Just Touch Me!

"And they were bringing even their babies to Him so that He would touch them, but when the disciples saw it, they began rebuking them. But Jesus called for them, saying, 'Permit the children to come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.  Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.'  
"A ruler questioned Him, saying, 'Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?' ... He said to him, 'One thing you still lack; sell all that you possess ... and come, follow Me.'  But when he had heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich.  And Jesus looked at him and said, 'How hard it is for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!'"
– Luke 18:15-24, NASB (excerpts)

Children just wanna be touched.

I recall some of the earliest words out of my little girl's mouth, as she was learning to talk---"Please...me up!  Please...me up!" 

In her plaintive, wee voice, with chubby little arms stretched upward for Daddy's love and attention, the plea sounded exactly like "Beam me up!  Beam me up!"---until she was magically transported through the air and into her father's arms.

Children just wanna be touched.

Not so with us adults.  We're more reserved.  Like Richie, the young aristocrat, who came to Jesus for a to-do list.

Or worse yet, we're protocol people, like the disciples:  "Orders are, Nobody can see the Great Oz!  Not nobody, not nohow!"

Jesus surely cut loose a hearty laugh, as he called over the shoulders of his self-appointed bodyguards.  "Nonsense...Step right up, kids! Children just wanna be touched.

"And by the way, if you oafs had half a brain, you'd line up for a touch too.  You're so busy guarding the doors to the Kingdom that you haven't entered it yourselves!  Step inside.  You'll discover that it's not about rules, to-dos, or protocol.  The babies have it right---it's all about touch."

These two vignettes---Jesus touching the babies and Jesus confronting the young ruler---are listed back-to-back for a reason.  He's speaking to us across the centuries, saying, "Some of you are missing My touch because your rules and religiosity keep you away.  And, some are held back by other affections such as money or status.  Have a good look at these babies!  See the joy and laughter?  Children just wanna be touched!"

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Copyright © Brad Fenichel 2010 All Rights Reserved

Why the Golden Scepter?

 "The king extended the golden scepter to Esther.  So Esther arose and stood before the king."
– Esther 8:4, NASB

As in a fevered dream, Hadassah watched herself totter into the chamber, then press her back against the arch of the door.  How foolish to expect such a frugal thing as a linen shawl to conceal the violent shivers that racked her slight frame. There it lay—the treacherous thing!—across the marble threshold.  Could it be…was it possible…they would see the wild throbbing of her temples?

“What in seven thunders is this!” bellowed a great black-maned figure across the vaulted hall, thrusting his bushy jaw in the intruder’s direction.

“Your Supremacy, it is the queen of Persia—the new one, Sire.”

For a flash instant, Hadassah thought she would be sick.  No! Better yet...run…and keep running until the palace was far, far behind.  But they would see her.  All the people would see her.  And the guards had horses.  She couldn’t outrun horses in this long gown…

“HA! Ha-ha!” The black bearded chin was bouncing.  Up and down, up and down.  “Haaaaaaaaaah!” he bawled. 

“My last beauty queen is banished.   BANISHED!  For refusing to appear on command.  But, this new one?  Why, she just blows in whenever she pleases, eh!”

“Your king…your…Sire!  The reason…” began Esther.

“SILENCE!”


“Your Supremacy, shall we seize her?  I’ll give the order…” said the Captain of the Palace Guard.

“SILENCE, I said!” A glint of white punctuated the massive beard, as a golden scepter drew a neat curve in the air, then came to a stop pointing directly at the queen.

“Esther, First Lady of Shushan and queen of my heart, you have my permission to interrupt any boring old meeting in this palace anytime you please.  Come forward!”

Haddassah.  A young immigrant girl from a vanquished civilization, transplanted to the capital of the most powerful nation on earth.  And through a bizarre sequence of happenstance, she is now Esther, Queen of Persia.  But, even her royal title cannot save her from the king's law: death to anyone who appears in his presence unbidden.

