Jail Diary
Today started out as a bad day. Carla awoke with a severe migraine. I didn’t have any particular physical ailment but found myself in a funk. Do you ever have one of those days when you’re just in a lousy mood for no reason and ready to lash out at whoever gets in your way? That’s how I felt. Worse, we were scheduled to do a chapel service at the jail this afternoon.
I asked Carla if she wanted to stay home and rest while I went to the jail, but she said she wanted to be there.
We’ve been going through John’s Gospel with the inmates. Last week it was the story of Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana. Today we were at the point where Jesus goes ballistic at the Temple; overturning tables and setting sacrificial animals loose. I had a nice little teaching all prepared but then this morning I felt the Holy Spirit telling me to teach on Divine Wrath instead and to use Isaiah 1 as the text. Great, I’m in a crappy mood, Carla has a migraine and God is changing my lesson on me.
We got to the jail and set up for chapel in the dayroom. We arranged the chairs in a circle. One inmate was there. Oh well. “Let’s just worship the Lord for a little while”, I said, picking up my guitar. As we began to play, more inmates arrived.
The worship seemed to just take off. It was great. Carla has an amazing gift, which has been referred to as “prophetic singing”. If she feels moved during worship, she’ll sing these amazing prayers, or prophetic words, or words of encouragement while I vamp on the chords to the song. This isn’t something we plan, it just happens when it happens. Today it was happening big time! We were all blessed and the tangible presence of the Lord was in the room.
After a few songs, we began our Bible study, which tends to be very interactive. I explained that God’s wrath is an aspect of His love. I told them how God hates sin because of how it harms us and his wrath is intended to discipline and restore us. I likened it to the times I had to spank my son as a child. I did not like it but knew it had to be done for his sake. To not have disciplined him would have been far worse. The inmates were tracking right along (they know a thing or two about punishment).
I explained a bit about God’s covenant with Israel and how he wanted them to reflect Him to the nations around them, but they kept committing injustices and idolatries. We read Isaiah 1 and saw God’s frustration at their sin, His determination to punish them and His commitment to restore them. There were lots of nodding heads, whispers of “wow” and “whew” as we went through the entire chapter together.
Then I realized God had set us up perfectly to jump into where we had left off in John. We saw the wrath of Jesus in the Temple because of how worship had been turned into a racket of profit and control.
By now we were almost out of time and it seemed like we had just begun. We prayed together and the service was dismissed. Carla turned to me. “Guess what”, she said. “My headache is gone!”
My friend Jude has a saying regarding ministry: “Just show up.” He’s right. If we’re just willing to be there, God will do the rest. Even if we’re sick, or tired, or in a shitty mood, or guilty of sin, or under-qualified. If we just show up, He will too and He’ll take what little we have to offer and multiply it. He’ll make something beautiful out of our weakness. Last week we had studied the story in John of Jesus turning water into wine. Today we saw it happen.
I asked Carla if she wanted to stay home and rest while I went to the jail, but she said she wanted to be there.
We’ve been going through John’s Gospel with the inmates. Last week it was the story of Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana. Today we were at the point where Jesus goes ballistic at the Temple; overturning tables and setting sacrificial animals loose. I had a nice little teaching all prepared but then this morning I felt the Holy Spirit telling me to teach on Divine Wrath instead and to use Isaiah 1 as the text. Great, I’m in a crappy mood, Carla has a migraine and God is changing my lesson on me.
We got to the jail and set up for chapel in the dayroom. We arranged the chairs in a circle. One inmate was there. Oh well. “Let’s just worship the Lord for a little while”, I said, picking up my guitar. As we began to play, more inmates arrived.
The worship seemed to just take off. It was great. Carla has an amazing gift, which has been referred to as “prophetic singing”. If she feels moved during worship, she’ll sing these amazing prayers, or prophetic words, or words of encouragement while I vamp on the chords to the song. This isn’t something we plan, it just happens when it happens. Today it was happening big time! We were all blessed and the tangible presence of the Lord was in the room.
After a few songs, we began our Bible study, which tends to be very interactive. I explained that God’s wrath is an aspect of His love. I told them how God hates sin because of how it harms us and his wrath is intended to discipline and restore us. I likened it to the times I had to spank my son as a child. I did not like it but knew it had to be done for his sake. To not have disciplined him would have been far worse. The inmates were tracking right along (they know a thing or two about punishment).
I explained a bit about God’s covenant with Israel and how he wanted them to reflect Him to the nations around them, but they kept committing injustices and idolatries. We read Isaiah 1 and saw God’s frustration at their sin, His determination to punish them and His commitment to restore them. There were lots of nodding heads, whispers of “wow” and “whew” as we went through the entire chapter together.
Then I realized God had set us up perfectly to jump into where we had left off in John. We saw the wrath of Jesus in the Temple because of how worship had been turned into a racket of profit and control.
By now we were almost out of time and it seemed like we had just begun. We prayed together and the service was dismissed. Carla turned to me. “Guess what”, she said. “My headache is gone!”
My friend Jude has a saying regarding ministry: “Just show up.” He’s right. If we’re just willing to be there, God will do the rest. Even if we’re sick, or tired, or in a shitty mood, or guilty of sin, or under-qualified. If we just show up, He will too and He’ll take what little we have to offer and multiply it. He’ll make something beautiful out of our weakness. Last week we had studied the story in John of Jesus turning water into wine. Today we saw it happen.
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