2/28 IAM: Rewarded

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MIC Check

Today’s Most Important Challenge is…

  • Giving people whatever they need
  • So they dare learn “hope”
  • By unlearning “impossible”

Immanuel Approach Memo

I am… calm in the midst of battle

The war is raging
All around me
But I am unscathed

I am not even fighting
Nobody is attacking me
I don’t even know what side I am on

I look for Jesus.

He is standing right beside me
He smiles

I realize that is why I feel perfectly safe
I am on Jesus’ side
His pierced side

He blows a trumpet
The battle ceases

Some of the combatants are disappointed
Most are relieved

A few try to keep fighting
But Christ nips that in the bud

Slowly
Shamefacedly
They shuffle over
And lay their weapons
At my feet

I am confused

I look TO Jesus.

“Why aren’t they laying them at Your feet?”

He winks

“They can’t see me. They only hear me. But they can see you.”

I sigh
Then shudder
As the pile of discarded violence grows

Then a Voice speaks:

They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will no longer take up the sword against nation, nor train anymore for war.

The Voice

I sigh.
I turn to the crowd.

“You heard the man.
Grab a hammer.
It’s time to rebuild.”

Finit

Reflection

I feel…

  • Honored
  • Vindicated
  • Unworthy
  • Resolute
  • Heard

Scripture

“Listen, Ethiopia—land of fluttering sails that lies at the headwaters of the Nile, that sends ambassadors in swift boats down the river. Go, swift messengers! Take a message to a tall, smooth-skinned people, who are feared far and wide for their conquests and destruction, and whose land is divided by rivers.
All you people of the world, everyone who lives on the earth— when I raise my battle flag on the mountain, look! When I blow the ram’s horn, listen! For the Lord has told me this: “I will watch quietly from my dwelling place— as quietly as the heat rises on a summer day, or as the morning dew forms during the harvest.”
Even before you begin your attack, while your plans are ripening like grapes, the Lord will cut off your new growth with pruning shears. He will snip off and discard your spreading branches. Your mighty army will be left dead in the fields for the mountain vultures and wild animals. The vultures will tear at the corpses all summer. The wild animals will gnaw at the bones all winter.
At that time the Lord of Heaven’s Armies will receive gifts from this land divided by rivers, from this tall, smooth-skinned people, who are feared far and wide for their conquests and destruction. They will bring the gifts to Jerusalem, where the Lord of Heaven’s Armies dwells.”‭‭

Isaiah‬ ‭18‬:‭1‬-‭7‬ ‭NLT‬‬

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