My Samaria

My Samaria



Sneers along with a yell-“hey what’s that you got?’ ‘Is that a Bible? Ha Ha Ha!” The raw smell of the guy sitting down at the table next to me. The hard looks from the kids who should be home watching TV, playing video games or getting ready for dinner. Instead they fly their colors as they walk buy flashing their bling, expressing a bravado of hard looks while working their brand of intimidation.

A teenage girl walks by infant, in a stroller that has seen better days. There is a small boy following her. She interrupts her conversation on her cell phone long enough to yell at him impatiently to keep up. A car pulls up where we sit; loud rap music, grabs the attention of everyone around. Young men tatted out looking like they would intimate the Pope.


Wondering, wondering, what's their story, what brought them here tonight?


We begin to pray, people slow to watch, looking at the Bibles sitting on the table. They wonder in curiosity what a couple of guys are doing reading their Bible out loud, talking about Jesus and praying together. An older man stops buy to tell his story of how the church mistreated him when he was a young boy. Willie struggles to form the words in any distinguishable format. The attempt to drown out the pain and confusion has been accomplished today by what smells like cheap wine. The combination of the alcohol and the smell of a cigarette Willie just put out is enough to cause me to want to pull back from the hug he offers. The truth is Willy needs the hug, because he is broken and rejected. Willie has been back several weeks in a row. He says he doesn’t understand why he keeps coming back but Willie hears about God’s love and desire to be in a close friendship with him. Willie doesn’t know he is being drawn by God's Spirit

A lady is handing out Bible tracts. She’s convinced someone needs a multicolored blanket she has with her. Dressed in an array of eclectic taste in clothing, Sister Clare has a story of grand proportions. She use to live in Hollywood as a stand in for several movies which lead her to Paris as a backup singer for Ella Fitzgerald.

This is where the gospel is alive. These are the people we are afraid to interact with. This is Samaria.

I love handing out hope where there is no hope for tomorrow. All that matters here is what will happen next. How to survive, escaping the pain life has handed out in doses that come by the truck load.

People need hope, even in small amounts. People are still people and God is still God, who by the way is in the business of hope.

Jesus passed through a town called Samaria on his way to Galilee to Jerusalem instead of going around like most Jews of his day. The Samaritans were viewed as lower than dogs. Samaritans were scary. They were gang members and prostitutes, murders lived in that part of town. The thought of the Samaritans generated a repulsive thought. People who were unsafe and to be avoided. Routine travel consisted of four days around Samaria, instead of the shorter route through Samaria that took only two days. Jesus chose to travel through Samaria where he encountered a woman who needed to be accepted and given the hope of a new start.

Life is all around us. We make a choice not to look at the unpleasant parts of it.

What does today's Samaria look like to us?

I love the reality of "Street Gospel" and the dramatic difference it can make. Honesty is a requirement and nothing else will be accepted. Accountability is quick. There is an interesting sense of honor in a way that feels out of place but very real none the less. There is a real taste of strength in love found here. The challenge of not wanting to return, along side of the love for this kind of gritty truth is a paradox that is real and strong.

Being Samaria driven and living like a church that looks like heaven takes courage and commitment to the vision of loving like God loves, regardless of what people look or sound like.

I am under construction and being formed into his image. On occasion I am blessed with a view of how Jesus looks at what we call life in the humanness we struggle with each day. His ways are higher than mine and his thoughts are loving at all times toward everyone. Regardless of what we look like or sound like.

Your Samaria may look different than mine. That doesn’t change the command to go and hand out hope where it’s needed.

“You shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth."

Trust your tires

 I like to mountain bike. One of my favorite days to ride is usually an early spring day when the weather is on the verge rain but the clouds are breaking up. The streams are flowing freely and in abundance. The ground is moist but firm; the temperature is something you don’t think about because it’s not too hot or too cold. That, along with a few good friends is the recipe for a great day! Good friends will trash you because that is what guys do. They are the ones that will push you to ride harder and challenge you to take a hill weather you are climbing or descending regardless of the incline you face. Touting you saying things like “don’t act like my little sister.” Friends that will give advice from something they read or from experience because they want to see you succeed at being a better rider, or at anything you do. Gota love friends like that.

 So I want to tell you about something I learned from my friends. While out riding one day with friends like I just described. We came to a descent, a long sweeping hill that ended at a hard right turn. Before we dove headlong into our ride one of my friends told me two things before starting our decent. First: he said “never use your front brakes and only feather your rear brake”. Second: “trust your tires and stay in the turn all the way through. In other words don’t allow your bike to come upright during the turn but lean into the turn instead of away from the turn. Your tires will do their job, they will grab the dirt the way they are designed to do. If you even touch your breaks at the most intense part of your turn (when you are at full speed in the middle of the turn) you will go down!” He didn’t say to me you might crash. He said “YOU WILL GO DOWN.” Ok! The only problem with crashing at that point in the ride would be the landing. After a rough tumble down a 25 foot cliff ending headlong into the water of the American River. After the quick lesson we were off.

 I have a computer for my bike. It reads mileage, speed and tells the time. So being guys, competition is almost always present in everything we do. Things like who can climb without dismounting and downhill speed are just a couple that earn bragging rights among this group. Our decent started on this single track the day of my instructions. I was third in the line of five guys. About a quarter mile into the ride the two guys in front of me started to pull away, remember we are descending, I decided to pick up the pace to keep up. Knowing the riding habits’ of my friends I knew getting close held no bodily danger, so I geared up and went for it. Thinking the entire time about my instructions, stay in the turn and trust your tires. Now at about 27 ½ miles an hour I thought to myself this is getting pretty fast for this turn coming up. I laid back just a little to watch the two guys in front of me. They hit the turn leaning into it, or should I say laying into it, each one almost brushing the grass with their shoulder. I now had my example to follow. Here I go! It was one of the most amazing rides I have had to date. I found out that the “Farmer John” tire on the front and the “Pandera” on the rear of my bike were indeed designed to grab the dirt in those conditions. Good tires are worth what you pay for them. What a great day!

 I am convinced there is always a take away from our experiences in life.

 I have a few from this ride and from my friends.

 I learned that the love of a brother will always make you a better man of God because they will always watch your back; they will warn you of any pitfalls in front of you before you get there when they see them before you do. They will take the time to instruct you even in detail and teach technique when possible.

 I learned that trusting the design of God’s hand will always take you farther than trusting what feels natural to you. Sometimes what feels like the right thing to do is opposite than what is actually the right thing to do. God’s ways are always the right way even if it doesn’t feel natural. Guess what? His ways are divine, not natural. I wanted to hit my breaks in the turn at 23 miles an hour instead of trusting my tires to hold traction in the dirt. Leaning paraelle to the ground didn’t feel right either but it was the best thing to do at 23 miles an hour. Waiting for the prompting and leading of the Holy Spirit instead of moving on my own is always the right thing to do. Just like doing something prompted to do that sounds wrong is the right thing to do. When we are in constant touch with God’s word and learn what his voice sounds like we learn we can trust everything he says.

 I learned that the right thing to do is peddle as hard as I can downhill and trust the instructions from someone who has experience and always has my best interests in mind. Just like it is the right thing to give everything I have to God and his purposes, because when I do, that is the only way in this life and the next to experience abundant life.

 I find myself wanting to peddle as hard as I can in my relationship with Jesus; I want to trust in him and his ways because his designs are always for the optimum performance to achieve the abundance I am looking for in my life.
 I am also thankful for brothers he brings in to my life to keep it real for me.