I was greeted upon arrival to church this morning with a curious sight: what looked like a garden hose trailing down the stairs and off into the kitchen, chairs piled upon tables, and an exaggerrated variation of a smell reminiscent of rainy days on the bus, or prayer meetings with poor air circulation. The church basement had flooded.

All of the carpeted rooms were turned into marsh. Rain water (which, incidentally, in NYC, is not even very clean to begin with) had seeped through whatever orifice or medium to get inside, and it brought many friends that it met along the way. The result was something between what you find in an elementary schoolchild's water color cup (the one he's supposed to dip his brush in after every used color) and snow after it's been "processed" by car tires. But alas, we had to have service, so the towels and the buckets came out, and the stomping and wringing began.

Eventually, we came to the point where we couldn't wait any longer, and we started service (which, incidentally, wasn't so bad, in terms of the smell of damp carpet). Soon afterwards, we got back to work. There was the CM room, the EM room, and the room next door... Thank the Lord for Mary's husband David, who first came up with the idea of raking the water out. And as if showing us a method that was three times as efficient as our old method wasn't enough, he also came up with the idea of using the chairs to shovel water out. Then we thought it'd be even better if we had people SIT on the chairs to push them down while we shoveled, getting more water out. In the end, it felt like more of a day at a very, very dirty water park.

It felt really good, though. It was painful work at times, but I felt so blessed by the opportunity to serve God in this way. Ironically, I serve Him as a leader of His people, yet it felt good in a different way. I think a big part of it is that preaching and leading takes so much prayer and effort... I suppose I didn't have to agonize so much over what message to give and how to give it; I just had to grab a towel, stomp, wring, repeat. It's not the most noble reason to enjoy physical service, I know =P

I thank God for it, though. I feel truly grateful that we were given the opportunity to just roll up our sleeves and get to work (even though we may have to do it again soon, at the rate it's still raining right now...).

Thank You, Lord for what happened today in Your house. Only give me the same zeal to take care of the spiritual house that You started to build in me... that if one day I should come with a purpose to worship, and I find something that might get in the way, I will waste no time in deliberating, but roll up my sleeves and get to work. And when You, or someone You send comes along with a better way, let me not be so proud as to spurn correction, discipline or construction. Let me cast away the towels and buckets, and pick up the mop handles and chairs. God, come; open my eyes to see the damage done, to see the problem areas and the hindrances, and give me the spirit to obey and do something about it.