Radically Happy

MIC Check

Today’s Most Important Challenge is…

• Discerning abundance
• Amidst deprivation

Immanuel Approach Memo

Continued from 3/7 IAM: Redeeming Songs

I am… staring at a locked gate

The remnant has followed the silent Song of our Hearts to Christ’s Holy Hill
But we can’t find the key to get in

I look for Jesus.

He is waking through the crowd
Teaching each of them to sing a single note

We each hear the whole song
Or at least snatches of it
But we only play our one note
Like a handbell choir

People singing the same note
Cluster together

Some notes sound off
Sometimes they are
But more often than not
They are just waiting for someone else
To complete the harmony

And no note is truly off
Everyone’s note has value
But sometimes we lose the rhythm

I wait for Jesus.

He doesn’t give me a note to sing

I’m wondering if He will give me a pitch pipe
To ensure everyone else is in tune

He smiles knowingly
And shakes His head indulgently

And hands me a tambourine

My job isn’t to tell people what to do
It is to listen
To hear
To comprehend
And reinforce what the Spirit is already saying
So we can all move forward
Together

My job isn’t to tell people what to do
It is to listen…
And reinforce what the Spirit is already saying
So we can all move forward
Together

So I do

For a long time I do nothing
But listen
Finding the melody within the cacophony
The shared beats between clashing motifs

When I think I’ve got it
I start tapping my tambourine
Softly

I wander the crowd
Trying to find where the harmony is strongest
Or at least closest

Soon I discover other tambourinists
But we don’t cluster together
We just pause to sync up
Then continue circulating
While still listening for each other’s beat

Slowly
Painfully
Incrementally
Harmony starts to emerge
As the notes begin to line up

My breath is taken away
By the beauty of the song

I weep
As I discover
The notes I thought most discordant
Turn out to be the fundamentals
Of a new chord

A new… key

The gate clicks open

The smells of a feast waft in

In small groups
We start walking
Through the narrow gate

Following the Song
That has moved
From individual Hearts
To connected Voices

To be continued

Reflection

I feel…

• Small
• Foolish
• Ungrateful
• Humbled
• Glorious
• Connected
• Hopeful

Scripture

On this mountain the LORD of Hosts will prepare a banquet for all the peoples, a feast of aged wine, of choice meat, of finely aged wine.

Isaiah 25:6