he didn't issue uniforms

The Word for today:
Zechariah 14

I'm going to miss Zechariah. We've been standing in the rain with Zechariah now for a week and a half. I was just starting to catch his vision. I was finally tuning in to his frequency.

And I identified with him. He proves that God has a place on his team for crazy people!

I used an exclamation point on the end of that last sentence as a kind of camouflage. It serves to lighten up a sentence which isn't lightweight at all. If I take the exclamation point away, the sentence takes on density and weight:
He proves that God has a place on his team for crazy people.

That's really what I meant. I'm not as well-balanced as others seem to be. So I take courage from the company of loonies and dreamers that I encounter in the Word of God.

Where is that encouraging word coming from? Taking a step further into these pages, we come to realize that the word isn't emanating from Zechariah, but from Jesus:

For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (2 Peter 1:21)

All Scripture is breathed out by God. (2 Timothy 3:16)

This salvation was something the prophets wanted to know more about. They wondered what the Spirit of Christ within them was talking about when he told them in advance about Christ's suffering and his great glory afterward. (1 Peter 1:10-11)

Deep down inside Zechariah, deep down inside the paper your Bible is printed on, is a voice. It found its way to the surface through Elijah, who was besieged by depression; through Jude, who was given to dark thoughts; through Peter, who could not govern his emotions.

That voice can find expression through a person like you, too. And through a person like me.

So come out from behind that exclamation point. We don't have to hide there any more. God doesn't require that we dress ourselves in feigned levity, false modesty, or saccharine sweetness.

We've been given a place on the team. But he didn't issue uniforms. He issued his Spirit and his voice, a voice of density and weight.

And he gave us his story to tell.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~