Is your Thursday Holy?

If you are following along with scripture as you dwell deeply in the sacrifice of Jesus, today is considered Holy Thursday.  This would have been the day Jesus met with the disciples and had the first "Lord's Supper".  The fact that Jesus stopped to wash their feet during this most holy evening, is the part that baffles me the most.  He even washed the feet of Judas, the unholy soul who betrayed Him.  

Here is the Son of GOD washing the feet of the ones who were struggling to follow Him.  HE was serving them, even the most unholy among them.  Makes no logical sense does it?  Even within the context of God's love, it still makes no human sense.  Those simple men wanted to follow Jesus, but their earth sized brains couldn't understand His eternal sized vision. 

The only way I can even begin to understand the love of God is to examine the love I have for my children.  I tell them I love them to the moon and back...and I do.  I hurt when they hurt.  My heart breaks when I watch them struggle and there is nothing I can do to fix it.  When they celebrate a victory in life, my joy overflows.  

The best gift I got for my birthday this year was a surprise visit from John David.  He drove from school and walked into the doors at church on Wednesday night holding a present.  I wasn't the present that excited me, IT WAS HIM.  As a parent, having a child openly express their love for you is the ultimate gift. When I saw my child walk in the door unexpectedly to express love to me, my soul just sighed. 

But when I look at what God did for us. I'm just simply baffled.  I couldn't do it.  He looked at all His other children, even the ones that hadn't been born yet and said, "Yes, they are worth it.  They are worth the death of this one, this only begotten Son of Mine."

I could not send one of my boys to death to save the other one.  I couldn't choose. I could not send one of my boys to torture and hatred to save the other, let alone the world?!  I canNOT fathom that sacrifice.  My mind can't even dwell there for long or my heart hurts so deeply that I can't take it.  

But for me, God did just that.  

And Jesus said, "Thy will be done."  

Amazing love.  It makes no sense.    

Tonight I plan to go to a Holy Thursday service.  It will be a first for me.  I feel the need this year to saturate myself in as many holy opportunities as possible.  I want every Thursday to be holy.  I want every random Monday and Tuesday to be holy.  I want to live holy even though my earth sized brain can't understand His eternal sized vision.   

There are some of you who read my blog who profess to love God and worship Jesus, but you don't go to church.  For me, that too makes no sense.  It's your life and you can do whatever you want, but consider this. That would be like loving your parents, but never expressing it to them.  Imagine Mother's Day or Father's Day without holding the love of a parent close in your heart.  That would be like loving your children, yet never gathering them in your arms and loving on them.  Imagine if when John David walked in the door to celebrate my birthday with me, I said "I know it would be nice to hug you and tell you I love you, but instead I'm going to do something else.  See ya. Everyone KNOWS I love you.  You know I love you.  That's enough. I don't have to do something special to show it." 

Just imagining that scene makes me sick to my stomach.  NOOOOO!  I want to express my love to my parents!  I adore telling them I love them.  I want to tell my children I love them over and over and over.  Dear God knows my heart just about bursts with love for them.  I want them to KNOW and FEEL my love.  

Did John David have to come see me for my birthday?  No.  And I would love him just the same.  But what joy, what utter giddy happiness pulsed through my body just seeing him walk through the door to tell me he loves me!  And even my precious John David received a blessing too.  He got to see his Momma do the happy dance of "There's my boy!"  

This Sunday you can walk through the doors at a place of Godly worship and hug your Father.  Surprise Him.  You can sing His praises.  You can thank Him.  You can honor Him.  You can worship Him.  You can sit silently and adore Him. And then guess what?  You can do it all over again the next week.  Even the next day!  You can turn each and every day into Holy Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday AND Sunday.  All you have to do is get up each and every day and claim it as a day you will express your love of God.  It's really that simple. 

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that WHOSOEVER believes in Him, will not perish, but have everlasting life."  

That "whosoever" is you. 

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I'm a part of a pray group that is organized on the island of Iona  Scotland.  Today I received the latest prayer list.  It's 13 pages long.  The needs are from all over the world.  God's people need us to lift them up to our Father, to breath in deeply His grace and serve His people. 

In the newsletter that opens the list, the writer shares that snow is falling in Scotland.  It's been a tough winter all over the world it seems.  A woman who is grieving the loss of her son wrote this:
 
“The snow came again last night….like it often does here through the winter.  It’s that time of year when we have a few days of thawing and dream of spring, and then winter comes again and again…sometimes with a fierceness that makes me think it will never end.  It’s kind of like grief….just when I think I am through the worst of it, it comes again with a fierceness that keeps me awake.” 

For those of us suffering through grief, no matter how new or old the wound is, we need God's healing.  

I miss my friend.