O Jerusalem!

This week has been goodness, God's goodness to me. I praise him for the things my eyes have seen, for the things my heart has come to understand.

-Our community in Northwest Neighbors....I have been so blessed in getting to know more youth, and some youth even better. After Palm Springs, I felt so much more connected, so much more a brother in a family that God has made. Wednesday was the scavenger hunt at Paseo. Friday, I took some of the guys to the comic store and to Santa Monica.

Yesterday, it was so beautiful to go with Tina and Hugo, Diana and Gladys to Eaton Canyon, where we hopped over the stones in the river, had a picnic in the shade and enjoyed eachothers company. After that, there was the video game tournament, and some final time with the guys before visiting some folk at Betsy's apartment.

God is doing a lot of healing work in me recently....or inviting me into it.

The refrain for me has been 'my sould will be satisfied in the LORD'
Fundamentally, and on the level of my every day thoughts and actions, the Lord has not been my satisfaction. Where has my hunger taken me? It has taken me to sick, filthy idols. To foolish idols, fantasies and illusions. I hungered and thirsted, but for what, I knew not. So I would go to other streams that were not living water. The need to impress people. The desire for human attention and affection. The desire to emotionally attach myself to someone else. Using relationships to make my self larger in my own eyes...

Jeremiah 2:26:
But you said 'it is hopeless, for i have loved strangers and after them i will go'

Yes! Holy God, have mercy on me, I have given my love to strangers! What is the defenition of a stranger? Someone who you do not know, and who does not know you. They do not know you, where you came from, what you value, where you're going--they do not care about you.
Yes, you have given your love (rather, your devotion, your worship) to these things, these strangers and followed them--when all along there was someone who knew you!
He knew you all the time. He knew you and called you precious....

God wants me to be free to not have my worth and soul cling to the attention or affection i get from those i serve, live, work with.
God wants me to be free to experience rejection, and still live confidently rooted in Him
Free to give without expecting anything in return
God wants me to be free to be loved by him

))))))))

On Wednesday walking in Old Town, I met Gary, a homeless man begging outside of 21 Choices. In a slurred voice, with a crippled hand extended, he explained to me how my namesake, Jacob, had sought to get God's blessing. Gary asked me if I knew that I had God's blessing. I said 'I hope so' He said 'No, you have to know it, in here!'
I said Amen, and before I left, he assured me that the God who feeds and clothes the sparrows would take care of him.
I walked down Colorado, and everything around me became nothing. I could see that when God looked down on this center of wealth, commerce and image, the thing he saw as shining the most brightly, the most beautiful and attractive thing in this physical part of the earth was the faith and hope that Gary carried in his heart. This disheveled, sickly man whose presence is seen as an unsightly blight on the polished surroundings.....this is where the Kingdom of God was.

I walked away, feeling not worthy to have recieved what i had. I was free to cry in my car on the way home.

Thank you Jesus for your holiness given into my life. Thank you for the love of my friends. Thank you for giving me a home. Thank you for destrying in order to rebuild. Thank you for this family.