Deli.Down.The.Street
Every week I go to the same grocery store. Every week I check out in the same lane. The same cashier greets me, scans my items, and asks how I’m doing every single week. This sweet old woman’s hair is always tied up in a ponytail, which slips through the back of her hat. She wears a green apron over her white button down shirt, which is tucked into her tan slacks. She always wears a smile, always smells of perfume and always tells me to have a good week.
The other day I was sitting in church, the worship team played a few songs, the pastor delivered a message, and then we were invited to respond to whatever God was doing. I decided to sit in my seat and pray when I “felt God’s presence” come into the room. I sat there and just enjoyed the moment. The pastor prayed and we all left the building to head to lunch. A few of us made it over to a deli down the street and right when I walked in the front door I noticed a woman sitting by herself in the back of the room. As we ordered food and sat down I couldn’t help but glance over at this woman. There was something strangely familiar about her but for the life of me I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then I noticed that she began to glance over at me. At this point it really began to bug why I couldn’t figure out how I knew this lady. I started to rack my brain to figure it out. It wasn’t from church, it wasn’t from school, and wasn’t from my hometown. The food came out to our table, conversations about the message we just heard began to ensue, and I sat there staring off into the distance as I mindlessly shoved food down my throat all while trying my hardest to pinpoint this mystery woman. As she finished her food and made her way to the trash she passed right by our table and as I looked up she wore a very familiar smile. It clicked! That smile was all I needed to realize that this lady was my sweet old woman from the grocery store. Week after week I would see her wearing the same outfit, in the same location, saying the same things, so to run into her in a different context completely through me for a loop. I couldn’t recognize this woman if there wasn’t a counter between us. I couldn’t recognize this woman if she wasn’t scanning my food and I wasn’t handing her money. I couldn’t recognize this woman outside of the grocery store. Outside of the context I knew her in. In that moment God showed me something.
We are so absorbed into our own little worlds that we forget that God is much bigger than the realities we see around us. In fact we have become so good at identifying God in the settings we expect to encounter him in, that we have become incapable of seeing him anywhere else. Think about this for a second. You know what God feels like at church. We know how Jesus shows up at a prayer meeting. And you know what the Holy Spirit feels like in a worship service.
But outside of that context.
Outside of those normal encounters with God.
We have no idea what God looks like.
What does God look like in a nightclub? What does Jesus look like walking down the street? What does the Holy Spirit feel like when we aren’t surrounded by hundreds of other Christians all singing the same song?
This is exactly what the Pharisees were guilty of. They had God so figured out in their minds. They had him so pinned down and explained away. That when Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, walked down the street they had no clue who he was. They were so consumed in their ideas about God that they couldn’t recognize the Messiah they had been praying for.
I think we miss God on the sidewalks because we only know what he looks like on Sunday. I think we miss Jesus in the star bucks because we only know what he looks like at the prayer meeting. I think we miss the Holy Spirit at the grocery store because we only know what he feels like during worship services.
It is my prayer that we become the kinds of people that begin to adopt a much broader view of who God is. The kinds of people who can lay down the expectations we carry around about God and allow him to be who He already is. The kinds of people who can encounter him at church but also at the Deli.Down.The.Street
-Billy
