September is here and though it is still summer I can feel fall coming just around the corner. Fall is my favorite time of the year. I love looking forward to the holidays and then there is football, oh wait, I forget sometimes we no longer have a team. So then hockey will be starting soon! Always somebody you can cheer for or a team you can get behind. How about looking for that someone who needs some encouragement and get behind them and help hold them up in prayer? I hope someone notices me and holds me up in prayer. Lately it has been hard, but I do know that I have Jesus my Savior seated on the right hand side of the Father making intersession for me. And you do as well. Speaking of prayer, remember to put Friday, September 7th at 7:00 p.m. on your calendar. We are hosting the citywide When St. Louis Prays prayer meeting that night at our church. Then the following Wednesday we’ll resume weekly prayer meetings from 7-8 p.m. I look forward to praying with you.
As I was riding my bike home from the church a few days ago, I came upon an unusual scene in the alley behind the houses on Iowa street. There was a man standing inside one of the garbage bends waist high in trash. I have seen many dumpster divers in my life, but never have I seen one so committed. Usually the dumpster diver will stand outside the dumpster looking for hidden treasures, but this guy was literally standing inside one. He was oblivious to my presence and was only focused on looking through that trash bin. He indeed was a man on a mission. I broke his concentration by my greeting. “Hey there are you alright?” I asked. At first he ignored my question and then after I repeated myself and moved toward him, he looked briefly away from the trash and into my eyes and gave me a brief nod, “Yes.” I could tell by his response he was fine and that he was not going to be in the mood to tell me his life story. So I just stood where I was and watched him for a bit. I was half way thinking a camera man would come around the corner and say to me “Smile your on candid camera!” But this is St. Louis and this is an alley by the church, so I quickly extinguished that thought. I continued to watch him sort through the smelly trash, some of the things he cast aside in that dumpster would have made the strongest person gag. But not him, he was on a mission to find something. All of a sudden he yelled “Eureka”! He held in his hand a cracked coffee mug. His smile said it all. He had found what he was looking for. I couldn’t help but see that coffee mug as me, the trash dumpster this world, and that man, well my heavenly Father. He will leave the ninety-nine and enter into a mess, and search until he finds us! His love is amazing. Like my friend in the dumpster, he will search until we are found. I am so glad that at Calvary as he hung on a cross at the town’s garbage heap, he found me. His “Eureka” was said on the cross when he cried “It is finished!” What a Savior, what a God, what a friend we have in Jesus! As I helped the man out of the dumpster and as I watched him proceed down the alley with his shopping cart, I couldn’t help but give God praise for the ultimate dumpster diver who came and saved this broken coffee mug. How about you, are you thankful that he lifted you from the garbage heap of life and has brought you to sit with him in heavenly places?
So grateful he will leave the ninety-nine, Pastor Rick