Backdoor God

Home safe again! It is always a marvel to me to be thrown to far corners of the globe and God always gets me back in one piece.
My wife is always happy about the ‘one piece’ part. I just returned from a couple of weeks in Venezuela. The country is in a state of apprehension due to the political landscape. However, most of the time we were focused on another landscape and the politics of a different country. This was a fantastic time of experiencing with a renewed freshness, the God of the Backdoor. I say it like that, because we generally are looking for Him at the front door. Sometimes He will just go ahead and slip in that backdoor and catch us off guard. Just exactly what are we guarding by the way?
I elaborate: visiting four churches, praying for folks, being a general source of inspiration and wisdom, preaching etc. all have a way of catagorizing one as the visiting superhero. It just happens, applicable or no. Those who have hunted that coon may now feel free to allow a wise chuckle to escape from normally pursed lips.
I went into one of the four places thinking I was the teapot (neither short nor stout thanks ….) and they were the cups. Surprise…publish it not in Gath….I was the cup, and they filled me up. One of those once-a-decade deals where you see someone whose life is so smudged with God’s prints that your film gets exposed beyond remedy. When you least expect, something eternal is burned into your hard drive forever. A reference point that the Holy Spirit can return to time and again to reorient our thinking.
A simple man named Eliseo (Elisha in English). Peruvian by birth, closing in on the half century mark, he has lived in Venezuela for the last twenty years. His specialty is (WAS) the restaurant business. He went from busboy to managing exclusive establishments. And God called. No training that puts a piece of paper on the wall. No flash and glitz to draw the seekers.
Nothing that would merit poster boy status. He just carries so much of the kingdom atmosphere, that folks like who they are in his presence. It was wonderful preaching in his church; powerful people. I don’t have it as a priority of things I need to do again. BUT, to have another time of closeness with this man and his wife…..its on the agenda.
I love it when the Father comes in the back door.