Yesterday I spoke about the uncommon devotion that the first church had to Jesus. In Acts 2:42 the author writes, “All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer.” The question I asked as I talked about this verse was if you could imagine what this might look like today?
Overnight there was snowstorm that dumped a tonne of snow on our city. As I drove into the parking lot of the church today I noticed some footprints that began at the entrance to the parking lot and went all the way to the middle of the parking lot. Now what you need to know is that when it snows our parking lot is a mess with huge drifts and you are going to get stuck unless you have all-wheel drive, in fact I called the staff this morning and told them to stay home and we cancelled preschool classes because the parking lot was impassable.
Yet, in the middle of the parking lot where these footprints. As I looked more closely at the footprints I realized there are actually two sets. Someone had walked through snow six inches to a foot of snow in some places, stopped in the middle of the parking lot and then turned around and walked back to to road, close to a 100 yards. As I shovelled the snow away from the front doors of the church I realized what had happened.
Each morning around 7 am, one of Living Hope’s members comes to the church building, parks at the entrance and then walks to the centre of the parking lot and stands in front of the cross on the front of our building. There in front of the cross he prays every morning. I don’t know how long he has been doing this, I first noticed this around 4 years ago and since then I’ve seen him on weekdays and on weekends, in the heat, in the rain and even in the snow. The footprints in the middle of the parking lot that stop in front of the cross were this man’s.
Sometime around 7 am, this man parked his car on the side of the road and walked through the snow to stand before the cross and listen to his Saviour. On a day when a good portion of our city has called a snow day and is staying home, this man got up dug his vehicle out and made his way to the cross. It didn’t matter, nothing was going to keep him from spending time with Jesus this morning.
I’m sure passers by wondered what he was doing. Some may have shook their head and though he was weird. Some may have thought something was wrong. No of that mattered to him though.
This is a picture of uncommon devotion.
To often in life I think we let snow days or bumps in the road disrupt and keep us from spending time with Jesus. We are devoted, but only when its convenient and comfortable. Today, I’m inspired by footprints in the snow to be more devoted to Jesus and go beyond my comfort zone and live an uncommon life.
What does uncommon devotion look like in your life? To what lengths are you willing to go to spend time with Jesus today?
Source: Kirk’s Blog
