Words from Kristi McLelland

 You know, there's a difference if we read the Bible and think that we have to go find God versus God comes looking for us. And the story of the Bible is that the Living God is relentless in His looking for us. And so the first thing I would say is we can't lift ourselves. We can't generously do that work so often on our own behalf.

We are listening for that voice, the voice of the Shepherd, the one that when we hear His voice it's a word that we cannot speak to ourselves. And it's to allow Him to find us in our hardest places, our most difficult moments, the hardest relationships, the things that are fundamentally upside down. And to know that Jesus didn't come to turn things upside down. He came to turn things right side up. And so when I am devastated, when I am in the floor crying, and I don't know what to do, something that I learned in Israel is when sheep are lost, they actually don't cry out. They hunker down and they wait to be found. And so I get that image in my own heart, in my own life, in my tough places, I just hunker down and I say, "Living God, Jesus, come find me and bring me home."

Take Heart in the Slow Lane

Have you ever chosen what looked like the shortest checkout line—only to discover that the person ahead of you has seventeen coupons, one item without a price tag, and a credit card that refuses to cooperate?

So you move to another line.

Immediately, the line you just left begins moving at lightning speed, while your new cashier turns on the dreaded blinking light: “Price check!”

We do not handle interruptions well—especially when we are already in a hurry.

In Matthew 9, Jesus was on His way to an urgent situation. Jairus’s twelve-year-old daughter was dying. The crowd was pressing in, everyone was moving, and there was no time to waste.

Then a suffering woman reached out and touched Jesus’ garment.

Jesus stopped.

What probably felt like an interruption to everyone else was a divine appointment to Jesus. He was not impatient, irritated, or too busy for her. He looked for her and lovingly said:

“Take heart, daughter; your faith has made you well” (Matthew 9:22).

Maybe today you feel like the woman in the checkout line who is holding everyone up—the one whose needs are complicated, whose problem cannot be solved quickly, or whose healing is taking longer than expected.

Take heart, daughter. You are never an inconvenience to Jesus.

He is not nervously checking His watch, wondering how long this will take. He is never too busy, too distracted, or too overwhelmed to stop for you. What others may see as an interruption, Jesus sees as someone worth noticing.

And unlike us, Jesus never wishes He had chosen a different line.