Radical Demonstrations

“But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who are abusive to you.”

Jesus Christ (Luke 6:27, 28)

What if what is missing in the lives of people who hate you, who want to see you silenced, cancelled, dismissed is an experience of grace? What if people who don’t deserve it (like all of us) experience the goodness of God through the blessings of those they shun?

What if we prayed for and not against all the people Jesus loved so much that he gave his life to reconcile them to their creator?

What if those of us who know what it means to have been loved by the Lover of our souls while we were still far from him come out and demonstrate? What if we come alongside our haters in radical demonstrations of the love he has poured out for us?

Feels counterintuitive, doesn’t it? It would take a radical shift in our first-reaction mindsets.

But what if Christians believed Jesus? How would culture shift?

Jesus Christ, the ultimate revolutionary.

Pretty in pink

Photo: dancing blooms

We celebrated our granddaughter’s tenth birthday today. Tonight I laid my hand on her head and prayed that she would see herself as God sees her –So rein und schön und hold.

Du bist wie eine Blume

Heinrich Heine

Du bist wie eine Blume,

So hold und schön und rein;

Ich schau’ dich an und Wehmut

Schleicht mir ins Herz hinein.

Mir ist, als ob ich die Hände

Aufs Haupt dir liegen sollt’,

Betend, daß Gott dich erhalte

So rein und schön und hold.

 

(Translation)You are like a flower,

So lovely, fair and pure;

I gaze at you and wistful

Melancholy slips into my heart.

It’s as though I ought to place

My hands upon your head

And pray God to ever keep you

So lovely, fair, and pure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ftc-i3IvkMI