Maundy Thursday

This is a bit crazy but it is 1:30 a.m. on Good Friday morning. After tossing around for what seems like hours..only three....I'm sick of it and decided to do something productive. I've watched television, listened to music, now this. I answered my e-mails which I normally wouldn't get til morning. Hopefully, the time I normally do that I will be on my ear. Why am I so wired? The whys and wherefores are not coming so here I sit.

Tonight was a wonderful night. Some friends traveled with Ken and me to St. Joseph Michigan to our son's church for their Maundy Thursday service. It began as kind of a fluke. It was asked at our church on Sunday that we bring cushions to sit on in our Thursday service. Both our male friend and Ken said they couldn't sit on cushions or pillows so they would have to do something else. I suggested we go to John's church and it developed from there. In the end, I'm not sure what the cushion thing was all about because there was tables and chairs set up for our service. I'm sure it was nice and we would have received a blessing from it. However, the thought of doing something out of the blue and seeing our kids and grandkids, too, took our attention. We left around three o'clock and had dinner together on our way. The service was instructive and enlightening. One understood the sacrifice just a bit better because of it. The bell choir was enjoyable.

It is both humbling and exciting to sit in a service in which one's son is the pastor. The most exciting thing is that one can see and hear the spirit of God pouring out of him. The humbling thing is that God can use "mine". Actually, he is more God's than mine, but I did have something to do with it, didn't I? I recall how at age twelve he began to suggest that God was calling him to be a minister of the Word. I remember lifting that to God and asking Him to use him. I also remember doing the dance between encouraging him and pushing him. I didn't want to cross the line. Pushing someone into the service of God is a train wreck waiting to happen. I think that was when I began to learn to wait on God. How could my boy possibly think of enough things to say about God to fill two sermons each Sunday? I smile now when I think of the concerns I had then. I didn't need to even think them. I learned that God means what He says about His spirit speaking through His servants. The Word of God just flows through that boy. God is using Him and I am humbled. Eventually, after trying several detours, being married and having three children, John returned to seminary to validate his calling. It is not an easy road. But it is a journey of joys and sorrows that build faith.

At the end of the service, that little boy of mine picked up his guitar and sang a song. It was a beautiful song about the sacrifice of Jesus; the refrain saying, "Father, forgive them". I know he is mine, but I have to confess, his song was annointed. I'm not at all sure there was perfection in it, but there definitely was annointing in it and that made it beautiful.

Thank you Lord, for working in our kids even after our work with them is virtually complete. You are so faithful. Work yet in those that are not following you. This is Easter week, Jesus. Thank you for your sacrifice for us. Holy Spirit, work that salvation into those we love who are not yet connected to You. You know who they are. In the powerful name of Jesus.