Seeing through Jesus’ Eyes

Today I was reading some of the news from around the world, and I understand why some Christians avoid it. There is very little good news on the news, whether it’s local, national, or worldwide. Terrorists, murderers, child abusers, spouse killers, thieves, robbers, the news is full of stories about them. I use the daily news as a prayer guide, that’s the only reason I keep reading it.

Sometimes we look at the world and people in the world in the light of prophecy, knowing one day God will blast all those ungodly people and their ungodly works to smithereens. Sometimes we wish that day would hurry up and get here.

But Jesus looked at people differently from the way most of us do.

One day Jesus needed to go through Samaria to get where he was going, according to John Chapter 4. Not a terribly interesting place, there was nothing particularly interesting about having to go through Samaria, to me. But to Jews?

No Jew needed to go through Samaria to get where he was going. In fact, he went miles out of his way to go around Samaria. He even crossed to the other side of the Jordan River to avoid Samaria and Samaritans.

But Jesus saw Samaritans as individuals needing help, spiritual help that only He could bring them. Therefore he needed to go there, and He did. He went, talked to a Samaritan woman (not just a Samaritan, but a Samaritan woman!), brought the gospel of the Kingdom to her and through her to many other people.

Zacchaeus was a wealthy man in Jericho, a chief tax collector. (Luke Chapter 19) That’s probably where he got all his money, don’t you think? Nobody likes tax collectors, especially Jewish tax collectors who work for the Romans and take a cut from everything they can gouge out of their fellow Jews. To make matters worse, Zacchaeus was short. He got no respect, but then he probably didn’t deserve any. That’s how most people would look at him. But Jesus looked at him differently.

Zacchaeus was curious. He wanted to see who this was coming his way, but the crowds wouldn’t let him through. So, putting his wealthy businessman’s dignity aside, he climbed up in the sycamore tree. Jesus looked up and saw him, not the way we would see him, but as someone who needed spiritual help that only He could bring him.

Jesus knows all the gloom-and-doom prophecies by heart but he sees the world as individual people who need help. He goes out of his way to get to them, to help them. He told the disciples to pray for the lost, not to condemn them. Not to hope that judgment would fall on them, but that mercy would fall on them.

We need to look at the world through Jesus’ eyes, especially when we read the news!

Delta’s Ready When You Are…?

Several things come to mind when I remember that old slogan — NOT. They lie!

Going out to Iceland was okay – lots of walking through terminals, up and down escalators, onto and off of air trains (subways at the airport), onto and off of buses (at the airport), shucking off shoes, loafers thank goodness, to go through several x-ray machines, lining up for Passport Control, watching the baggage go round and round and round… my luggage was so new, so plain, so unencumbered by recognizable stickers stuck on, or scarves or gnomes tied on. I waited until most folks had reclaimed their suitcases and finally figured out which ones were mine. Except for a mostly raw, lukewarm Swedish meatball meal on Iceland Air (it wasn’t supposed to be like that), the experience wasn’t too bad. Flights left and arrived mostly on time and all my luggage arrived with me. Hooray!

Coming back home was a different story, however. Iceland Air checked my baggage through to Atlanta but not on to Florence. Their meal on the plane was very good this time, however. They get points for that. At JFK in New York, I walked some more, rode escalators some more, this time maneuvered onto and off of elevated trains, had to claim my bags and re-check them, which is when I was told they were only checked through to Atlanta and not Florence, went back through x-ray machines and Passport Control, then got to the correct – Delta – terminal and gate in plenty of time.

I was so ready to get home. But Delta was not ready. I kept watching the digital board behind the gate clerk’s head for information. The time came and went for us to be called to board the plane. Finally the announcement went out. The plane was arriving late – bad weather in Atlanta. We would take off about thirty minutes late. The red digital numbers flashed and there was a new departure time. Okay, thirty minutes isn’t too bad, I’ll still have time to make my connection in Atlanta.

Thirty more minutes came and went. No new announcement, but the digital numbers flashed several times and the minutes pushed back. Departure time was now forty minutes late. Ummm. That will cut it close, I thought. As I tried to read my novel, I heard a few disgruntled comments and several worried comments.

