Please take time to read our Scripture focus for this series, Luke 24:13-34.
A well-spent hour.
When was last time you spent one? How did it walk? How did it talk? What were the particulars and who was involved?
Everyday we are given twenty-four hours to spend. At least one of them should spend extraordinary—in the sowing of something worthy. In the seeding of humanity’s soil toward a good and sacred end.
Everyday, twenty-four hours. Every week, 168 opportunities to plant for God’s greater gain. And so I ask you again, when was the last time you invested wisely?
Not long ago, I lived a well-spent hour. It was with one of you, on the phone during a long drive home from a doctor’s visit. I’d been meaning to call for some time but hesitated for various reasons. Good reasons, but not great ones. So instead of companioning alongside my music for the seventy miles ahead, I decided to make the call. I’m so glad that I did. The hour flew by with the flurry of our many words.
Words about life. Words about dreams. Words about pain. Words about hope, and most importantly…
Words about Jesus and prayers spoken accordingly. A worthy boast shared between two hearts who are intricately connected by the cord of Calvary’s reach. It wasn’t just a great hour, my friends. It was a lavish investment of sacred proportion. A life-shaping, extraordinary segment of chronicled time. Not because it held a great epiphany for either one of us, but simply because our Jesus was lifted up in our few moments of conversation. And therein lies a seeded truth for all of time…past, present, and future.
Every occasion that boasts the name of Jesus is an occasion marked forever as sacred. When God is the topic of conversation…when his name takes the stage of our hearts…his presence is sure to follow—to arrive and to mediate his majesty within our midst.
He did meet with us in that hour, even as he did with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus almost 2000 years ago as they walked their questions and talked their faith. Jesus could have bypassed this moment…could have taken another road in that particular hour. After all, it was a big day for him. A resurrection day. A day of making good on a promise that was sown before the very foundation of the world. But rather than taking to the immediate applause of the stage, Jesus took to the road. Why?
Because where two or three are gathered in his name…his promise is to be among us (Matthew 16:20).
Indeed, they were gathered in his name. Not fully understanding all that had happened. Not fully connecting the dots between the stirrings and the wonderings and the speculation of things to come. Still and yet, they talked. They didn’t dismiss their heart’s pause. They put voice to their thoughts, and in doing so, they entreated the heart of their Savior.
This is a teaching that certainly warrants our attention this day as we continue to set our tables for communion with the Father.
If deep communion with Jesus is to be tasted, then boasting in his name is a certain invitation that will always draw his sacred participation.
When was the last time that you invested accordingly?
We are a people of many words, unafraid to put voice to our lofty ideals and our superior thinking and our emotions that almost always rally to the stage, regardless of their intent. We litter our conversations with talk about…
Marriage.
Children.
The lack of either.
Television shows.
Trends.
People…both of the normal and perceived strange variety.
Headlines.
Diets.
Exercise.
Habits.
Politics.
Music.
Food.
World views.
Religions.
Concerns.
Frustrations.
Joys.
Hurts.
_____________________,
All potentially worthy topics for discussion. Potentially. But if we were to carefully examine our words with the scrutiny of an unseen focus—a sacred gaze into the eternal value of our language—how much of it would seed lasting and toward God’s good and perfect end?
I’m not after a legalistic approach to “doing life” with Jesus. I’m not after a cloistered existence that lives in isolation, apart from others so as to keep a constant focus on God. A monastic lifestyle is not my preference. But what I am after, is more meaningful participation in the life that I’ve been given.
More purposeful attention toward the “stuff” that matters. More conversations that seed toward the future. More communion with the Father that breathes eternal and toward my good and perfect end.
Well spent hours. Well spent weeks. Well spent years. A well spent life. I can live it alone with Jesus, but it won’t spend as well as when I live it alongside of you…
Doing life together with Jesus. Boasting in his name and sharing in his communion as we walk our Emmaus road to the table of grace.
Thank you, each one, for taking the time to walk this journey with me. Some of us have been “doing life” together for the last 100 posts. Today marks the occasion, and the seeds of friendship that have been sown along the way have been etched with the favor of heaven’s breath and with the communion of a Father who sees us as we walk and who worships with us as we talk–
about Him. About our soon and coming forever, when the seeds of our now will bloom lasting and beautiful and for our good and perfected end. It is my privilege to share life with you, and to pray on your behalf…
Grant us, Father, the gift of your presence as we walk this journey. As we talk of your fame and as we boast in your gracious grace that has been lavished upon us because of your limitless love. Make us ever mindful of your walk among us, and let our words be seasoned with conversations that level from such an understanding. Let them speak with eternal focus and let them breathe with the everlasting strength and power of your witness. It is my joy to “do life” with the saints here in blogland. Use my words for your glory and for their gain, for as long as I am allowed this forum. You are the only boast worthy of my words. Humbly and with reverence, I submit my pen for the journey. Amen.
Copyright © September 2008 – Elaine Olsen. All rights reserved.
~elaine
As a way of celebrating this 100th post, I will be giving away Chris Tomlin’s new CD (oh my… have you heard it?) entitled “Hello Love.” Just leave a comment, and I will select a winner prior to my next post. If you want to hear one of the songs, “I Will Rise,” click on the screen below. I love doing life with you! Shalom.