Serving Rascals, Clumsy Disciples, and Physically and Mentally Ill Believers with the Unconditional Love of Jesus Christ
“A happy heart is good medicine and a cheerful mind works healing, but a broken spirit dries up the bones.”
Proverbs 17:22, Amplified
“Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God.”
Karl Barth
I hope these bring a smile to your face. Often the best medicine is laughter and I hope these help you today.
Love, Bryan
In June of 2002, I journeyed from Alaska to Cambridge, England. It was there I somehow found myself on the streets talking to myself; alone, disoriented and quite lost.
I wasn’t taking my medication.
I had just been released from a hospital in Anchorage, Alaska and was under the care of a psychiatrist. I headed out without his approval..And so here I am now all alone in a country I had never visited before. My confusion was profound. I was desperate and mentally ill.
I noticed the stares and the whispers as wandered the streets.
Or maybe it was just my raging paranoia. But yet there’s more. Much more. On just a mildly benign occasion I wandered into the English version of a Wal-mart. I was in a dreary daze, but I thought I ‘heard’ a 5 foot bush call out as I walked by. I just knew my calling was a prophet. I was like Moses. I also heard God from a bush! (Exodus 3:2).
My chosen, eternal destiny was to save it. I grabbed and scootched it toward the check-out line. After a few minutes the bush was insanely heavy and I saw that the line was very long.
After some time I finally abandoned the tree in the middle of the check-out line. It seems I did have some moments of clarity, even at my strangest. It was a weird experience. (What can I say, I’m a sucker for talking bushes.)
I was told later that over hundred people were praying for me.
Finally, at my worst, I reached into my pack and there was this CD. I began to listen to it, and imperceptibly began to be restored to some semblance of sanity. My thinking was clearer and I would finally find my way back to where I was staying.
King Saul, in his own weak grip on sanity, was ministered to by David’s music.
One song on the CD in particular ministered to me. It’s called “Kyrie Eleison,” which is Latin for “Lord Have Mercy.”
Verse 1
Empty broken here I stand,
Kyrie eleison,
Touch me with Your healing hand,
Kyrie eleison,
Take my arrogance and pride,
Kyrie eleison,
wash me in Your mercy’s tide,
Kyrie eleison.
Chorus–
Kyrie eleison,
Christe eleison,
Kyrie eleison,
Verse 2
When my faith is all but gone,
Kyrie eleison,
Give me strength to carry on,
Kyrie eleison,
when my dreams have turned to dust,
Kyrie eleison,
In You O Lord I put my trust,
Kyrie eleison.
Chorus:
Kyrie eleison,
Christe eleison,
Kyrie eleison,
Verse 3
When my heart is cold as ice,
Kyrie eleison,
Your love speaks of sacrifice,
Kyrie eleison,
Love that sets the captives free,
Kyrie eleison,
O pour compassion down on me,
Kyrie eleison.
Repeat Chorus
Verse 4
You’re the voice that calms my fears,
Kyrie eleison,
You’re the laughter dries my tears,
Kyrie eleison,
You’re the music, my refrain,
Kyrie eleison,
Help me sing my song by Text-Enhance” href=”http://www.thelyricarchive.com/song/2258792-376352/Kyrie-Eleison-(Love-Have-Mercy)#”>again,
Kyrie eleison.
Repeat Chorus
Verse 5
Humble heart of holiness,
Kyrie eleison,
Kiss me with Your tenderness,
Kyrie eleison,
Jesus, faithful Friend and true,
Kyrie eleison,
All I am I give to You,
Kyrie eleison.
Repeat Chorus
When we think about Jesus, when we start to contemplate the crib, we explode into joy over what we have seen. We inaugurate a convincing of His second coming. You might say that we suddenly adjust to a Jesus who just drops in on us.
“And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.”
Col. 3:4, NLT
Jesus anticipates that His visits to earth, will start to bear fruit. There will be many who will be validated to step up into this place of salvation. But many of us will be part of many others who are involved in this sharing. Jesus has come, and all of us enter into something quite exceptional.
But this is all a future event, it hasn’t happened yet, but we do think about when He will return. But this is not an occasional, fleeting awareness. But we are confident we do understand that His return alters everything. All of a sudden, we are launched into real and eternal promises. These critical assignments coming from this world, will never take the place of being in God‘s purposes.
Paul is wrapped up with a deep and profound understanding of things that are on the threshold. He is the apostle of the aware. He seems to sizzle with understanding that progresses out of his initiative and creative effort.
But Paul develops, after he sees, a careful sense of certain things that are moving. But he knows what He has seen, and he insists that others join him in this.
This is why we must procure this awareness. To operate in the realm of Paul will be worth our weight in “celestial gold.” Things are rich and fecund, and they wait in a exceptional awareness. As Paul follows, so we follow. In the Heavenly places, we are being counted as being faithful and quite true.
“And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!”“
Luke 1:28, ESV
The Christian faith always has this fundamental aspect of ‘announcing.’ It is part and parcel to our message. The Gospel can’t be silent. It demands a simple witness to unseen realities, and it proclaims the Truth, whether we like or not.
But I’m especially fond of the shepherds.
Uncomplicated, and unpretentious they take the Good News with them as they go to witness the Christ Child. God hasn’t forgotten us. He will die a miserable death, and come to life again.
And I like this poem, an awful lot.
bA Poem, Written on Christmas Day, 1986
My mail carrier, driving his stubby white truck trimmed in blue and red, wingless, but wheeled, commissioned by the civil service
Daily delivers the Gospel every Advent.
This Gabriel, uniformed in gabardine.
Unsmiling descendant of his dazzling original,
under the burden of greetings is stoical,
but prompt: Annunciations at ten each morning.
One or two or three at a day at first;
By the second week momentum’s up,
my mail box is stuffed, each card is stamped
with a glory at a cost of twenty-five cents
(Bringing us the news that God is with us.)
First class, personally hand addressed.”
The angel said, “Don’t be afraid. I’m here to announce a great and joyful event that is meant for everybody, worldwide: A Savior has just been born in David’s town, a Savior who is Messiah and Master. This is what you’re to look for: a baby wrapped in a blanket and lying in a manger.”
Luke 2, The Message
Broken Believers 