Curtains

Innovate 09 from Granger Community on Vimeo.

I take my curtains for granted.
They hang beautifully, faithfully, day after day
brushing by them countless times in a week
Keeping us warm, cool, and comfortable
The spot where Lauren's hands grab to peek out
has grown higher and higher with every season
every precious visitor who visits is greeted
and farewelled by a friendly wave between the curtains
like a gleeful puppet show just for them
But there are days, months, years even,
when we go to work, come home, eat, sleep, play, live
and never take time to think about our curtains.
Imagine our shock to come home one day to find them stolen.
Blinding sunlight in the day and feeling exposed at night.
We take our curtains for granted.
Like our own ability to see
our silent breath in and out
our heartbeats...
And all too often, Your great commission.
For centuries, the Church has faced snakey temptation,
the pull for pageantry or the desire for political gain,
and in the middle of our planning services, events, elements,
in our busyness of preparation behind the stage curtains,
We forget about the curtain You tore in half
and our calling to share it with the world.
Somehow brushing past You to sit together on Sunday mornings
looking to stay warm, cool, and comfortable.
A bunch of prodigal big brothers, smug that we stayed at home
refusing to come to the party for someone so stupid.
Well-dressed cliques who shake hands, wave hello and goodbye
never getting past our own draping-curtained superficial smiles.
There will come a day when the curtains will fall from our eyes
like scales from the blind man You touched
the day when You come back to claim those
who stepped over those torn curtain pieces
into the temple of following You.
Confession time,
exposed.
That day scares me.
I know there will be celebration, healing, victory, redemption.
But I can't help but ache for all those left behind
the students I never got to share You with,
the friendly neighbors I never took time to get to know,
the hungry children in Monroe circle,
the thousands in India who didn't make it to the church plants.
the shoppers in Target right across the street,
who drive by the building like a curtain in a living room.
That day will be agony for them.
They are the reasons we get up in the morning
work late, have long meetings, hold conferences,spend days, weeks, months, years,
finding new innovative ways to capture their attention.
Shake us to move from hamsters on wheels
to your kids chasing Your dreams
of what could be and should be.
And help me to cling to that heavy ache in my chest
that nagging thought in my mind
that incessant pull like a veil torn
all the way to the final curtain.


"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Matthew 28:19-20

“Become the change you seek in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi

"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us." Hebrews 12:1


"If a commission by an earthly king is considered a honor, how can a commission by a Heavenly King be considered a sacrifice?" David Livingstone