I was delighted to discover I’d finally managed to evade a certain grocery store worker, but my satisfaction was short-lived. The new carry-out, a strapping highschool-age guy, peered over the cashier’s shoulder as she looked over my selected apples. “They’re Jonogolds,” I offered, helpfully. “Huh,” my carry-out said, shaking his head. “I coulda sworn they was apples.” I caught my smile as it exploded across my face and tucked it into my pocket for later before explaining: “Jonogolds are a type of apple.” He grinned, sheepishly, and tossed his longish hair out of his eyes. “Well, I guess I feel pretty stupid about now.” Then he elaborately pushed the cart out of his way and gathered all of my sacks into one hand. Oh, I was very impressed, I assure you. Almost as impressed as when random guys I’ve never seen before and never will see again spin their tires or rev their engines. The suburban seemed to impress him. “Well, that’s quite a lot of car for such a little, bitty thang like yourself.” Yuck! Get it off me! Thang? I mumbled something about big families needing plenty of room and shoved my hands in my pockets hoping he’d jump to all kinds of interesting assumptions. For years I’ve scurried around corners, dived down aisles, side-stepped comments and coated my whole person with as much oblivion as I can muster. In situations like these, I still haven’t figured out what’s the right thang to do.
The whole amazing past week came rushing past as I tried to update Tabitha during our weekly phone call/scripture quotation. Everyone should have a Tabitha in their life. Daily she prays scripture over me: that the eyes of my heart would be enlightened so that I might know what is the hope of my calling, the riches of the glory of His inheritance and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward me. And on and on and on and on. Just knowing that she is fighting beside me, even from so far away, lends strength to my step and determination to my heart. I offer thanks every time I pray for her. Even more importantly, I should be a Tabitha, as well, faithfully praying for all those I know.
In the whole excitement of the past several days, I’ve neglected to be taking special note of my Leviticus readings. Several items that have caught my attention: spelled out on the turban worn by the priests were the words “Holy to the Lord”. Revelation speaks of those with the seal of God on their foreheads—the new priesthood of believers? Why the words plastered across the forehead? Visibility! There was no doubt in anyone’s mind to who those priests belonged. As a member of the new priesthood, believers, sanctified and set apart by God to serve Him, I should live my life so radically that I might as well have the words “Holy to the Lord” plastered across my forehead. I also found the laws for lepers fascinating. It was the priest’s responsibility to pronounce a person “clean” or “unclean” based on the infection. When Jesus came as our Great High Priest, he reached out, touched and unclean leper and pronounced him clean—and by virtue of the fact that Jesus couldn’t be made unclean, the leper was healed! Of course, in the midst of the various and sundry laws, we find a very comforting verse. “The man who loses his hair on the top or sides of his head is bald. He is clean.” Never fear, our balding brothers. Yahweh holds it not against you.
Lord, Thy priests are labeled “holy”:
Sanctified both by and for Thee
Set apart so all may see
They serve a living Deity.
Once Thy priests need offer daily
Sacrifice of blood, to please Thee.
Now they draw near through the curtain,
Acceptance, through Thy Son, made certain.
1 comment:
Haha, I think the young man was probably purely innocent, just a little obnoxious as most were at that age. I think you would do best to simply be polite as you were, and just not offer anything extra. At least that worked on me when I was his age. I had never read the bald verse before very interesting. Sounds like you have some excellent folks around you, and you seem to genuinely appreciate it, good for you.
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