day one...back in the day

"Back in the day" i might have been spotted walking around a parking lot or at an intersection near where the Dead might have been playing holding a sign that could have read "i need a miracle" (which in deadhead language means "i don't have a ticket do you have one you could sell me hopefully really cheap or better yet free!").... or I also might have been found walking toward the United Nations building, the Capital or the White House carrying pieces of poster board that may have had words on them relating to various current political actions...perhaps i had long hair (or any hair for that matter), a tye-dye shirt and some hippy-type necklaces...

Well.....things looked a little different this morning as i began a call to prayer at one of the busiest commuter intersections in the upper-middle class town where i live. I was at an intersection holding a sign like "back in the day" ... but my hair was thin, my shirt was black and my necklace was under a clerical collar....

... but my sign still asked for a miracle...but not for me, for someone else...and not for the Dead, but for Life

i stood there not in protest, but asking a request...asking for people to rattle the gates of heaven on behalf of people who are being oppressed....politically, spiritually, emotionally, economically, mentally....my sign simple ready "please pray for China"....

i had no agenda...only a burden that the Lord placed on me, one to call people to pray. i woke up freaked out over having to do what i said i was commented to doing.."what if the police come, what if people ask me why i'm there, what if the newspaper shows up, what if this is really not from the Lord and it's just my idea, what-if, what-if, what-if...so the first 15 minutes i was sweating and shaking...

so i stood their holding my sign. i sang in my head ...'i stand amazed" ...which kinda took my mind off of what i was doing...then i caught myself and started to pray for all the folks who went by and for all those in China...one car full of kids yelled at me, a city bus driver rolled down his window and mocked me, two cars honked and gave me a thumbs up...but most of the people drove by and looked, a few smiled...it seems like the masses didn't know what to do with a priest who stood in the center of town with a sign asking people to pray...

i was changed....i've asked kids over the years to gather at a flag pole and pray at their school in plain sight...i've told people to seek to please the Lord not man...i've preached about getting out of the boat and stepping onto the waves....i've done these things before, but never alone like this morning....i felt really exposed, yet wrapped in the blood of Jesus...i didn't have the anger of my youth, but the peace that surpasses all understanding...

so what happened? a bit of fear is gone from my life....and pretty much my whole town knows where i put my trust...and i'll be there each day for the next few weeks...asking people to join me in asking God for a miracle....and the only reason i'll be there doing this is because He has done one in my life

blessings....

stand with strong knees..

in the Master

b