Dining With Dot and Mel...

On Friday evening (Cheryl) and I had dinner at the home of two very dear friends, Dot and Mel. Dot and Mel are on the senior-ish side of life. Dot and Mel enjoy their lives and their winter retreat in Florida. Dot and Mel are lovers of Jesus and have devoted their lives, home and family to him.

Now, Mel is a quiet gentleman and an excellent BBQer of spare ribs. He is wise and a good listener. He loves his wife, Dot, with a devotion that I can only hope I show for Cheryl when we reach that time of life.

And then there's Dot. Dot, is a gracious and generous woman. She is a seamstress who shows the love of Jesus by making gifts for persons who are going through medical struggles. She loves Mel and still finds ways to make their relationship grow. She is devoted mom and grandmother to her family ("Her children rise and call her blessed") and she is a true spiritual mother to Cheryl and I.

While my Spiritual Director, Jim, will say something like, "Let's listen together to what the Lord may be saying to you." Dot will say, "As I have been praying for you both... here is what I hear the Lord saying to you. Now what are you going to do about it?" And, while Mel is a master at the grill... Dot, in her straightforward motherly way, also really knows how to "turn up the heat".

Now, at some point, Cheryl may want to post some of the insights that Dot shared with her at our Friday evening dinner... I will leave that up to her. But, here are three items that the Lord impressed upon me from our conversation over dinner. First, Dot said that she thought that this blog was a good tool for me to use for journalling. But that I needed to be diligent about it. I told her that the Lord had already impressed upon me that I needed to use this forum as my journal and that, even if no one else reads it, I needed to be faithful about writing it. Dot's words were a confirmation. I simply need to be obedient to what I had already been instructed to do. This entry is the beginning of that obedience.

Secondly, Dot said that we needed to be attending a church. I gave her a number of reasons why we had not been doing so, all of which were related to how we see ourselves as called out of the "institutional church" and into a "house church"/ "intentional community" way of doing things. Her response was that in the interim, until we are actually doing what God has placed on our hearts, we are out of fellowship. As an act of plain obedience, she said, we need to be worshipping with God's people, praying for them and resisting the temptation to engaged in critique (criticism). I agree with that insight, will pray and locate a church to attend... and look forward to what the Lord might do in us as we obey.

Finally, Dot simply reconfirmed that we need to "get off our duffs" and begin to do what the Lord has prepared for us already. There are those in our community who want to love Jesus but don't know how to do this "church thing" (in fact the Lord has already led us to some who have asked us to provide some fellowship and worship for/with them). These are the people to whom we are called... so what's the hold up? Dot's counsel was to do something every day to minister to them and begin to gather them together. If you notice from one of my more recent blog entries, this is just a matter of obedience as well.

Seems to be a theme developing here... obedience ("Now that you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.").

(Thank-you Dot and Mel for a delicious meal, your loving hospitality and your insights from the Lord.)