Estimated reading time: 3 minute(s)

We sang at a coffee house tonight, here in Clarence Center – our old stomping grounds – and some friends we have not seen in a long time were there. (Marie, I’m going to put you in here by name since you said I didn’t blog about the last time we saw you guys….) 🙂 It was great to see them and really cool that they came out to hear us.

The place was pretty busy for a Thursday night, and mostly teeming with teens. It appears to be a teen hang-out spot. That’s cool. Except a bunch of these young teens were smoking and otherwise entwined in the world – and in the gaming mentioned in my previous post. Like, wearing the right clothes, having the right haircut, doing the right things, hanging with the right people… they were doing it all.

Actually, when I got there, I was really close to going up to this boy who could not have been more than 14 or 15, and telling him that it’s illegal for him to smoke at his age. But I just felt very judgmental. Very finger-pointy. And I really think that’s not how Jesus treated people.

I asked him right there to help me that night to see people as he does. He’s not mad at that boy for breaking the law… he’s sad I bet. Just hurting for him that he is choosing something he probably knows is bad. Most of us don’t make bad choices because we’re stupid… often we make bad choices as a way to fit in. Jesus knows that, and loves us inspite of our weakness.

A little later, a young girl, again 14 or 15, joined the group. She was dressed to attract attention to herself. She wore tight jeans that don’t come up very far, and a tight, low-cut spaghetti-strap shirt that didn’t go all the way down to her pants. And to top it all off, she wore a Playboy baseball cap and a Playboy belt. Both Jen & I saw this girl and were first amazed, and then I began to remember what I had asked Jesus to help me see.

She doesn’t really like a magazine that flaunts womens bodies in ways they should not be flaunted… she wants attention. She has found one way to get it. On several occasions, my eyes were inadvertantly directed to the body parts she intended to receive the attention… and each time I was saddened for her.

Well, during one song, a group of the teens came up past us and into the coffee house (we were outside on the patio tonight) and she was one of them. They passed only a few inches from us, and I smiled at each one as we sang, and when Playboy Girl passed, our eyes met.

For a moment, brief as it was, something connected. I don’t remember what I was singing, but I remember thinking right afterward, “I hope she knows God’s love even through that one eye-meeting.” I never got to speak with her, but perhaps Jesus (who lives in ME!) did… through the songs, or through a look of Jesus-love.

There are so many hurting, lonely, lost people in the world. Lots of them sit in churches on the weekends. Jesus makes that a lot better. His love is so much deeper than we can ever know. His attention is so much more satisfying than any teen-age boy looking at parts of your body that are not his to look at.

I pray that she knows the peace of his love tonight.

I pray you do too.