An Ending That's Just the Beginning

 

“For we are God’s fellow workers, His servants working together; you are God’s cultivated field — His garden, His vineyard — God’s building.”—1 Corinthians 9:10

This is the view that is smack-dab in my face each time I leave the church parking lot and head home. I can’t think of a better landscape to put there. It is a constant reminder of God the creator and that He really is our Shepherd who leads us daily to the peaceful green pastures of His presence, God the artist who is always at work in our lives, and God the majestic and immovable and trustworthy as the distant mountain range. Most of all, the gate is a reminder that you don’t just go to church and go home, but that whether you turn left or right, you are now entering the mission field. And though the weekly gathering may be over, it’s never over…

…Back in the day, a kid growing up in church was a picture of impatient endurance: Feeling like we'd be forever stuck on that first of four numbers on the hymnal board...Pew cushions so old, they were an oxymoron...Doodling on the back of the bulletin with a stubby pencil with no eraser...Wiggling and fidgeting, and fidgeting and wiggling, and getting "the hint" from dad's or mom's gentle but firm hand on my knee...Being bailed out countless times by sweet old ladies in perfumed fur coats sitting in the adjacent pew, who, with a wink, sneaked over pieces of hard candy...Totally frustrated from trying to sing out of the thing they called a hymnal, until that day you realized that the reason everyone had moved on to words you weren't singing is because you don't read all the verses on each line like a paragraph. 

Sundays were simpler, and the afternoons typically meant a big family dinner and then playing in your yard. No friends over. No places to go shopping or work or play youth sports, because on Sundays, everything in my little world was on lockdown. And it was good.

Which meant I looked forward with great anticipation on those mornings of impatient endurance in church to getting to that last item in the bulletin: The Benediction. I had no idea what that meant, all I knew was that it signaled "We're out of here!"...

"And just because we say the word 'Amen,'

it doesn't mean the conversation needs to end..." 

— Steven Curtis Chapman

...A benediction is a grown-up word that simply means "to speak well of." It begins with hearing and receiving what God speaks well of us — how much He loves us in spite of our prone to wanderness, and how much He wants us to savor a life that comes from sticking close to Him. One definition calls that "holy joy."

But little did I know then that the speak-well-of goodness wasn't supposed to end there, that the ending was really supposed to be the beginning. The life-giving, encouraging, power of blessing spoken over me and those sweet old ladies and everyone else was supposed to be carried out the door and passed along to those on our path: 

"The LORD bless and keep you...protect you, sustain you, and guard you.

The LORD make His face shine upon you with favor and be gracious to you...surrounding you with lovingkindness.

The LORD lift up His face upon you with Divine approval, and give you peace...a tranquil heart and life."

(Numbers 6:24-26, Amplified)

…In "How to Worship a King," author Zach Neese drives it all rightfully out the parking lot whenever I turn left or right and see the goodness of God in the field smack-dab in front of me:

"In this one blessing, we find destiny, protection, the glory of God, unmerited favor, intimacy with God, and the peace that passes all understanding regardless of our circumstances...What a world we would live in if we all gave and received such blessings."

Selah…