Arise..again

Rise, shine, give God the glory, glory
Rise, shine, give God the glory, glory
Rise, shine, give God the glory, glory
Soldiers of the Cross

I believe that is one of the choruses from We Are Climbing Jacob's Ladder, one of the songs we used to sing back in the old days. Maybe they still do, I don't know.

Isaiah 60:1 says that "Arise, shine"

Oswald Chambers introduction to today's reading is "We have to take the first step as though there were no God. It is no use to wait for God to help us. He will not; but immediately we arise we find that He is there."

If I have heard the call, and the call comes from God, then I don't do well by sitting and waiting for God to give me the help I need to accomplish the task at hand. No matter the if the details of the call are very mundane, if it is indeed His call, then He is in it and will use it for His Glory. A task of seeming drudgery can be a joy when looked at through the lens of Service for God.

I am off to prison in about two and a half weeks, and a part of that weekend of ministry is writing to each inmate on the walk, probably 42, a personal letter telling them how they have blessed me on the weekend. Now, from a practical standpoint, I cannot go into prison on a Thursday night, meet the men, and then write 42 individual letters to deliver them to them on Saturday afternoon. So I write the letters before I go and then fill in the names on Fridays night.

Why does this come to my mind this morning? I know it is because this letter writing can be a drudgery in the time frame allowed, especially when you don't know anyone to whom you will be writing. But when I remember, from past prison weekends, the absolute joy on the faces of the men when they read the notes from each of the workers on the walk, I see what it means to do it for God and His Glory. And when I remember the heart breaking fact that a lot of these same men get no mail at all from anyone, the supposed drudgery of the act, fades.

The funny thing about having this reading today is that as I woke up this morning, I was thinking about how to type a note on the computer and copying it 42 times so as to get it done quickly and painlessly. Now that I have at least partially understood the implications of the scripture, then I know what it is that I should do.

If God has called me to go to prison on this particular weekend, then He will be in the simple task of writing these letters. I know all that.......Arise.