Ahasuerus' surprise at seeing his bride standing in court led to an action of grace, as he held out the golden scepter--the only act that could override her death sentence.  Why?  Because "the king loved Esther more than any other woman." (Esther 2:17)  It was his love for this, his chosen bride that gave her free access to his presence and, consequently, to the favor she came to ask.

In the end, what the young queen came for was to beg the life of her people, who had been condemned to genocide by the villain Haman.  King Ahasuerus held out no golden scepter to the Jews.  If any of them had appeared in his court, it would have been the end of them.  But, through the king's love and grace toward Esther, she had access to stand in their place and beg for their life.

Under the old covenant, we see a few examples of this intercessory model.  Moses had such a powerful relationship with God that he could beg for the life of his people--"...And if not, blot me out of Your book...!"  David pleaded for his people at the threshing floor of Araunah, saying, "They are but sheep!"

But none paints as vivid a picture of our own place of sonship under the new covenant as does Queen Esther's scene.

God has no contract with the world at large, sold under sin, until and unless each of them comes of a freewill to seek Him in repentance.  But, through our relationship with the King--as the bride of Christ and objects of His love--we can enter His presence at any time.  The golden scepter is perpetually extended.  The veil is forever rent.  

And, by entering and touching that scepter, we receive grace to preach the gospel to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted.  His healing gifts and acts of grace flow out from us---salt to a dying world, light to those in darkness.  

So, then...  Don't just stand there by the doorpost!   Approach our loving King and lay hold of His scepter.  The world is waiting.

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Copyright © Brad Fenichel 2010 All Rights Reserved

Lost in My Attic - A New Year's Meditation

 

"Then Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe, ‘I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD.’"
– II Kings 22:8, NASB

 

At-tic ['at-ik] (n.): A place where time stands still

In the summer of ’99, my kids and I explored an abandoned Victorian house along the back roads of Pennsylvania. Judging by the odds and ends strewn about, this structure had last housed a young family in the late 1950s. My favorite part was ascending a dilapidated staircase to the cavernous attic and finding a stack of ancient newspapers—including one with a prominent article about the return of space monkeys Able and Baker (May 28, 1959). Being in the center of the stack, this newspaper was hardly yellowed after forty years!

2 Kings chapters 22-23 tell of Josiah, the most godly king since David and Solomon. He led Judah in a search for the purposes of God that they had lost under a clutter of sin and neglect.

As the priests, by royal command, set about cleaning and repairing the temple, they discovered the “Book of the Law”—God's revelation and covenant as recorded by Moses. The king was stunned to realize how much God had invested in His people, and how they, in turn, had walked away from His presence into spiritual wilderness. He immediately launched the most ambitious plan of repentance and restoration that Judah would know under the Old Covenant.

What’s this got to do with me?

I’m often expecting God to toss me some salient new morsel of revelation or guidance. Instead, I should be probing the cobweb-covered corners of my attic. There I would find the lost purposes of God buried beneath the clutter of a thousand failed agendas and projects of my own.

But, the good news is that "the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable." (Romans 11:29, NKJV) As soon as I set my heart to "stir up" what God has already placed in me, it will blossom into fulfillment as surely as it might have done long ago. The only tragedy is that all those years lost in the attic cannot be recovered.

Is reconnecting with God your #1 New Year priority? Consider an exhaustive search in the attic of your heart. You may stumble upon the “lost” purposes of God—still fresh and un-yellowed after years of neglect!

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Copyright © Brad Fenichel 2010 All Rights Reserved

 

Slime Balls on the Road to Nowhere

Article 4 of the "Men or Mules" Series

By faith Abraham…left his own country, not knowing where he was to go. --Hebrews 11:8

“Phhhhthwattt! How can you be putting these in your mouth? They’re disgusting!”

