It seems unusual that God would use a rest stop along the PA Turnpike to provide prophetic direction for the Church, but nonetheless, He did. At least I would like you to consider what the Spirit showed me just the other day.
Carol and I were headed west on the Pike to visit our daughter, Amy. Along the way we passed a rest stop called Sidling Hill. We have been there many times through the years, but the Spirit drew my attention to something more than snacks and potty time on this trip. (As we get older we need less snacking and potty time. TMI as my kids would say? )
As we approached the rest stop, I recalled that it had been recently remodeled. The Lord was using this remodeling as a prophetic message. The older version of the rest stop was rather small and limited, a rather 50’s kind of thing. IT had a few facelifts along the way, but remained essentially the same. There was a Starbucks (vital connection along the Turnpike for sure) and perhaps a smallish restaurant and a snack/gift shop. Originally the restaurant was the kind of place where you came in, sat down, and someone, usually a waitress dressed in a uniform came to your table, or maybe you got into a line at a single restaurant option and ordered something which was brought to your table. The point is that back then someone was facilitating your food and rest, and the choices were limited.
A couple years ago they demolished that older style rest stop and now it has been replaced with one that is more reflective of the postmodern way of thinking and living. The new version is several times larger and has up to 7-8 choices of restaurants on the outer perimeter. There is a large open space in the middle with what seems like hundreds of tables. (I did not count them) The message is clear; we want options, not direction. Whether we like it or not, 21st Century America, and I dare say the rest of the world, do not respond to someone telling them what to eat and how to rest or relate to other people--- let alone God. We value getting what we need and sitting where we want to sit.
The common facet of both the old and the new venues is the table and the hunger and the need for rest. Now, instead of the formality of the waitress and the little booths along the side which reinforces limited choices and separation, the folks choose what they want to eat and sit where and with whom they would like. Since the remodeling, I have gotten into a few impromptu and unlikely conversations in this new rest stop with folks I have never met and will likely never see again. No, I did not present them with a track or speak in tongues over them or lay hands on them; I just connected and gave them the Jesus who is at home in me. (I would have prayed if the Lord led me or they asked me to.) All because we gathered at a table positioned by the particular kind of food we wanted…what we were hungry for. What the world and the weary sojourners are hungry for is God not someone dressed in the Christian/churchianity uniform presenting them with the religious blue-plate special and a guest check!
People no longer value being spoon-fed. They want to explore on their own with relationships forming along the line of common need, not directed by common opinions or top down leadership. We are no longer Ozzie and Harriet sitting with the kids on Sunday morning forming an audience for a facilitator to tell us what God is saying. Post-moderns, or whatever we are being called now, no longer need a priest between them and God. There is a healthy, spirit-led anarchy of people emerging who are seeking true and transforming intimacy with the One whose breath is in their faces. There is still the table and still the need for rest. The Spirit longs to be the Facilitator who reveals Jesus, who reveals the Father who reveals us as His precious kids at His own table. When top-down leadership tries to facilitate the postmodern, the PM replies, “Who says so?” “Who are you?” If there is no evidence of reality and the breath of God in these leaders, they are not leading anywhere. They are irrelevant leftovers from the menu back in the 50’s and 60’s.
The rest stop and its remodeling are all a prophetic emblem to the body of Christ. We will inevitably have to provide a venue for intimacy and expression. PMs see the facilitator/pastor person like the waitress who used to serve at the old rest stop. They are an interesting caricature from the past. They are more like Guy Smiley from Sesame Street with “Rev-hair” and charisma—an “awe-shucks” attitude of disconnected and religious unreality. The older of us may feel this is rebellion and long for the days when folks would come on Sunday and submit to “God’s anointed.” The truth is we are all called and anointed. We must dust off our salvation experience, revisit our first love, and pay attention to the guy or gal sitting at the next table in the rest stop. They have a need and are hungry for God. Will we pay attention? Are we willing to trust the Spirit to lead us to the others seeking rest?
The table in the rest stop is the venue of the kingdom of Heaven. (See my book Living the God-Breathed Life) Jesus’ first sermon, “The kingdom of Heaven is right here!” is still good today. The kingdom may be established in the person sitting next to you at this moment. Look around and allow the Facilitator to draw us to the others who need rest so desperately in this restless place. I can hear Jesus saying, “Come to Me, all of you who are worn out and tired of the same old stuff. I will give you true rest. I am the rest stop!”
