Rushing To Crisis

The kids and I were on our way home yesterday when I noticed several sets of flashing lights, about a mile ahead. Our normal route has us make a left before the accident but something powerful stirred in my heart as I realized there was an emergency on the road ahead. I imagined broken, bloodied bodies on the road and the gifted & trained professionals who would be tending to their wounds.

But I realized that the Kingdom was drawing us to the scene of the crisis.

We drove forward and my heart began racing. I pictured myself parking my car and bringing gospel-centered prayers to the victims and speaking the power of the cross into their despair. I began praying out loud so my kids would engage with the situation, even though their eyes couldn't see over the sides of the doors and through the windows. When their sight isn't "high" enough to see or understand, I still draw them into the situation so they encounter Kingdom. We prophesied to the injury, internal bleeding, and mental states of those involved and we took Blood-centered authority over the situation.

We arrived at the scene to find that there were no victims, probably removed by ambulance, and the only remnants were deployed air bags and broken metal & plastic on the road. I was slightly disappointed we couldn't stop but we continued praying and I asked Zoe if she knew the names of the hurt people. She responded with a confident "Laura. Jess." So we prayed for "Laura" and "Jess" and we'll know in eternity their real names. Or the real faces with the prophesied names.

In Matthew 9:36, Jesus looks at a crowd of people who were:

harassed

helpless

distressed

dispirited

confused

aimless

bewildered

faint

scattered abroad

weary

and hurting

Even after healing and announcing the kingdom for days - weeks? months? - Jesus chose to see people and have a heart response to them. Isn't everyone in their own personal crisis? Isn't everyone hurting? Don't we live in a land of confusion and aimlessness? And aren't so many of today's people feeling faint and weary? We are living in a day of crisis and are called to bring Kingdom.

And so, we shepherd our children's hearts so they rush to crisis, and not despise it. We train our children to love people in their individual emergencies and enter with hearts of love. To tell them to run away or to model a life of comfort that avoids the problems or crisis of others - is to tell our children that the gospel is not true and that Jesus is insufficient.

Book Review: Crazy Love by Francis Chan

Crazy Love has been quite the adventure and I'm a little sad to be closing the final chapters of this inspiring book. I wanted to share a few highlights:

In his opening chapter, Francis directs his readers to view two videos available on his website. The Awe Factor of God is brilliant.

Chapter 4, "Profile of the Lukewarm," gets pretty personal as Francis addresses some specific attitudes and behaviors of so-called lukewarm Christians. (He even at some points go as far as to say that lukewarm Christians cannot exist.) Page 68:

"Lukewarm People don't really want to be saved from their sin; they want only to be saved from the penalty of their sin. They don't genuinely hate sin and aren't truly sorry for it; they're merely sorry because God is going to punish them. Lukewarm people don't really believe that this new life Jesus offers is better than the old sinful one."

He included a beautiful prayer from A.W. Tozer's The Pursuit of God, which has been prodding my heart more towards the heart of Jesus:

"O God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I am painfully conscious of my need for further grace. I am ashamed of my lack of desire. O God, the Triune God, I ant to want Thee; I love to be filled with longing; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory I pray Thee, so that I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, "Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away." Then give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long."

Good book. Great author. Glorious God.