What's in the Bag

"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer." - Acts 2:42

Via TJC

Monday is National Trail Mix Day. Perhaps there is a bag of it in your kitchen: Peanuts, raisins, and whatever else made it into the cart.

Nobody serves trail mix at a dinner party. It is heavy food in a small bag, packed for the man who has to carry it on his back. Eight miles from the truck there is no stove, no cooler, and no drive-thru. You cannot cook out there. You reach into the bag and eat what you put in it at the kitchen counter before the sun came up.

So a hiker packs staples. Fat. Sugar. Salt. Things that keep in the heat and need no fire.

You pack the bag in the kitchen. You open it eight miles out.

Luke tells us what the first church packed. Four things: The apostles' teaching. Fellowship. Breaking bread. Prayer. Those men were about to be scattered, arrested, and run out of towns, and that was the bag they carried.

Brother, we are walking into the weekend, two days without the order of our jobs. Sometime between now and Monday your child may shut his or her door, or the phone is going to ring at eleven at night with someone's name on it, or perhaps you may find yourself sitting in the driveway and not wanting to go inside.

You may not build a quiet time in the middle of that.

However: You will eat what you packed.

The apostles' teaching is the scripture you read on an ordinary Tuesday when nothing was wrong. Fellowship is the brother whose number is in your phone and who has already seen you cry. Breaking bread is your family at a table with the television off and your own voice saying grace. Prayer is out loud, in the car or truck, in words you did not borrow from anybody.

Daily Battle Order: 

Tonight, go get the actual bag out of the cabinet and set it on the counter where you will see it in the morning or go out and buy some!. Then finish this sentence out loud, in your kitchen, where you cannot fudge it:

"I have been out of ______ for a long time."

Whichever one you named, do that one before you sleep. Read the chapter. Send the text. Sit at the table. Say the prayer. One of them. Tonight.

Father, we have been living off what we packed a long time ago and the bag is light. Fill it. Put Your word in our hands, brothers at our side, bread on our table, and prayer in our mouths, so that when the trail turns hard we have something to reach for. In Jesus' name. Amen.