Radically Happy

MIC Check

Today’s Most Important Challenge is…

• Stop self-sabotaging my quest
• To help others stop self-sabotaging theirs

Immanuel Approach Memo

Continued from 2/29 IAM: Over My Head

I am… underwater
Clinging for dear life
To the end of Jesus’s fishing line

Too small to be a role model
The perfect size for bait

I look for Jesus.

He flicks me out of the water
From the shore filled with huddled masses
Yearning to be free
Though they mask it with incessant bickering

I fly over His head
Across the uncrossable River
I land ever so lightly on The Other Side
Something — pollen? — sticks to me

Then with a twitch of His wrist
He sends me back.

The G-force is too much

I black out

When I awake
(Still miniature)
I am in a garden

Fruits
Vegetables
Flowers

Growing in profusion
Fertilized or spawned
By whatever I brought back with me

I expect the place to be mobbed
And me to be trampled
To get to the luscious produce

But
Nobody seems to notice

Well, almost nobody
A few brave, hardy souls
Sneak in at night
As if embarrassed
To partake of the garden’s bounty

They gather just enough
To stave off hunger
Or maybe share with a loved one
Then slink away before they are seen

I want to be angry at them
For disrespecting the gift of Jesus
(Never mind my perilous journey to bring it)
But I am awkwardly grateful

First of all
There isn’t that much
And if it was overtly popular
It would soon run out

And secondly
They would run over me!

Better to be obscure
At least for now

What really makes me sad
Is that nobody stops to linger in the garden
To give thanks
To wonder how it got here
To talk to me
To learn how to grow their own

I kneel down to weep
At the missed opportunity
To heal our deepest wounds

As my tears fall
A plant begins to grow
From the tiniest of mustard seeds

As I watch
It becomes a mighty oak
Birds nest in its branches
It gives shade to the garden

Becomes a sentinel
Watching over it

Time becomes a blur
As it improbably bears fruit

A Golden Apple drops
Nearly crushing me

A Voice speaks
“You know what to do”

But do I?

To be continued

Reflection

I feel…

• Lucky
• Insignificant
• Overlooked
• Indignant
• Unsure
• Hopeful
• Almost brave enough to be excited rather than terrified
• Joyful Lament

Scripture

And the LORD will strike Egypt with a plague; He will strike them but heal them. They will turn to the LORD, and He will hear their prayers and heal them.

Isaiah 19:22