Serendipity

Look at what I found while looking for something else --- the poetry of Cheri Henderson

ARMCHAIR QUARTERBACK
I’ve long been searching for a church where the Holy Spirit flows,
where worship is free and spontaneous and goes and goes and goes;
but do I worship that way - every chance that I get - when I’m at home alone?
The answer to the question I’m sad to say is no, quite simply, no.

I’ve long been searching for a church with a passion for the lost,
one with servant-evangelism programs galore, soup kitchens and the like.
A place where everyone can fully be used to spread the gospel to the lost,
but in my personal life – every chance that I get - do I share the love of Christ?

I’ve long been searching for a church with a good children’s ministry,
one where the little ones are nurtured in Christ and learn of spiritual things.
But at home the secular television blares, we don’t pray at length, worship or sing.
Could it be that spiritual ministry to my child is really up to me?

I’ve long been searching for a church with an equal balance of everything -
evangelism, discipleship, prophecy, worship, deliverance, intercession, healing.
And finding none, there isn’t one that offers all these things,
I express my opinion with arrogance, grab my hat and quickly leave.

I’ve often thought the time has come to take the church out to the streets,
where the power of God can be displayed to the ones who have the need.
So if the Spirit of God is in me, why aren’t I out there doing this thing???
All talk, no action - with regard to the church, I’m armchair quarterbacking.

An armchair quarterback, I think I know all the perfect ins and outs,
but I’m starting to realize the perfect one isn’t you or me - it’s God.
And the bottom line question for all of us is: Have we truly made Jesus our Lord?
If you say yes and I say yes, then guess what? We’re in one accord.

I’m done with all the criticism, the opinionism, and self-righteous judging;
God’s looking down and shaking His head as we’re accomplishing nothing
except immobilizing ourselves as we analyze each other with all our petty nitpicking.
And a lost world stays lost, the sick remain sick, and the dead all around us are dying.


THE RIDE
(A Little Lesson from Matthew 21)

If the Lord can use a donkey,
he most certainly can use me -
all he wants is obedience and availability.

But if I resist and buck the Lord
and trot off to my "stall" to hide,
he'll move on to a usable "donkey" . . .

and I will miss the ride.