mend the net of my heart.

I will make you fishers of men, if you follow me. 
- Matthew 4:19.  

Mend the net of my heart, O wounded Healer,
Push and pull that harsh needle to bind the wounds in me.
Mend the net of my heart, O wounded Healer,
Prod and Press until the song of that heart is fixed on Thee.

Mend the net of my heart, O wounded Healer,
Break down that stone-encased soul made weathered by my sin.
Mend the net of my heart, O wounded Healer,
Bend your bow and pierce my soul, drive your mercy deep within.

Mend the net of my heart, O wounded Healer,
Make new the taste of costly grace abounding sure and sweet.
Mend the net of my heart, O wounded Healer,
Till melodies of your tenderness my coal-touched lips repeat.

under the 4th street bridge.

Last week I walked city streets with some friends of mine.
Under the 4th street bridge and kiddy corner to the capitol building in Olympia. 
Past human waste and hypodermic needles. 
Past wet mattresses and filthy sleeping bags.
Over bloodstains and around heaps of garbage. 
We stopped and prayed. Through a loss for words. Simple. Slow. 

I think Jesus would have been under the 4th street bridge.
Laughing and crying with "society's problems" while society just rolls on over from A to B.
Society has work to do.  And when it doesn't, it's too tired for bottom-dwellers from under the 4th street bridge. 

That night we set up shop in a derelict parking lot on State & Adams,
playing worship songs from a beer-truck that had been converted into a mobile-stage
with the words spray-painted above us, "Jesus Saves." 
We fed hungry people, handed out clothes, and prayed prayers.
And in a flash I watched a bunch of squirly youth-group kids become pastors and missionaries.  
 
I want to live every day under the 4th street bridge.
My eyes lifted, looking for hungry people - that's what Jesus saw (jn. 6:5).
My ears open, hearing cries for mercy - that's what Jesus heard (mk. 10:48-49).

Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.
- CT Studd

summer ragamuffin.

i was a summer ragamuffin as a kid. 

The dog days were perpetually shaded with deep hues of recklessness and enchantment. 
It was riot time. Time for the beatnik ragamuffin and the flower child to kick off their shoes and make waves. 
They were fireflies in Wichita.
Slack-lines in Billings.
Fireworks like canons.
Drive-in movies in the sticks. 
And they were cold mornings tucked deep somewhere inside a warm sleeping bag. 

My family used to tent-camp most summers. 
Now we have a demon called a "fifth-wheel" - a summer killer.
Today "Family camp-outs" is a has-been that has been and will be one of my favorite memories. 

Ever since I was a kid, one of the most unpleasant sensations to me has been waking up in a tent. 
See, the fatal flaw of tent-camping is that you have about a 2-minute window 
in the morning from the time your sleeping bag is shielding you from what 
feels like the arctic tempest to the moment it becomes an absolute sweat-box. 
Amid the summer-tide and lazy days those cold mornings will really stunt your motivation. 
Curled up in your sleeping bag, hearing brave morning-dwellers beginning to cook breakfast outside,
you think to yourself, "surely in five minutes I'll muster up the courage to sit up and put a shirt on..."
ha. right.
 
45-minutes later and people are talking outside the tent, maybe even about you...
but even that isn't enough to get you up. 
They try and rouse you, but you pretend not to hear.
Now you're comfy... and unashamed... 
You just wanna sleep. It feels so good.
You even wish people weren't talking so loud trying to wake you up. 
 
Then it happens... Almost all at once.
The sun... hits your tent.
Your body begins to sweat.
Your bag begins to stick to your skin.
You still don't want to get up, but now you're miserable.

That's life in sin. 

I don't mean that as some hyperbolic quip.
I mean, figuratively of course, sin is like that.

Life lived in sin is comfortable... It feels fantastic... 
It shields you from the initial discomfort of faith. 
You tell yourself you'll wake up soon enough. 
Then you lose any sense of shame. 
You don't care when other's are trying to wake you... 
In fact, they annoy you... 
Maybe you believe they're judging you for sleeping in...
And then... when you couldn't be more comfortable. 
Sin makes a mess of you. It chews you up and spits you out. 
 ... and then leaves you feeling dirty. 

But oh, how the Son shines... 
And when He shines on sin, the sinner wakes up. 
Darkness illuminated. 

Let's wake up, friends. 
Rise and shine. 
Endure the initial blast of cold air and live in the light. 

This is why it is said: "Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."
- Ephesians 5:14