Have You Understood? Matt 13:47-52 "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet cast into the sea, and gathering fish of every kind; and when it was filled, they drew it up on the beach; and they sat down and gathered the good fish into containers, but the bad they threw away. "So it will be at the end of the age; the angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous, and will throw them into the furnace of fire; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. "Have you understood all these things?" They said to Him, "Yes." And Jesus said to them, "Therefore every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of heaven is like a head of a household, who brings out of his treasure things new and old." Jesus’ question here, “Have you understood?” What is it that we need to understand? Jesus is teaching about the kingdom of Heaven. I am seeing this parable in the broadest sense as having to do with the kingdom as a present reality in the believer and follower of Christ. Jesus compares the kingdom to a dragnet which is thrown into the water to collect fish. Some of the fish are good and edible and some are not. The ones that are not usable are thrown out. Jesus seems to be asking, “Do you understand that you are going to collect a lot of stuff through your life? You need to examine what you are hauling around in your nets.” Some of what we accumulate along the way will be good and other s stuff not. We have to evaluate what is in our lives like throwing the net onto the beach to see what is good and what is not—what advances the kingdom in my life and what simply adds weight and wears me out as I haul it around. The kingdom of Heaven is not a future blissful fantasy but a present reality wherever we live and cultivate the presence of the King. The Kingdom of God is where we live in the Peace of God, by the Power of God in the Presence of God. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand—it’s right here within us. Jesus asks, “Have you understood?”, suggests a deeper searching within the net of our lives to reveal what is life-giving for his reign in us and what is dead weight. Let us cast our nets up onto the beach and see what is good and what is not. Take a moment now and cast your life-net onto the beach and ask Jesus to tell what is a keeper and what needs to be thrown away.
“How many loaves to you have? Go look!” As followers of Jesus we sometimes find ourselves in desolate places---places where we lack experience and inspiration to navigate. We are at the end of the day...the end of the food….the end of natural understanding. Jesus asked this question of His followers in the midst of great need when many desperate people who trailed Jesus and His intimate talmidim had no obvious provision of food. (Mark 6:30-38) They pursued Jesus looking to be filled in a spiritual sense but now it was late and everyone looked at everyone else wondering where food was going to come from to feed this crowd. In a practical sense we disciples of Jesus encounter the same reality. We look around at the desperate need and ask, “How many loaves do we have?” or “What do I have to meet this kind of need?” I am often in desolation—in way over my head in personal or ministry stuff. My first carnal reaction is to resort to rational and common sense just like the followers of Jesus did telling Jesus to send the folks away to deal with their own problems. But the reality is that I must have something to give them. I have to “go look!” Where do I look? The context of this event with Jesus and His followers begins in the “secluded place”, which is a place of quiet where Jesus has drawn me to Himself, in part to prepare me to encounter the place of seeming desolation. In that place of quiet seclusion I rest in Jesus. The desolation I find myself in may be one of ministry or personal struggle of illness or just plain confusion. Whatever it is, I have acquired something of Jesus in the season of quiet. The difference between the place of quiet seclusion and desolation is the Presence of Christ. My desolation can become one of quiet seclusion and devotion as He becomes Lord of the immediate. I’m not sure where you are today—what your desolation is. But you got here by following Jesus. Quiet your heart for a moment and allow yourself to go to that quiet place along with Jesus’ followers the scripture described in Mark 3: 30-32. Read the text and let it fill your mind. The apostles gathered together with Jesus; and they reported to Him all that they had done and taught. And He said to them, "Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while." (For there were many people coming and going, and they did not even have time to eat.) They went away in the boat to a secluded place by themselves. What does this quiet place look like to you? Now allow yourself to connect with Jesus in the scene. This is the place where we look inward to the resources He has laid up for us, not to the world. Whatever the seeming desolation is Jesus is there and whatever you need is already there in your midst. It may not seem rational-it may be a couple little fish and some bread but put them in Jesus’ hands. Blessings. Thom
What Were You Talking About? They came to Capernaum; and when He was in the house, He began to question them, "What were you discussing on the way?" But they kept silent, for on the way they had discussed with one another which of them was the greatest. Mark 9:33-35 We are all of a journey of sorts. Like those first followers of Jesus, we are on a journey to really knowing Him and the power of His resurrection. You can see Jesus and His followers coming to the house mentioned in the scriptures and sitting down at the table. You and I are on the same journey to the table with Jesus. The table is the place of transparency and being present to one another. The table is where we come home to one another. Wherever our journey begins it will lead us to the table. As I envision this informal table time with Jesus I see Him passing food back and forth surrounded by the discussion and laughter. Then a piercing question comes, “What were you guys talking about on the way?” Busted!! Everyone gets quiet but Jesus knew their hearts. They were all talking about who would be the greatest among them—who would be important in the coming kingdom—who would be a big shot. Along the way of our journey there is an inner heart conversation going on. Alas, most of the conversation in our hearts is about us with our gripes and our glory. Our hearts are taken up with the circumstances of the day or maybe some kind of axe we have to grind with the person at work or perhaps something someone said or did to us that seemed unfair. We are victims. We carry conversations in our hearts embroidered with bitterness and opinions about everything and everyone—everything and everyone that is except the table and Jesus. I wonder if we would spew the contents of our hearts out at the table with Jesus. These become obstacles between hearts and faces at the table with Jesus and the others we love. They are not worth to be compared with the heart of Christ being poured out to us at the table. Imagine you are sitting at Jesus’ table right at this moment. He looks at you with love and asks, “What are you talking about on the way to My table?”