If you’ve never hand-picked wild Concord grapes on a New England summer day, well…don’t. Once you’ve punctured the thick, rubbery skin, your reward is a mass of seeds securely sealed in a slimy ball of sour pulp. And, here are my wife and kids, happily tangled in wild vines endlessly strung up the trunks of wild maples, on a hot, dusty road in a wild corner of Vermont. Where ARE we, anyhow? And, how do I herd these grape munchers back into the car to get where we’re going? (If it even exists!)

That was 18 years ago and, no—we never got there. The rest of that day was spent negotiating back-country Vermont roads with increasing speed—as we became increasingly lost—in search of some elusive “must-see” destination listed in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Remote New England Places That Don’t Exist.

Janette—that’s my wife—is never anything but gracious. A few days later, when I was in a better mood, she suggested that those fifteen minutes of grape-wrangling were, for them, the highlight of an otherwise fruitless summer day.

So nowadays, our road trips are more like “mystery rides.” We usually have a destination in mind, but allow plenty of time to brake for unexpected adventures.

Of all the styles of guidance God uses in my life, my mind still has the most trouble with the “Road to Nowhere” style. He gives me a long-term destination, but I get so busy hunting for it that I have no patience with all the “stuff that comes up.”

Abraham struck out westward by faith to occupy an unknown land. But, hundreds of years later, it would be his great-great-extremely-very-great-grandchildren who would finally inherit that country. And along the way, God would fashion them into a mighty nation worthy of this “land of milk and honey.”

Do you ever find yourself so tangled up that you despair of ever reaching the place where God’s taking you? Stop and munch the grapes! Help your neighbor, spend time with the family, and mentor the weak. And when you eventually get there, you can look back and see how all that “stuff” prepared you to inherit the land!

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Originally published in King's Courier, a bimonthly magazine, 6/12/2009. 

Copyright © Brad Fenichel 2009 All Rights Reserved

 

Taking What Isn't Yours

 

"...It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs."
– Mark 7:27b(NIV)

 

Like a sweat-soaked statue, the young corporal stood squarely at attention, while his beloved leader paced the chamber, stopping at intervals to re-read the communiqué that had just been delivered with such dire haste.

Napoleon Bonaparte interrupted his pacing long enough to gesture absent-mindedly. “At ease, Captain.”

“Captain!...Of what regiment?…Sir!” barked the soldier.

Napoleon spun around, speechless at this petty messenger’s brazen impertinence. But in a moment, the furrowed brow relaxed and the eyes were smiling. “My Personal Guard.”

This scene reminds me of that equally “impertinent” Syro-Phoenician woman who approached Jesus requesting a miracle for her little girl.

Imagine the whispers. “How dare she?” “A woman…a gentile…petitioning a rabbi! Just who does she think she is??”

Jesus, too, was astonished, but for a different reason. He could see her extraordinary faith—faith that would withstand one final test. “So! You’re saying I should take food from the children’s table...and toss it to their dogs?”

“But, even we dogs get the crumbs, don’t we?” she shot back. Jesus surely laughed out loud as He proceeded to order up a miracle for this amazing lady.

I’d always heard the faith sermons and read the books. “Know your place in Christ!” they admonished. “Claim what’s yours!” And, nothing could be more rock-solid scriptural.

But, then I watched this no-account woman taking faith to a whole new level. In her Old Covenant context, she was definitely OUT of line, reaching for what was certainly NOT hers. And, it didn’t seem to bother Jesus one bit!

Now I’ve learned to comb the Word for “crumbs” of promise. The ones Satan says can’t possibly have been meant for me personally.

So, the Father gives good gifts “to his children?” Guess what?...I’m one of those! These signs shall follow “those who believe?” Yep, that little crumb of dynamite’s going in my basket too.

How about you? What unique passion lies forgotten in your attic because they’ve told you it’s unachievable...unthinkable...too outrageous even to ask? And, your mind says, “Sure, God can use ‘people’ to do great things. Just...not me personally.”

Hey! Jesus needs a good laugh today. And, He still knows how to give good gifts to His kids. So, go ahead—walk into the throne room now and take what isn’t yours!

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Copyright © Brad Fenichel 2009 All Rights Reserved