Out of touch...

This used to be a going concern.

The souvenir shop at the top of the stairs as you exit the 'pool of siloam'.

Only, turns out, it's not really the pool of siloam.

When I was a boy, the spot above was packed with tourists buying keepsakes from the famous pool where Jesus would have bathed on His way up to the temple and where he sent the blind man to be healed in John 9. I remember Christian groups worshipping there, getting all emotional and moved by the power of the place. I remember them buying vials of 'holy water' afterward to help them remember their experience in that sacred space.

Then it turned out to NOT be the place.

See, in 2004 they found the REAL pool of siloam (and how and why they found it will be explored in our new documentary) and, since then, no one cares to visit the old spot.

No more visitors, no more souvenir shop.

It lost its relevance because it was out of touch with reality.

Just like you and me, perhaps?

See I heard a preacher recently who was totally, completely, utterly, uselessly, grossly out of touch with reality, with where his audience was at, and--in my opinion--with what the text he was preaching from was all about.

I was so upset, it stayed with me for days.

Here's how it applies to me, and maybe to you.

It's very easy for us to get used to doing things the way we've always done them 'cause that's just how it is. Like the 'tourist site formerly known as the pool of siloam'; it was THE spot for years and years and years and nobody was really worried about it, or interested in digging deeper. You and I can fall into a rut of just doing what we do without really pushing ourselves to achieve greatness, moment by moment, as a hard-won habit.

Then, one day in Jerusalem, a freak snowstorm showed up (whoops, giving away the doc plot a bit there) and, in one fell swoop, everyone realized that the old spot for the pool of siloam was the 'wrong' spot and everything associated with it had been a sham.

Imagine a 'freak snowstorm', some random, un-planned-for event shows up in your life/work/ministry and it exposes the depths of what you're doing (in preparation, or lack thereof, in foresight or lack thereof, in honestly seeking feedback and wise counsel and applying it, or not) and you're found to have been selling holy water that 'aint really holy.

You'd be in deep.

And none of us want to end up there, shuttered and useless and yesterday's news.

I'm taking the warning. I'm determined to do better. I'm scared of making mock of what I've been called to do.

How 'bout you?

T