Mix Up Your Routine

Saturday I wanted to do something different and surround myself with those not in my proximity so I went to the worstest part of town and surrounded myself with recovering alcoholics from a halfway house mind you I live in my own apt....so that is definitely changing up my routine...

I’ve been looking for a physical church for a very long time so that I could attend the service in the morning and watch SECC in the evening (due to the 8-hour time difference). I was offered several churches, but they didn’t suit me, and I prayed every night that God would give me the opportunity to visit the church that would be my home. I came to my hometown in Belarus and wrote to a classmate's wife and she invited me to church. I took my son with me, he had never been to church and he was taken to Sunday school for kids and for the first time he joined his hands and prayed to God, I looked at my boy from the other side. Every day I worked from morning to night and didn’t see my son, and last Sunday my eyes opened. Thank God

Today i was on a plane headed to Houston for business. I struck up a conversation with my seat mate and we started talking about life and God and how our Father moves so quickly and mightily in our lives if we're ready to respond. We quickly shared life stories and she told me how God has enabled not only her and her husband to move to another state but also her parents as well. It was a good conversation. We kind of tapered off then she leaned over and asked me too pray for her daughter and she told me about her job hunting attempts. So I said I'd be happy to pray for her daughter then I suggested we pray right then and there. After we got done she was in tears and so thankful. Nice mix up of my routine instead of another day of work. :)

I am a member of SECC online. After watching the service about the $20 envelopes, I went to the store and got $20 cash back and set it in my wallet, asking God to show me what to do with it. I saw a guy playing guitar by the store with a basket for money. I thought maybe that was what God wanted. But I felt him say Not Yet. One if my Hospice patients daughter asked if I could take her place at a community fundraiser at the Presbyterian church for the burned down community center. Mom just got COVID and she felt obligated to quarantine herself as well so couldn’t go. Normally my husband and I tend to isolate ourselves at our home in the woods, always turning things down. But I felt Gods urging “this is the one”. So I said Yes and I gave her the $20 plus the other $10 I had set aside (before I was able to go get the $20). We would take her place at the table. So tomorrow I am attending a community gathering and will be mingling with people from up and down the River. Out of my comfort zone but God is calling me there. Lord, open my eyes so I can SEE why I am meant to be there!

Jesus had this way of always being present with people while being about his day and his business, but he would have these moments where he would be with one person and everything else would fade away. He would give his attention to that one person.  Jesus wasn’t distracted or thinking about what was next to do when he was with someone; he was fully immersed in his time with them. In a world that has increasingly more distractions and things vying for our attention, we, as followers, are challenged to be completely present when with others. You never know the power your time and attention can have in the life of another person. If nothing more, by being present you show others value and love in the way that Jesus modeled for us. 

There's a lot of power in proximity, and it's needed today more than ever. People are lonely and isolated, but they were in Jesus’s time too for different reasons. If you look at Jesus’s interaction with people in the Gospels, he just seemed to understand this about people, that they had this need of being close to others. But Jesus is really clear when he speaks in Luke 14: when you're living life in proximity with people, don't just live your life in proximity with people who talk like you talk, believe what you believe in, look how you look, and value what you value.  We are challenged by Jesus to change our proximity up! Our proximity changes so much about who God puts in our path for us to show Jesus to and love others the way he modeled for us. This invitation to accept Jesus as savior is not just for a specific group of people, butfor the whole world. Jesus wants you to be intentional to invite people that haven't been invited to go places and to go places that you haven't felt comfortable going.

As followers of Christ, we've been given a huge stack of invitations to hand out to others. We get the privilege of sending these invitations, and there's no exclusiveness here. Nobody paid for an invitation. Nobody earned an invitation. It's been given freely to all who would accept it and receive it. So, we have all of these invitations, we're sent out and we go to places that are unfamiliar and uncomfortable. And we reach out to people who are uninvited and overlooked. And in doing this, we changed the world one person at a time.  We were initially not a part of the invitation list due to our sin, but because God sent Jesus to earth, he made a way for us to be invited. And so, we thank God for his grace that invites all of us. So, we called to and must make it our mission to invite as many people as possible to come with us. God wants you to be a part of bringing as many people as possible to the great banquet in Heaven.

As Christians, we are called to not just our lives in proximity with people who are convenient and are able to something for you in return. Jesus says those people will invite you back, but that will be your only reward.  Jesus connects our reward in heaven with the people we live in proximity with here on earth. He's connecting your reward in heaven with the kinds of people that you love during the time you are given. So, Jesus challenges us to think about who you are spending your time with. If you're just spending all your time with people who are comfortable and convenient, who can do something for you in return, or if you're just spending your whole life like creating these boundaries so that people who are difficult, high maintenance, or high need, you might get some rewards for that here on earth, but that'll be it.  Luke 14:13 says to invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. Then, at the resurrection, God will reward you for inviting those who couldn’t repay you. Remember, God's looking at your invitation. He's paying attention to who you're spending time with.