As Dad continues to settle into his new home in the memory care community, the single act that builds trust the quickest with him and conveys the most kindness is for someone to rub cream on his neuropathy-pained legs and feet. He gladly surrenders to the very posture Peter found so difficult, letting someone serve him in a way that exposes his brokenness and demands humility.
My Dad has been rigorously and religiously self-sufficient to a fault as long as I have known him. And as they say, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.” I too have wanted to expect and need as little as possible from others. For me, that has been a story of minimizing the possibility of disappointment and staying in control of my heart as much as possible.
But today, and every day, Jesus is saying to me and people like me, “Unless I wash you (meet with you to redeem), not just your feet… but your fears, your pride, your insecurities, your pain, your memories, your anger, your dreams, your lusts, your pettiness, your demanding-ness, and your so called “self-sufficiency”, then you really don’t understand why I have come. I have come for the sick, not the healthy. I have come for the unrighteous, not the righteous. I have come for you, and to you today in the gospel.”
Precious “gospel-sanity-devo-distribution-list-family”, let’s surrender to Jesus today at the very point of our foolishness, brokenness and need. Let’s say to Jesus, “not just my feet… but all of me; wash me Jesus, wash me afresh in waterfalls of your mercy and grace…”