Our office was closing for the Christmas holiday. Once again, I asked my coworker about his holiday plans - we had already discussed the myriad food-related activities happening in his home - so it came as a shock to me when he replied, "We don't celebrate Christmas." I was almost shocked into silence. Turns out, my Christian co-worker retired his 12ft tree a few years back when he and his wife determined the pagan roots of the holiday warranted such a transition in their celebrations. Now, it is just another day - though the month inevitably is filled with special food-related activities: our work potluck, etc.
The Christmas holiday behind us, on the first Monday of the New Year Ken relates the harrowing story of his 55 mile one-way commute with a check-engine light on and the near certainty his battery is dead. We both agree it is most likely a bad alternator. He is a very resourceful guy. Over lunch, he recharges his battery and determines to leave the office early to avoid traffic on the way home to Salem. Thus when, not if, his car dies there will be less hassle as he works to resolve the issue. 'Wow!' I say, 'I will be praying for you! Because that is gonna be absolutely no fun!'.
And I do - as he leaves the office, I ask God to be with Ken during his commute home. It really is more of an exhaled thought than a bowed-head-hands-folded kinda moment.
Tuesday I eagerly march in and quiz him - 'Well, how did it go?'
Grinning from ear to ear, he informs me he got 2 miles from his home when, stopped at a red light, he sees smoke billowing from under the hood. The light turns green and he makes it home and into his driveway. I expostulate 'Well that's a MIRACLE!' He laughs, 'I know, I was praying all the way home!' We discuss the next steps - but my mind is not on it...
My mind is absorbing a separate dual miracle. The twin miracles: a comfortable religious experience in my workplace and greater still - that God moved upon my heart - my stony heart - to feel compassion for a co-worker with whom I have no other association. With uncommon clarity, I see the rigidity of my thoughts riddled with judgement-pox. Am I any different from the Levite in the Good Samaritan story?!
Dear Jesus - forgive me. Forgive me for not giving You full access to my heart to do the work that lies nearest. Forgive me for the 'walls of partition' I have allowed to build up in my heart. Please strip away my pretense built by painful experience or inexperience. I don't even know anymore what the source is of my remarkable blindness to those around me - except to say that You are light. So please shine Your light into my heart and illumine me that I may shine for You everywhere I go. Grant me the gift of confession and repentance so that You may heal me. Thank You for Your promise to complete the work You have begun in my life; Thank You for Your promise to put enmity between me and the serpent. I trust Your promises and I thank You that You cannot lie....
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