Invitation

Where’s my invitation?

I hear a party is going on, but you forgot to invite me!

You invited yourself to come, and kept everyone else at a distance.

Yet this is a different kind of party.

The pity is that you did not invite me to come.

You would rather sit in the place of isolation, rather than have my company.

You don’t want anyone else to come, lest they tell you how you should feel, or what you should do.

You don’t want to infect them with your challenges, when they have enough of their own.

Yet you are so annoyed when others exclude you, make decisions for you, make decisions about you without consulting you.

Your daughter does this so well, “I could see that you were stressed and busy so thought I would leave you alone.”

She even invited you to come, with the promise of “more to come” and then at the last minute stood you up.

She tells you, she is thinking about you, but demonstrates the opposite.

Yet she is a great object lesson for you.

You exclude yourself, you say for your own protection, and yet I have called you…

Strong, mighty, powerful, resilient, driven, ruler, father to many, leader of the multitude, deliverer, restorer, fountain of blessing.

You sit there with your arms crossed, wondering what is going to happen.

I understand why you don’t want me to come.

For when I come, there is so much I bring that it overwhelms you.

You and Samson have so much in common.

I gave him so much power that he was compelled to use it.

For I wanted him to be a walking demonstration of my power.

The same is true of you.

You have felt it so personally.

For you at times it is like a bad dream, a recurring nightmare, where the room shakes in my presence. You could live with it as a spectator, but you always play a lead role in my dream. I can’t stop dreaming about you.

From the beginning I chose your name, “The one who fights on my behalf”.

It still messes you up that you can turn up at a church, where no-one knows you and the strongest man in the place, comes down from the stage to share this experience with you. With tears in his eyes, and visibly shaken, he says “can I share something with you?”.

He tells you a story of how a giant angel taller than anything he had seen stands behind you and places a golden suit of armour upon your shoulders. He tells of a great battle that is to come, and that God has chosen me to lead a great army against the forces of darkness. He tells me not to fear, to maintain my worship, for through me God will have a great victory. Afterwards he asks me for a hug and then makes his way back to the stage.

I could not dismiss this story as a nice story, for you showed me it in 3D as he narrated the story! I want to hide my eyes, to shield my eyes, and yet now you show up at unexpected times in un-natural ways. Like I am sitting in the lounge chair watching TV and you interrupt my viewing with a trailer from your next dream! I see before me now a cup that bursts forth before me, try as I might I can’t keep a lid on it!

You asked me “What is the point of a mighty warrior sitting on the sidelines?”

I think you have answered your own question!

Like the former security guard on the show you watched last night, he could not help himself to intervene in a battle, and to set the standard.

It is time for you to invite yourself to my party!

For he needed no invitation in order to intervene.

A mighty warrior cannot sit on the sideline, but must say charge!

For by your hand I will pour out a great blessing upon my people.

It is time, now is the time.

For the enemy fears your touch, your people are comforted by your touch!

For they know I have anointed you and appointed you for this position.

Like Samson, you will not need to explain yourself, to give them a theory lesson on strength, for by your hand I will give them a demonstration!

So what don’t you invite me to come?

For whatever the occasion I will be sure to make my presence felt!

Judges 15:12-20 And they said to him, We have come down to bind you, that we may deliver you into the hands of the Philistines. And Samson said to them, Swear to me that you will not fall upon me yourselves. And they said to him, No, we will bind you fast and give you into their hand; but surely we will not kill you. So they bound him with two new ropes and brought him up from the rock. And when he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him. And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon Samson, and the ropes on his arms became as flax that had caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands. And he found a still moist jawbone of a donkey and reached out and took it and slew 1,000 men with it. And Samson said, With the jawbone of a donkey, heaps upon heaps, with the jawbone of a donkey I have slain 1,000 men! And when he stopped speaking, he cast the jawbone from his hand; and that place was called Ramath-lehi the hill of the jawbone. Samson was very thirsty, and he prayed to the Lord and said, You have given this great deliverance by the hand of Your servant, and now shall I die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised? And God split open the hollow place that was at Lehi, and water came out of it. And when he drank, his spirit returned and he revived. Therefore the name of it was called En-hakkore the spring of him who prayed, which is at Lehi to this day. And Samson judged (defended) Israel in the days of the Philistines twenty years.