant, and a conflagration in which we burned the bodies of the enemy, we leapt back into the filming mode and created another “Homely Hobos” video, this one titled, “Wheel Work 4 Food”.
The Lord brought home to me a foolishness in which I'd been indulging: that somehow, those who have suffered a disappointment, an emotional wound, a sorrow, a loss, are less able to love fully. What an immature and ungodly sentiment! Here I sit, a testimony to the fact that what God has healed is healed. What God has restored is restored. What God rebuilds is rebuilt. What God plans is better. Am I any less able to give, through God’s strength, the same sacrificial love? It is only through His power I can offer it in the first place. And who am I to look down on someone else, judging them as having not guarded their heart or having run ahead of the Lord and so unworthy of His blessings? None of us are worthy of His blessings. None of us are untainted, unscarred, without disappointment. It is healed wounds, perfected disappointments, rebuilt dreams that make our ashes something beautiful and notable as God’s work.
Lord, I find I judge my brothers,
Take note of the wounds of others,
Seeing them as somehow weak
Forgetting it’s the sick Thou seeks.
And have I no wounds of my own
That are treasure to be shown?
For what Thou heals are healed, Lord,
And strengthened by Thy saving word.
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