The pain is searing. It feels as an icepick between my shoulder blades. No position brings relief, no stretch, no twist, nothing. Not even the prescriptions dull the invisible knife that tears constantly just 8 inches below my neck. But it doesn’t matter. Pain is an inevitable part of life. What matters is position and understanding. So…I find myself sitting outside the gate called Beautiful. Just like the man in Acts 3. I come every day for the same thing. Just to beg for what I think I want.
What I need however is not quite what I may be wanting. Far below the physical pain is damage that no surgeon or specialist can repair. It is a spiritual need. The Apostles offered the lame man at the gate more than he wanted, but exactly what he needed. The gave him what Jesus promised. It was a meeting of the unheard desperate cry of the soul and the penultimate grace of the cross. The man walked away in praise and adoration for the gift of God.
He came to understand that the gate is a place that we cannot stay. It is no place to live. When we understand that God wants to meet our needs, our wants become changed. We become free; freed to serve a God who in turn serves us, even though we don’t deserve it.
Let us not stand at the gate called Beautiful. Let us enter the temple, the city, the world and become that which meets the needs in someone else’s world. Bring others in from the gate into a place where abundance flows like a fountain unceasing. In my mind, whatever exists behind a gate called Beautiful must be far greater than what is kept outside. Its time to go in and live more abundantly.
