Our family was over until late last night, at least late for these aging folk who used to joke about my now 98 year old dad who sometimes hits the rack just after the 6:30 Evening News.
Once we cleaned up the kitchen, after saying our goodbyes, we decided to drink a cup of coffee and watch a couple episodes of "The Food That Built America" on the History Channel. Bedtime came about 11:30 and you guessed it, this old boy tossed and turned until he finally rolled out about 3:00 a.m..
That doesn't happen as often as it used to. In my younger days, now 25 years back, I'd roll out of bed to read, pray, even storm heaven, sometimes driving in early so as to watch the sunrise over our city from my 24th floor windowed office downtown Winston-Salem.
These days I am a little more guarded with my energy, but I still love to read when rest escapes me. This morning I continue to explore the journey of one Jim Palmer in his book, Being Jesus in Nashville. This guy has been reading my mail, though this book was published on 2012. I've always been a late bloomer.
God is up to something in my life as I feel the "enthousiasmos", Greek for the breath of God, a renewing essence not felt in years. I am now far more secure in life than when I first abandoned all sanity to prayer over our city for 2-4 years.
I say 2-4 because for the first two amazing years I would at times lay on my face before God from my 24th floor porch on a vacant floor in the Winston Tower feeling the Presence and envisioning what was meant when three visiting Rhodesian brothers looked me up in 1998. The older of the three looked me straight in the eyes as he shared, "Your city is one of the transformational cities in America." What do you do with that?
The last two years were less and less about prayer, as Master Counsel, Inc, the business platform I had chartered took off, my only means of income, or so I thought.
I had previously left what three degrees had prepared my life for as a public school educator, one with with top certifications. I was lured away by the thoughts that a growing church in the megachurch movement could better accommodate my calling from 1978 to "take cities". I guess you hear my once youthful, pentecostal oriented passion?
After six years full bore in the church, while being encouraged by the leaders in my hometown, I found myself on various boards and eventually on the county-wide planning board, even later as a three term mayor in the small bedroom community in which we had by then located.
The dream shared by the three "black angels" who claimed to have heard a Word from the Lord, themselves having "survived a blood bath in Rhodesia" slipped away over the years, but only after several passionate attempts at its unfolding by means of failed attempts on my part at convincing church and community leaders through various nonprofit ventures.
I am now well heeled (still healing) by His grace, and sit here this morning awaiting the next, as I pour over the wonder of another book that has found me. Yes, I'm still in the game of "being Jesus", that first generation college kid who's dad tells stories of his childhood home with wind blowing across the quilts under which he lay huddled 3 to a bed.
Meanwhile I sit on the other end of a beautiful home with walls hand painted (note images), the gift of my wife and her associates, all so skilled at interior decorating.
Not sure where this journey with Jesus is headed but sure is exciting!
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