A SINGLE DROP OF HOPE

Ok... some stories are just worth telling.

After I got my car at LaGuardia, I put into my phone's GPS the address of my hotel. I proceed to my destination in Westbury, NY on Long Island. As I got closer, my Telnav guided me with explicit instructions towards my destination. Her final instructions to me were "Your destination is on your left!". I begin to notice something is seriously odd as I get closer to what is supposed to be my hotel. I'm driving by a huge graveyard! I thought surely it must be just on the other side, but what a strange place to put a hotel. As I got up to the enormous gates she says to me again, "Your destination is ON YOUR LEFT!" There is nothing else around but these gigantic closed gates to the cemetery!  As I roll by it she says, "Rerouting" and has me go ahead and turn around. As I approach the cemetery she again says, "YOUR DESTINATION IS ON YOUR RIGHT!". I stop dead in my tracks (pun intended), right in front of those huge gates and looked down at my phone! I then looked at the hotel address to make sure I put it in correctly and then back up at those ominous, not so inviting, gates.

So, I proceeded to drive to a gas station to inquire as to if the graveyard was indeed "my final destination". The attendant tells me that the hotel is actually about a mile back before the graveyard! So I actually passed it long before the graveyard.

I finally find the hotel. I go to check in and there is this older black woman, who I believe is the manager, and another young clerk standing behind the counter. As I approach the desk I ask, "What is your address here?" She tells me the correct address and then looked straight at me with a big smile and said, "It took you to the graveyard, huh? It takes everybody to the graveyard!". I told her it had me a bit worried. She laughed and said, "Oh no honey, I can tell it's not your time yet!" I laughed and got all up in my black gospel self on her and said... "I knew it wasn't..." and then we both said at the same time, "because the gates were closed!" We roared with laughter and I told her I really needed that. I said I'd be ok if it was time and the gates were open cuz I made that all right with Jesus a long time ago. She laughed and said, "I knew it!" I said, "I knew it wasn't time cuz I wasn't hearin' any voice sayin', 'Come up here'... so I breathed a sigh of relief!" For about 5 minutes we went back and forth as if we had known each other forever. We sorta had church right there in the lobby, if you know what I mean. We were high-fivin' and carin' on... then she looked at me and said, "I needed this moment today... I had a hard morning." I smiled at her and said, "So did I".

The other desk clerk just stood there watching us go back and forth laughing along with us. I looked at her and said, "You are so special!" I then turned to the other clerk and said, "Do you realize what a blessing Cynthia is to you?" He said, "Yes... I've worked here now for three years and I know it well." I said to him, "Cherish her... there aren't many like her! It's precious." He shook his head and agreed.

You know... God knows exactly what we need, when we need it. It so lifted my spirits to see her face beaming with God all over it. In one single moment my atmosphere changed. God had her waiting for me and knew I was desperate for a drop of His love... and He instantly quenched my thirst.

Be love to someone... be open to God and don't be afraid to reach out. You just never know that the person you're looking at could be desperately waiting for a single drop of hope and to know God cares.

© 2012 Steven Bliss
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HEART'S IN CHAINS!

Jesus said, "...it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” When His disciples heard it they were greatly astonished saying, “Who then can be saved?” But Jesus looked at them and said, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." 
 I've been thinking about the things that block us from entering into a deep relationship with God. Those things that are logs in our own eyes, that we can't see, yet hang as chains around our necks keeping us from all we could ever want or hope to be. 


In the above passage Jesus tells a young rich man who was doing everything right according to the commandments to sell all he had, give the proceeds to the poor, and follow Him. His disciples were astonished at such a statement. The idea that a man who was doing all the right things and not be saved by those works, was incomprehensible to them. But God, who knows the heart of a man, measures by a different standard.


I have had much and lost everything, including the death of my first born and come face to face with my own mortality when I discovered I had cancer. I went from a big house, 6 figure income and 17 years worth of possessions to nothing... it was all stripped away from me. God forbid that should happen to any of you. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, but God was far more concerned about my heart and soul than He was with me gaining the whole world and what I thought I needed and was best for me. Isn't that a fathers love for his child? But why did those things not come to me when I did everything to make them? Simply this, they blocked me! They controlled my heart and my heart belongs to Him. They were roadblocks to my relationship with Him being intact and vibrant.

I think it's easier to have had it all and then lost it, than to have it all and find your worth in what you've attained and imagine yourself something for it. I see it happen all the time. I have watched those who gained it say they trust God, but for them, to loose it all would be far more devastating than loosing their relationship with God, though they claim it wouldn't. Just like the young man in the story above, they would walk away in despair because they worked so hard.

For me, the most gripping part of the story Jesus tells is God doesn't go running after the young man. The reason is the rich sound rulers' heart never belonged to God. He thought by doing it all right his salvation was sealed. He couldn't comprehend that there was more to this life than things and that there's more to God than rote and religion. 

God's ways are not ours. When we lean on our own strength, our own wisdom, our own understanding and abilities we somehow get it in our heads that they will deliver us. But with God, not only our salvation attained, but our very purpose and meaning revealed. 
There is a vast difference between doing it our way and His.

The question we must ask ourselves is, "Am I willing to loose it all to gain Him?" The world calls it foolishness. God says, it's life!



What's blocking you today? What's keeping your heart bound up and chained? What if you were required to lose it all in order to have all of Him... would you?


© 2012 Steven Bliss

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