Tag: shepherd

Poverty, My Greatest Blessing

- dannalundstrom

I love old, beautiful churches, so it is no surprise I was drawn off the busy streets of downtown Chicago and through the front doors of Fourth Presbyterian Church this past Thursday morning. Inside I sat down to enjoy sacred shelter from the cold and the hustle and bustle of what was going on outside the majestic doors, although that was not my motive for going in. I walked into the church wanting to experience Jesus and expecting I would. I had no pre-conceived notions what that would look like, but imagine my surprise when I found what I was unknowingly seeking in the eyes and embodiment of a homeless person.

After a couple of minutes inside, I broke through my fascination with the beauty around me, and I noticed near the front of the church a handful of people sitting on both sides of the middle aisle. I quickly realized they were homeless. They had come in off the streets to warm up and rest. I sat silently in the back just observing. God began to make something evident to me. I wasn’t there to watch homeless people in a beautiful church. I was there to remember one of life’s wealthiest truths.

There in that reverent church, I felt drawn to engage, so I walked forward and sat down next to one of the men. I said, “hello.” His disposition was gentle and relaxed. He was soft-spoken. It was apparent that he and his friends were broken, impoverished, homeless, needy, unclean and dependent for every need.

His eyes. I will never forget them. They looked sad but settled. They were sunken yet soft, wrinkled while welcoming. The story they expressed was foreign yet familiar.

This man and his friends bore no weight of expectations beyond shelter and rest. No schedules were taunting them, and no plans or unmet duties were daunting them. They just came as they were, destitute, weary and worn.

I sat there in clean, warm clothes seemingly not lacking, yet oddly I knew that even though it looked like the homeless people had nothing, in a different way they had everything, the most important thing, I need every day. A fresh awareness of the poverty of my heart is my greatest blessing.

As I sat with this man, I asked God to make me more like him. That sounds crazy, right? Not at all. I want to enter into The Lord’s presence fully aware that I am poor, needy, lost and unclean without a Savior outside of myself. I want to come free of distracting thoughts about schedules, deadlines, and duties, and for the love, thinking about what I will eat next! I want to come as I am, not as I feel I should be. I want to come aware of what is but more focused on the hope of what will be. I want to come empty of myself because it is only then I can be filled by my Savior.

These people were an exposed and unfiltered expression of me. I can dress up in my best smile, clothing, and accessories, surround myself with desirable things and people, but underneath it, and right in the middle is an impoverished heart that cannot be dressed up. It is destitute, broken, frail and in desperate need of a Shepherd every day.

Just like the people I encountered, I am a homeless heart wandering around grasping for places of shelter and rest because this world is not my home and everyday-everyday-I feel the ramifications of my exile.

The good news is this, though, I do not wander without hope or direction when I remember it is my poverty, not my perfection, popularity or “power” that yokes me to the love of my Provider. Neither do you, friend. Neither do you.♥️

And, this was the hymnal song that was on the board.

Already Found

- dannalundstrom

Earlier today I was scrolling through Instagram, and this phrase caught my attention: “Spending most of my days searching for someone I’ve already found.” It is the bio line on Beth Moore’s Instagram account, and it stopped me dead in my tracks before I even saw who wrote it because I knew it described me!

Shortly after reading that I heard Billy Graham say in one of his sermons from the 1980s that a famous woman wrote in her suicide note, “I only wanted to find a little happiness.” I assume she never found it.

Like the woman, he referenced, my problem is I am searching to fill a void, too, but in all the wrong places. I pursue happiness in food, possessions, people, accomplishments, approval… I think you get my point.

We live in an “instant” world. We can have instant everything from food to hair. My generation is probably on the fringes of being the last ones with any remote memory of life before every desire was quickly at our fingertips.

Our salvation is instant at the point of putting our faith in Jesus, but other than that, He can appear to be painfully slow and silent.

Contrary to the tempo of our culture, we do not depend on a microwaveable Savior.

Because my flesh wants instant everything, including happiness, and I possess the illusion of “self-salvation,” relying on Jesus sometimes does not even enter my radar until I have tried a million other things and am still holding a tall glass of water and dying of thirst.

I cannot tell you how often I have frantically searched for glasses that were on my head, keys that were in my hand and a purse that was on my shoulder. I was desperately looking for what I already had but did not remember.

On a more serious note, it grieves me that I waste so much energy and precious time searching the world for a Savior who is already in my heart, but I sometimes forget to acknowledge.

I am a lost lamb who daily needs to be found, put on the shoulders of my Shepherd and carried back home. I am a lost lamb, and that is ok because a Shepherd never forgets His sheep, not even one!