Every Tribe...

"After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb."  Revelation 7:9

A couple of months ago, my wife, Judith, and I went to a Christian concert in Houston.  It was a big, sold out event with thousands of people.  I noticed something different about this concert that I had not seen at previous Christian concerts - the crowd was much more ethnically diverse. 

Now Houston is a very diverse city.  I remember being sent to the grocery store while we were visiting in-laws there and I counted six different languages being spoken by the people in the aisles of Kroger.  This concert must have had people there from all over the world.  I sat next to a family that spoke Spanish listening to a band from Ireland singing about the love of God.  There were Asians, Africans, and some I did not recognize - quite literally as the children's song says, "red, brown, yellow, black and white."  I don't know if that would have happened just a few years ago.  But I am glad to have seen it happen now.

We started to leave the concert a little early, to beat the traffic but also because it takes me longer to get places now with this bum foot.  The best way to leave this outdoor pavilion was to exit near the stage area.  I looked back over the crowd as it rose up the slope of the hill and people seemed to extend all the way into the night sky.  They were standing and praising God.  I was reminded of John's experience in Revelation 7, "every nation, tribe, people and language."  It was a beautiful haunting sight and sound; a glimpse of heaven.  I wanted more and yet in that longing there was a sense of assurance that someday there will be.

A group of us have been praying for the Muslim world through this month of Ramadan. It has been an eye-opening challenge.  We will conclude things this week by hearing from one of our missionaries who has returned from a closed country in the Middle East.  All of this has gone to help me understand that God's love keeps getting bigger.  He cannot love us more than he already does, but he makes it possible for there to be more for him to love.  Let's see how big that love can be.

for the journey...

Tim

Destination Influence

In getting ready for my trip to Israel, I was pouring shampoo from a large bottle into a travel sized bottle.  As the smaller bottle began to fill something interesting happened.  Because of the thickness of the shampoo, there began to be something of a "pile" or mound of shampoo in the middle of the travel bottle .  The stream from the bottle of origin began to pour down the side of this little peak of shampoo in the middle of the bottle and started to move around the mound. 

This made a hard task even more difficult because the travel bottle had a small opening and now the stream of shampoo I was pouring began to dance around making it difficult to keep from spilling on the edge of the travel bottle.  Thankfully this dancing stream was short lived as the bottle filled up.

It dawned on me how the stream of shampoo became more determined by its destination than its origin.  That should be a good thing for us to aspire to as Christians.  As I was getting ready for this trip, my thoughts turned more and more to my destination.  There were a lot of preparations to make for being in another country.  The Christian life ought to be more and more like that as we mature.  We should become more influenced by our destination than our origin.  We should be getting ready for living in a new place.  The difference between my trip and our journey as Christians is that my trip is temporary, our trip and destination as Christians is permanent.  We are not getting ready for a visit there we are getting ready to live there eternally. 

So what is influencing more of your life today - your place of origin or your destination?  What preparations are you making for your journey?  Why not start today?

For the journey...
Tim