Showing Up

So guess what happened today? A friend came over with the thought of helping us with the shed.  Jim was having a hard morning so instead, he helped me with trimming back our maple tree.   In some ways, it was kinda funny.  He’d trim something, notice a dead branch and cut it off.  He’d think he was all done and then would look around and go “Oh, I didn’t see that dead one there, let me see how I can get to it”.    This happened so often I started to inwardly chuckle about it, but outwardly I’d help him, holding the ladder, and carrying away branches for him.  We had a thoroughly productive morning and he taught me a lot about caring for trees. Then the lad helped load up the truck for a trip to the dump so all those branches are gone!  Utterly fantastic!  Anyways, it made me think about the word prompt this week and how nicely this friend was about showing up.

Showing Up

Showing up is not
just a fling.
It’s a gift a time,
a meaningful thing.

A helpful moment,
often God-made,
to meet a need
it should be obeyed.

In my email often found
ways to show others
your faith in God
reaching out to brothers.

Sometimes it’s fancy
ways of evangelism, or
programs to put on, or
methods of catechism.

But what I’m learning
works is simply
and plainly showing up
even if you’re pimply!

Just showing up matters.
Teaching, praying,
studying, helping,
working and playing

Be that Sunday School helper,
and lender of tools.
Be the mover, the idea-giver,
and the setter of stools.

Mow a lawn, walk a dog,
read a book, write a letter,
pay it forward, and create a smile
Do what you can to make it better.

And when people ask
why you are showing up?
Tell them the truth,
God makes you look up!

God is the reason for
the things that you do
I’m finding my way to
make him relevant to you!

Yup, me, still talking

I don’t often do rhyming couplets in a very “poetry-ish” style, and boy, it can be a challenge!  🙂   Anyways, God is good and walks me through eh?  But seriously, show up with your faith.  Be out and about in your community making an impact and try not to be shy about your reasons for doing so.  Otherwise, how will people know? 

James 2:18-26 (ESV)

¹⁸ But someone will say, “You have faith and I have works.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. ¹⁹ You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! ²⁰ Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? ²¹ Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? ²² You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; ²³ and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”—and he was called a friend of God. ²⁴ You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. ²⁵ And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? ²⁶ For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.