At fifty minutes late we were allowed to board the newly-arrived plane. It was very questionable now whether any of us would be able to make connections in Atlanta, some going on to Florida, some heading west. I sat with a lady and we talked for a few minutes about our various destinations. She and her disabled husband, seated directly behind her (both wanted window seats) were returning home to Florida after a vacation in Maine. Their connections were iffier than mine.

We watched out of the window as one of those little baggage carts pulled up and a hefty fellow began loading suitcases into the belly of our plane.

The pilot came on the intercom and announced that the delay in our departure was because “You folks brought along a whole lot of luggage, it will take a few minutes to get everything loaded.” Yeah, right.

A few minutes later we observed a lady with a clipboard jog up to the guy tossing bags into the plane. They immediately got into a shouting match. The lady gestured, he shouted, she pounded and pointed to her clipboard, and finally he started pulling bags back off the plane. They were the wrong plane’s stuff. Off he went with his baggage cart, and more minutes went by while we wondered if our luggage was on some other plane, headed for L.A., or Chicago, or Timbuctu!

After a while another baggage cart drove up, the same hefty guy started tossing suitcases into the plane, and an hour and a half late, Delta headed for Atlanta. Yep, you got it. We all missed our connections. To make matters worse, Delta didn’t even offer me a discount on a motel room for the night. Rudeness gone to seed, the Delta clerk shrugged it off as she handed us a new boarding pass for the next afternoon.

Not only is Delta NOT ready when you are, they aren’t even polite about it.

Flexible!

Flexible. Flexible airline flights. Flexible meal menus. Flexible plans for the evening. A key word in OM Ships is flexible!

A crewmember went from table to table during dinner one evening with an invitation. An English evangelist was speaking at a home fellowship in Reykjavik, an anointed fellow with an amazing testimony, did anyone want to go? Hmmm. Why not? So ten of us from the Logos II piled into cars with Icelandic drivers we did not know, headed to an address miles away that we did not know, to a home fellowship we had never heard of. After ten minutes of zooming down main streets, around corners and down secondary streets, our driver screeched to a stop in the middle of a block in downtown Reykjavik and announced — we had arrived at The Whorehouse!

Through a darkened doorway and up an unlighted staircase, he led us to a foyer where everyone shucked off their shoes, an Icelandic custom. Hearing a multitude of voices from the next room, we headed that direction.

This months-old Christian fellowship met in a large upstairs apartment, indeed previously occupied by a house of ill repute. Walls had been removed to create a large meeting room with space for a pulpit and guitarist, our worship leader. A hundred or more teenagers, twenty-somethings and thirty-somethings were already crammed into the space. The congregation was mostly former drug addicts and alcoholics whose lives had been transformed by the grace of God. We squeezed through the crowd to the few empty seats and watched as more chairs were unfolded around the edges. Latecomers sat in the windowsills or on the floor.

“Let’s all stand” was followed by lively praise songs, some in English and some in Icelandic, hand-clapping and hand-raising accompanying familiar tunes. A little later the evangelist sang his way up from the back of the room. Next he recounted stories about the goodness of God interspersed with accapella renditions of How Great Thou Art, It Is No Secret, The Old Rugged Cross and others. He encouraged us to sing along to Oh, How I Love Jesus. He never learned to read and write, he said, but memorized scripture passages and gospel songs emphasized the points of his sermon.

His personal testimony was not included that night but our driver told us some of it. A hopeless alcoholic dying of cancer, God had miraculous healed, delivered and saved him and ever since then he has traveled throughout Europe spreading the gospel. Driving a double-decker bus around Iceland this summer, he gives away the Gospel of Luke and speaks to any group who asks him. He invited young men in the crowd to join him when he does it again next summer.

He ended his message the way it began, singing his way back to his seat. The fellowship leader invited those who needed prayer to stay and dozens went forward. While others headed for coffee in the kitchen, we reclaimed our shoes, made our way down the dark staircase and out to the car. It was a remarkable glimpse of God at work in Iceland, a church meeting at The Whorehouse in the city of Reykjavik.