Drunk or.... drunk...

Well...

These last two days (end of day 8 and the evening of day 9) have provided me with a large specturm of drunk. One make me really happy the other makes me really... hungry.

Happy Drunk: At our Watchmen Prayer Meeting we had an insane time of prayer. We're a hungry lot and are wanting... no... NEEDING the Holy Spirit to come to us like He did that first day of Pentacost. We simply must be changed into the likeness of Christ and we're all on that journey. We all know that one good God encounter can erase years of bad thinking, so we're going for it. Last night at the prayer meeting was what I can only describe as an atomic bomb going off in our midst. That was very easily one of the most powerful times with the Lord I've had in a very, very long time. We came into the throne room with some serious boldness and wouldn't leave until the presence of God arrested our hearts and blew us away.

That mission was a success.

I don't even know how to describe it, other then there were times when I just didn't know what to do with myself, the power of God was so strong. That lasted a while as we prayed earnestly for God to come and transform us once again and then we felt that beautiful covering of peace come over us. It was quite funny, really. We were silent for the longest time and suddenly the laughter started. I kept thinking about that line in Acts, "They are not drunk as you suppose." I'm suspecting it was much the same for we were HOWLING in laughter, much harder then I have seen anyone laugh and for such a sustained time. It was great.

Words just do not describe face to face encounters with God like that. Just trust me... it was AMAZING!!!

Then we fast forward to this evening...

Hungry Drunk: I spent the evening with my good friends Jon, Neil and Aaron. We went to Whyte Ave for a while and took in the tail end of an amazing Jazz show put on at the Yardbird Suite. There is a jazz festival going on right now and this was one astounding act. They blew me away. After, we were hungry so we went and got some pizza. Not before chatting with an amazing drummer who lives in New York and regularly tours with some HUGE names in Jazz. It was neat to talk to this guy - very friendly.

Anyway, we went to get pizza. You can get some good stuff at this place called the "Funky Pickle". Of course you have to walk through a vast section of Whyte Ave and by this time it was past midnight. If you are on Whyte, near midnight on a Friday evening you must be prepared for about 10 blocks crammed full of thousands of insane drunk people. It's party central with a whole ton of bars and clubs. Tonight was a wild night. People were tripping out on drugs, one girl was dancing away to her own music in her head, people were getting ready to hurl, others stumbling around yelling and screaming, highly dysfunctional streets kids (called the street rats) were all over the place pouding out their horribly out of tuned guitars and screaming at the top of their lungs, loud music pumping every two doors out of the bars, people trying to get picked up, others making out all over the place, a 60 year old woman stumbling around so badly I had to ask and make sure she was going to be alright (she slurred something incomprehensible to me) and finally myself and my friends in the middle of this insane mess buying Funky Pickle Pizza.

In the middle of it all I thought to myself, "Where are all the Christians?"

We're supposed to be salt, right? Jesus calls us light. What do you get when you take the light out of the darkness? You are left with dark. What do you get when you take the salt out of the stuff you're supposed to preserve? Rot. Somehow we've got it all turned around in our head that holiness is what you keep yourself away from, when it was never supposed to be like that. Jesus hung out with hookers and crooks. Holiness is not what you seperate yourself from it's what you give yourself to. And in this case, who you give yourself to.

We've been called to reach the world, but so much of the church is afraid of it and I don't know why.

All I kept saying over and over as I saw this kind of drunk was, "I'm so glad I have Jesus." Granted I was not able to talk to every single person out there, but I did when I was able to. It might not have been "repent now, you evil sinner", but it was giving some change away in the name of my Father. It was saying hi and talking a bit - loving in the way that I can. Don Miller who wrote "Blue Like Jazz" put it wonderfully saying that we've turned love into a commodity that we give or hold back depending on our acceptance of a certain person and their actions, when it never was supposed to be like that. We've got to see love like a force that simply and always brings people closer to God. I'll go and love people and invest love into them knowing that it is that love which will go into their spirits and leave them longing for more... not from me... but from the one they have been searching all their lives for.

So I left Whyte Ave witnessing hungry drunk because I left Whyte Ave so hungry for God to come and save those sheep. They're not lost people, they're sheep without a shepard. They are children of God just the same as you and I are. They are you and I without Jesus. They are God's sons and daughters already. What an injustice that they do not yet know. What an even greater injustice that nobody is going to tell them about what is already theirs.

I left Whyte Ave hungry for more. More boldness. More love. More opprotunities. More willingness. More Jesus. More of God's love so I can walk in it and give it away.

More and more God's continuing words to so many people throughout the Bible are echoing in my ears, "Don't be afraid....."

I witnessed happy drunk and hungry drunk. I think they cannot exist without each other. You only get to keep what you give away. You can only give away what you have. I must have more. I must give away more.