Last weekend I drove up to Milwaukee to visit Jim, Jake Barnett's dad. Jake had fellowshipped with our home group in Cambridge for a season. I continue to marvel at the hospitality of the saints including those, like Jim, whom I had met only once. We had good rapport, counseling and praying together about a number of things. Sunday morning he took me to the home group with whom he gathers. and we experienced a powerful time of worship. A brother David has a wonderful gift in that area. In the past I have taught on the idea of the Holy Spirit as "The Invisible Conductor," as with a symphony orchestra. Each of us has received some gift or talent which, when we respond to the Holy Spirit's leading produces a spiritual harmony that glorifies God. In this case musicians (electric guitar, electric piano, violin, and hand drum) and non-musicians produced a heavenly sonata interspersed with prayer. David saw a picture of me as a bumblebee pollinating flowers that serves as a physical illustration of what God has called me to do spiritually.
Monday returned to Chicago for further fellowship with Lewie and his friend Ricky, a brother from Arkansas. On Tuesday we visited a professor named Trevor who teaches at a local Bible school regarding a book he had written about adoption into God's family. I confess a bias against academics but this gentleman proved remarkably personable, eager to usher the Holy Spirit into his teaching and ministry, and open to other's input. His emphasis on the relational aspects of the NT refreshed all of us.
That evening my friends Tom & Diane joined me with about ten individuals in the discipleship community. We ate together at a big table, encouraged one another in a general discussion and then had conversations with one or two others. Quite a rewarding time.

Wednesday returned to the Boston area, had a meal with my friends Matt & M. T. The latter has aspirations of marriage to a sister in another state. Among other things, I appreciate his sense of humor. i'm serious most of the time so people treat me that way. M. T. doesn't hesitate to "pull my leg." Later Matt & I met with Josh, who had a great testimony of how God is using an unpleasant work situation to deepen his faith.
Today I met with my friend Gary, whom I've known for four years. We talked a lot about our personal relationship with Christ. For those who follow Christ, why don't we do this more often? Isn't this the essence of the Christian life? Naturally speaking, Gary & I don't have a lot in common. For one, he is "wicked smart" as American slang says it, a grad student at Harvard working on a Ph.D. Yet we have developed one of the deepest friendships I have because of Christ. At one point I spoke about trees. God could have made just one kind of tree. All trees will be willow trees. I think willows are cool but I like all the others too, not to mention the fruit we receive from some of them. The same God who made thousands of kinds of trees yearns for us to know him personally the way He knows us.

Finally as Matt drove me down to Conn. the Lord opened my eyes to an physical illustration of His love for us. In the same way as a couple engaged to be married can't spend enough time together because of their love for another, our Lord Jesus, the heavenly Bridegroom, yearns for His Bride. As a human couple can't wait for all the preparations to conclude and for the day of their marriage to finally arrive, so Jesus longs for us to be presented "blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy." (Jude 1:24b) "May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ." (2 Thessalonians 3:5ESV)