How the System Works
How the system works...what we pour in is what pours back out of us. We must equip ourselves with the knowledge of God's Word to increase our accuracy of discernment concerning what He is calling us to do.
Here is how the system worked for me one day last week. I believe with all my heart God set the stage for a teachable moment.
In the midst of changing over to Medicare there had been a billing dispute and I needed to take a form and a letter to the Social Security office in a city 45 minutes away. Several of our grandchildren are staying with us, so I needed to go early on the morning my husband was leading Bible study at home and would be on property should any problems arise.
Online the site said the office opened at 8AM. Arriving at 8:15 the building was locked and an additional sign was up saying the times of operation were 9-4. I decided to run an errand and come back. Arriving back at 8:50 there were two people sitting on benches outside. While sitting there with them waiting, two other people arrived and lined up right at the door. So, at 8:58 I made my way to the line.
It was a park/patio like setting out outside the building, so I wasn't certain my fellow bench sitters were waiting for the building to open. When I had been there at 8 other bench sitters appears to be homeless or wanderers. The two with me at 8:50 did not appear, by dress, to be going to any type of business meeting, maybe just finding a shady spot out of the heat.
At 9AM a social security official and two police officers came out of the building to address us with a series of rules and regulations. At that time the bench people stood and slowly, due to disabilities, made their way over in line behind me. Turning to them I stated they were there before me and I wanted them to go ahead of me in line. Y'all they were shocked by this offer, but the words from a devotional I'd just been reading on my phone while waiting came back to me.
"I was an outcast. Worthless. Surviving and escaping. My life was hopeless...until I met Jesus...He specializes in taking the most broken, lost cases and making them brand-new."
Living in a lake resort area, as we do, or out in the suburbs of downtown areas as most of you do, we rarely encounter the homeless who often wander the streets of downtown areas. Honestly, in my younger years I probably looked disparagingly on these people with a sense of leeriness. But being in God's Word now allows me to see them as He does, precious in His sight with purpose.
When I think of my visit to town and those disabled people trying to make their way to the doors of the building, I think of the people by the pool at Bethsada scrambling to get into the waters when they stirred in hopes of being healed. Some of them had no one to "put them in the pool".
Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had. Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, 'Do you want to be made well?' The sick man answered Him, 'Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.' Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” And immediately the man was made well, took up his bed, and walked. John 5:2-9
If I had not been putting the daily devotional into my mind and had study God's Word over time to remember the story by the pool I don't know if I would have been found faithful to offer the kindness God intended me to offer that day.
The system of being Jesus to a lost world only works if we are equipped and submissive to God's plan.
Here's the other perk of the system...I got the blessing and part of me is wondering if either or both of those people were angels and a part of God's "set up" to train Boo to look beyond herself that day and love like Jesus.
The other part, people and nowadays cameras, are watching. The police officer holding the door saw what I did and smiled. Yes, I was in a hurry, I had three grandchildren to get back home to and these people looked as if they had nothing to get to, but they are of value and they were there before me. Oh, the story got wilder with a man who came behind me going on a tirade over the mask requirement and an officer having to settle him down, it had me shaking a bit. But then, before I even make it to the check in at a computer a woman walked out and said if there is anyone here just needed to drop off documents would you make yourself known. That was me and you know what's next....
"The last became first!" Such a hallelujah story! Go with God! It's the best way to play!
The Song
"Beautiful Stranger" by Rebecca St James
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zP8Uqs2PiE
