Tight Spaces

I don't know about you, but I don't like tight spaces! And long flights, over oceans, no leg room, no elbow room, no stretch space.... Ugh! And we volunteered for this!

I know what you are thinking. Why didn't we pay the extra for the sleeping seats? It would have only been a couple of extra thousand a piece. You only live once.

Needless to say, we are glad you weren't talking over our shoulders when we were purchasing the tickets. Who knows how high you would have pushed our budget. Do you work for the airlines?

I didn't expect too much luxury, and I wasn't disappointed. It is just a flight. It will be over soon. I have to keep telling myself these things as the hours tick past. The shower in Tokyo airport will feel so good. And then just one more three hour flight and we will be there.

The funny thing about life is that it is filled with tight spaces. Even people who purchase land in the middle of nowhere end up in tight spaces. Their wood supply runs short for the winter and it is still below zero. That is a tight space. They don't catch as much fish as they need, so their protein levels drop below what is needed to survive.

Or when the payments on the toys are due, and the money went for food. Tight space.

Or the job ends abruptly and no one is hiring. Tight.

You see, we must all learn to deal with tight spaces. God calls us to some tight spaces. When He points out some area of darkness in our life and asks us to open it up to His light, it can feel like He is breathing over our shoulder. It can feel like He is hemming us in on every side trying to get us to yield.

Sometimes as we follow the LORD the path becomes so narrow that we only have one option: move forward in faith. We can't move left or right and turning around can't happen. So we must continue through.

Psalm 23:4 speaks of the darkest valley, the valley of the shadow of death. It is a pretty dark place, an uncomfortable place, and perhaps a scary place. But the promise exists that He will be with us in those tight spots. Tight spots don't limit the infinite God's ability to be there. He doesn't take up much space, even though He fills the whole universe.

So as I sit in this seat, hemmed in on every side, my bride at my side, heading to a place we have never been to minister to people we have never met, we know we are right in the middle of God's will. We are excited to see how He will use these broken vessels to display His treasure.

2Cor 4:7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay
to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

Lord, may you be seen. Hide us behind the glory of your presence. Please hide us, and what we  do, in such a way that people will see the Only One, Jesus our Savior.

Rift in Space

Mark 1:10

      One of the important parts of writing assembly instructions is to be sure that you write all the steps. You can never assume that the person reading will know the missing step. I used to love reading assembly instructions from other parts of the world. They used to be written in such funny English. It was always fun to try to figure out what they wanted to say. I have an MP3 player that I still can’t figure out how to use because the instructions are so poor. They leave out many steps.

      Mark is so focused on getting to the heart of Jesus ministry that he leaves out one step. Did you notice it? Do you need a hint? Jesus never goes down into the water before He comes up out of the water. Our brains assume the entry into the water from the context, but Mark doesn’t state the fact. For Mark it is not needed.

      One thing we can note is that Jesus was in the water. The water was not sprinkled on Him, or poured on Him. At least for Jesus, immersion, head to toe, happened. Now we could argue about what isn’t written, couldn’t we. Perhaps Jesus walked into the water up to his knees and John the Baptist sprinkled water on His head, or poured it on Him. Perhaps John used a Supersoaker to spray people in Baptism. If you only need a little water, why go to the Jordan River? Why not meet at a well somewhere? John’s ministry could have been much more mobile, traveling to where the people were.

      So what happens when Jesus comes out of the water? John sees heaven ripped open. It was not simply a clearing of the clouds, as I had imagined. This opening was more than the sun breaking through the clouds and bright bands of light cutting through the clouds at multiple angles. This tearing of the space between God’s dwelling place and earth was an abrupt action. This is an invasion from heaven into earth’s space. We see it in physical form. God opens the window and looks at us, and in that instant John gets a glimpse into heaven.

      In the space that is opened between heaven and earth, God’s Spirit descends. We don’t know whether He descended like a dove, flittering  and flapping, or whether He had the appearance of a bird similar to a dove. One way or other the Holy Spirit enters this earthly realm through a rift in the normal barrier between heaven and earth, and enters into Jesus. This must have been something to see!

       What can we gain from this verse for our lives today? God is able to bridge the gap between His dwelling place and ours. He doesn’t do it with this kind of flare very often, but He can and does enter. He entered at this point to signal His presence here on earth.