[I'm live blogging from the IJM Global Prayer Gathering in D.C.]
I was struck by the different kinds of people at the Banquet we had tonight.
There were lawyers and hippies, teenagers and grandparents, charismatics and fundamentalists, African Americans and Asians, Democrats and even a few Republicans. And we were a family. We were united by two simple truths. Jesus Christ has changed us, and God desires justice for this world.
We heard amazing stories of how God is moving (though for security, I’ve been asked to not post details). We heard of prosecution and restoration, torture and healing, rape and just punishment. God is working through the International Justice Mission.
We were led in worship by Ten Shekel Shirt, who took us before our God and helped us remember why we are fighting against injustice. I personally have not felt any freer in worship than when we sang Mighty to Save. The deep truth that our God is indeed in control of everything really hit home as we heard about the atrocities going on in the world and the men and women of God who are fighting against evil.
The last corporate event of the evening was a time of late night worship.
Even as a Baptist, it was amazing to tangibly feel the presence of God in out midst. We sang, we prayed and through it all, we worshipped. That time of worship led me naturally into a time of prayer in the 24hr prayer room at the hotel. For the first time in a long time, I was able to let go of some of the selfish things that have been consuming me, and truly pray for the world.
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The Vision?
The vision is Jesus: obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.
The vision is an army of young people.
You see bones? They are an army.
And they are free from materialism. They laugh at the markets.
They hardly care! They wear clothes like costumes:
to show and to tell, but never to hide.
They know the meaning of the Matrix; the way the West was won.
They are mobile like the wind; they belong to the nations.
They need no passport.
People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
They are free, yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.
What is the vision?
The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes.
It makes children laugh and adults break and cry.
It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.
This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day its soldiers choose to lose that they might win, one day
the great "Well done" of faithful sons and daughters.
Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night.
They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards
and hear the crowds chanting again and again: "COME ON!"
And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history shaping
Foundations shaking
Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is screaming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing...
This is the sound of the underground.
And the army is disciplined.
Young people who beat their bodies into submission.
Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrades at arms.
The tattoo on their backs boasts "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain."
Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their eyes.
Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them?
Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them?
And this generation prays like a dying man with groans beyond
talking, with warrior cries, sulphuric tears
Waiting. Watching: 24 - 7 - 365.
Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules.
Shaking mediocrity from its cozy little hide.
Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs,
laughing at labels, fasting essentials.
The advertisers cannot mold them.
Hollywood cannot hold them.
Peer-pressure is powerless
to shake their resolve
Material clothes matter not
Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their very lives,
swap seats with the man on death row;
guilty as hell.
A throne for an electric chair.
With blood and sweat and many tears,
with sleepless nights and fruitless days,
they pray as if it all depends on God
and live as if it all depends on them.
Their words make demons scream in shopping malls.
Don't you hear them coming?
Here come the frightened and forgotten, with fire in their eyes.
Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.
And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history shaping
Foundations shaking
Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is screaming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing...
This is the sound of the underground.
1 comment:
Your wording caught me off guard. What do you mean by:
"Even as a Baptist, it was amazing to tangibly feel the presence of God in out midst?"
I'm praying for you and all those in attendance. May God be glorified.
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