Jump for Joy!

I have, in my childhood photo album, a picture of me with a plastic guitar and a gigantic smile.  Directly behind me, my father has a small piece of plywood on which he is cleaning frog legs.  No lie.  I must confess, since I was a little child, I have loved frog legs.  In fact, in recent years, a good friend has ordered them for me in a restaurant in a tiny town in Virginia.  Yep.  I still love them.  Some people make the infamous claim, "Tastes like chicken," but I find this claim to be, yet again, ridiculous.  The only thing that tastes like chicken is chicken.  Frog legs taste like frog legs.  They are good and light in flavor and, oh, so tiny!  They would make the most perfect finger food at a fancy event because they are protein, and they don't require dishes or forks.

When I was in high school, we dissected frogs.  It was what we did back then.  But my Biology teacher went a bit further and gave us all frying pans.  We held them over our burners and put frog legs in them.  Something interesting happened: the frog legs would jump!  I didn't ask too many questions, but I assume that those particular legs were not more than 30 minutes or so away from their previous owners.  Whatever the case, the fact remained: the legs that had been dead seemed suddenly to come alive. 

Sometimes I feel like a frog leg, separated from a body that gives life.  I feel like I don't have the power to withstand another day.  Maybe I have something that can give sustenance to another, but I don't feel like I, myself, am receiving life.  If I don't find the remedy quickly, I almost always find that my body becomes tired and weak. 

Currently, I am ministering to a lady who is weak in her body.  She cannot find rest at night, and her physicians have heavily medicated her to the point where she is in a fog throughout the day.  She is becoming more and more separated from the people and things around her.  It looks like she is moving away from her source of life.  A difficult spiritual situation has rendered her body nearly immobile.  I know it's almost irreverent, but I keep thinking about the frog legs, and Bible verse comes to mind. "If that same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in you, He will quicken your mortal body!"

God's Spirit is powerful.  He dwells in us!  If we only could grasp the weight of this concept!  The very presence of the God who created the heavens and the earth dwells in us.  How beautiful!  How amazing!  The presence of God is powerful, and He not only touches our spirits but our very bodies, as well.  We cannot regard this too lightly.  We should rely completely on the all-sufficient presence of the Lord.

I am praying for my sweet friend.  Her son is with her now, and he is not a Christian.  I am praying that God would do a miraculous and swift work in her life so that he can see that Jesus Christ is the real, true God.  I am praying that his eyes would see it all - just like my eyes witnessed the jumping frog legs in Biology class.  Let your quickening come, Lord Jesus!