Friday, June 21, 2013

The One Who Speaks....

"As generous distributors of God’s manifold grace, put your gifts at the service of one another, each in the measure he has received. The one who speaks is to deliver God’s message. The one who serves is to do it with the strength provided by God. Thus, in all of you God is to be glorified through Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 4:10-11).
 Ah, good. There is something for the word-maker to do in the Kingdom.

"Speaking" is a gift from God, a gift of grace. Into all of the insecurity and vanity, and the brilliance touched by madness, the constant tilt of a mind that rises too high, too often, and therefore lacks oxygen, the impossible urge to express what cannot be said -- into this human whirlwind comes grace.

The words we can never find are given to us. And we are charged with a work of service, indeed a work of mercy: deliver God's message!

Here we are with our words and our education; we come not as wise men but as servants. Poor, pallid, wildly creative, brain damaged, exhausted by books and ideas, spent and broken by the failure of human heights, and full of wonder at the grace that is given to us right now, we come to serve. By grace we crawl on the ground and carry the bowl for Jesus as He washes your feet.