I want to sit at your feet drink from the cup in your hand lean against you and breathe feel your heartbeat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NI_1YliutzA
One of my favorite morning songs, Keri Jobe “The More I seek You”. In this song Keri tells a beautiful story of what it is like to sit at our Jesus’ feet. We are encouraged as Christ followers to seek HIM in all things. To meditate and memorize HIS word. One morning I was doing just that a meditation…something I had heard from a sermon. I do not remember who the speaker was and I have not been able to track it down on the internet. I believe it was Franklin Graham. The pastor was speaking about a recent missions trip he had been on. He was in the middle of extreme poverty and began to meditate on Luke 8:26-29, Matthew 8:28-34 and Mark 5:1-20. This morning I was seeking, and what I found was a word for me.
In these three chapters of the gospel, Matthew, Mark and Luke all tell a story about Jesus going into a community of gentiles (non believers) and casting demons out of a man and into a herd of pigs. In Matthew and Mark one man is mentioned. In Luke two men are mentioned, my study Bible says that is probably because only one of them spoke.
In these stories the TV pastor went on to describe scene. These fellow’s were shunned and chained up in a grave yard. They had zero worth to their families and community. They cost more than they were worth. Jesus saw them, their worth and cast the demons into a herd of pigs who drowned themselves. You would think the community would be happy, some of them were. Some of them were amazed, but there were others who begged Jesus to leave the area. He had cost them too much money as all of the pigs were now gone. They valued money over human life.
The TV pastor went on to say that on the mission trip he was convicted to tell the folks that he encountered that he was there because God says that they are worth it. His story touched me deep in my heart and I was thinking about some of the folks in the villages of West Africa that I had met. Did they know that God sent me because they were worth it? One morning during my devotion time I was meditating on these verses and on this pastors story. I was imagining being on an outreach in Bo, Sierra Leone Africa. I was thinking about the many women who I had met during my mission work. Women who live each day to survive, to keep their children alive…women who have experienced more heart-break than I believe my heart could ever bare. I was imagining that I was speaking to a large crowd and I was telling them how Jesus sent the mission team because the women were worth it. I was saying it with every ounce of my heart so that they would believe it. It went something like this: God has called us away from our families and friends to come here. To be with you, to help you BECAUSE HE SAID YOU ARE WORTH IT!. I was telling them from the deepest part of my soul as if that would show them the love of my Jesus, their Jesus, our Jesus! I was meditating on that image with my heart when I heard the voice of God from deep within me say: “Because you’re worth it Karen”….I beg your pardon?? “Because you’re worth it Karen”. I’ll never forget that moment…so filled with the spirit, redemption, the truth. Here I was so passionate about telling women across the ocean something that I do not know if I had ever truly believed for myself. That I was worth it. How could God forgive me for my past, forgive me for my present and heaven knows what messes I’m going to get into in my future? I received it that morning.
I had tasted God’s love and acceptance for others…but if I am to be honest, I think that is the first time I fully believed it for myself. I believe that is part of the mission God has given me, it’s so simple. He wants you to know that you are worth it! Our Jesus didn’t just die for Christ followers. He died for every human being on this earth. God has told me that this is not only a story for folks living in extreme poverty. This is a story for every human…from the ones with the least to the ones with the most. Because you’re worth it and so am I.
-Karen
Because you're worth it and so am I 