“Why are you so afraid?” As evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, "Let's cross to the other side of the lake." He was already in the boat, so they started out, leaving the crowds behind (although other boats followed). But soon a fierce storm arose. High waves began to break into the boat until it was nearly full of water. Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. Frantically they woke him up, shouting, "Teacher, don't you even care that we are going to drown?" When he woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the water, "Quiet down!" Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm. 40 And he asked them, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still not have faith in me?" Mark 4:35-40 NLT “Why are you so afraid?” The word that stands out to me is the little word, “so.” Most of us have some level of fear. But this is a fear that causes a doubt in the heart of God. The followers of Jesus climbed into the boat with Him, sailed into darkness and storm. When the water began to fill the boat—when they started to get wet their focus shifted away from the face of Jesus to preserving their own lives. They said in effect, “Jesus, you don’t care.” Think about these first followers. It started out OK. They were in the boat with Jesus. At first they could see His face but it grew dark and He retired to the back of the boat. Now the wind came up and waves began to challenge their little boat threatening to swamp them. The disciples became frantic, waking Jesus from His place of rest, “Teacher, have you noticed the water filling the boat? Don’t you care? We are going to go under!!” You and I are no different than these precious brothers. We start out with some experience of the presence and plan of God. We are in the boat with Jesus. Then real life and circumstances bring darkness and our vision is less clear. We encounter contradictions and doubts and our focus shifts from the face and purpose of Jesus as our boat begins to fill. Now we go nowhere. Our lives and ministries are dead in the water. Of course Jesus stands up and says, “Quiet down!” It is only when we are quiet that we can hear His voice above the din of wind and wave. Now, let’s get into the boat with Jesus. Close your eyes and see yourself there. The wind and unsettling waves come up and begin to cause doubt and fear. You are aware of darkness, winds, storm, water and we feel alone. Why are you so afraid? Where did you begin to lose focus? Now, as you are in the boat with Jesus, allow Him to speak “Quiet” into your fear. What do you hear him speaking into your storm? I encourage you to journal your experience with Jesus in the boat right here on this site. Why are you so afraid?
What do you seek? These are the very first words uttered by Jesus in ministry. (See John 1:35-39) How would you answer Him? The very first words the son of God, the Messiah spoke on planet earth were a question—a life question. In fact Jesus asks pretty much the same question of His parents in the temple when He was 12 years old. “Why are you seeking Me?” Step into the sandals of the two following Jesus for a minute. Jesus spins around suddenly looking at you eye to eye with great tenderness and asks you, “What do you seek?” Jesus asked the same question many times when He encountered people with obvious healing needs. Jesus wasn’t asking, “What do you like?” or “Would you prefer chocolate, vanilla or strawberry?” Jesus not being insensitive or dull, He was asking what was important—what they were going after. What do you seek? There is a staggeringly simple answer: You and I seek whatever we believe is lost to us—whatever is missing. The blind man outside Jericho wanted to regain his lost sight. How would you answer Him? What are you looking for? What are you pursuing? What is important to you? What do you feel is lost or missing from your life? Pretend that no one is watching you right now—that you are totally alone with your heart. How would you answer the question? When you look into the eyes of your children or grandchildren or your spouse or your faith community, what are you seeking? What are you looking for? What is lost to you? This question and the answer to it determine our peace in every aspect of our life’s journey from our friends to our finances. Whatever we seek, whatever we are searching for drives and directs us. It becomes our operating system. Whatever I seek steals my heart. Jesus describing in the kingdom of God uses the example of a man who put everything on the line for what was important and of value to him. “…the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls, and upon finding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it. (Matt 13:46) What are you and I selling ourselves for? What are we going after? How do we know what we’re really seeking? The first place to start is to look around our lives. What do we spend our money and energy on? What do we think about—dream about? What’s in our checkbooks or on our calendars? What do we give our attention to? What kinds of voices do we listen to? What kinds of people do we hang out with? What books have we read in the last year? What do we allow to come into our homes and hearts through media? What are we willing to put up with? What moves our emotions? What do we talk about? What do we want for our children or grandchildren? What do we most complain about? What do we worry about? What do we count on to bring us peace? What can we not live without? What makes it a good day or a day bad day for us? What’s in our attics or basements that we just can’t throw away? We might spend some serious time just meditating on those questions and we will get a good idea of what we seek. The LORD will never settle for being top billing in our lives. He is not impressed with bumper stickers saying He is number One. He wants to be the only One! We seek first the kingdom of God or better yet the King of that kingdom before all. Paul writes that Jesus is to have first place in all things. (Col 1:18) Jesus himself quotes the Torah saying, “Worship the Lord and serve Him only.” (Luke 4:10) There is no second place in the pursuit of God. We don’t just pursue Him harder than everything else. We seek Him only and everything else flows to us as we go after God. “Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God.” (Pet 1:2-4, The Message, Eugene Peterson.) What do you seek? What are you after? What controls your life? Get in a comfortable place with Jesus and let Him ask you the question. Be prepared to write down a few answers that come to your mind. What do you seek?
BLOG