A friend called to pray with me and at the end of her prayer she told me about a teaching she had heard and enjoyed. It was about the fact that during conception, the communion of the sperm and egg is quite chaotic. All of the components of both parties are being combined: all of the DNA , the history of marriages, divorces, alcoholism, drug abuse, disease, behavior patterns and on and on. At the same time, in heaven we are created, all of our days are numbered and our life here on planet earth and for all eternity launched.
As one who has received the great gift of salvation through placing my faith in what Jesus did for me when He paid in full my sin debt on the cross, I exchanged my life for His. I exchanged my sin for His righteousness, my confusion for His peace, my ashes for His crown of beauty, my bondage for His freedom, my sadness for His comfort , my mourning for His joy, my spirit of despair for His spirit of praise, my shame for His double portion, my disgrace for a double portion of His inheritance. (Isaiah 61) And in Luke 4 Jesus repeats a portion of Isaiah 61 to underscore that this is why He was sent to earth.- to set the captives free, to release us from bondage! So if I can exchange all that belongs to me for all that belongs to Him why can’t I exchange my flawed DNA for His perfect DNA? I like that!
And so, Jim and I decided to begin having communion once a day. A symbolic gesture of remembering all that Christ has done for us. And we pray these two scriptures: “Heal me, LORD, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise.” Jeremiah 17:14 AND “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.” Isaiah 53:5. (Happy Dance!!!)
This is also very encouraging to us. After my biopsy, the next day I had a 3-4 inch wide dark purple bruising that went from about 3 inches to the left of my navel all the way over past my hip bone on the right.
Jim and I laid hands on where my incision is and prayed for healing. Oddly, the next day and all the days since, the skin under where we laid hands on me is the shape of a hand and perfectly bruise- free. It’s normal flesh color. The rest of me is healing but still solidly, deeply purple. What does that mean? We can’t say. But we are at least calling it a Wink from God!;-)
My point is that I think many of us live in mediocrity and we are called to so much more! I was reading Psalm 2: 7-9 in the Message Bible:
“Let me tell you what God said next.
He said, “You’re my child,
And today is your birthday.
What do you want? Name it:
Nations as a present? Continents as a prize?
You can command them all to dance for you,
Or throw them out with tomorrow’s trash.”
We all remember how it is to be a child and know that our birthday is special. That’s OUR day! I think here God is saying that every day is like it’s our birthday. To ask Him for something BIG! He loves when we come Him and ask. And that’s what we are doing in Walchle World. We are asking God for something BIG! To be honored, praised and glorified through this unexpected encounter with an unwelcome hideous, repulsive invader. He is faithful and well-able. With Him there is nothing impossible! Good will come of this!
Big hugs,
D