I guess I did not get the heavenly hint when I first saw it but I should have. I am not sure if it was a hint or just irony, but I have enjoyed telling several others about it over the past couple of days. I love communion. I grew up taking communion under the tutelage of my “preacher-dad.” I did not know much of the preparation that went into the Lord’s Table, but I watched him many times oversee the distribution of the elements and heard him numerous times read long passages of scripture as the elements were passed up and down the aisles. Since at our church we do not have our communion service every week, we decided to have communion when a month has a 5th Sunday. It just so happened that this 5th Sunday was Memorial Day weekend; again, a great time to have the memorial Lord’s Table, at least that is what I thought. Just a little glitch, though. Both of the men who were to take care of preparing the elements were going to be absent so instead of delegating the job to others, I just took the job on myself. As usual, I almost forgot about the scheduled event, but late Saturday night it occurred to me that the next day was communion. I panicked a little until my faithful and beautiful wife immediately agreed to help me prepare. She knew where everything was because she had helped the deacons wives prepare it on several other occasions. I did know that we had enough cups and communion bread so all I would need to do is go to the grocery first thing on Sunday morning and purchase the Welches juice—only the best for communion, you know. I went through the self-checkout line with no problem. The juice was even on sale! I paid for the juice, reached up for the receipt and noticed I had a coupon. I like coupons. I pulled the coupon out of the tray and thought, “Now this might be a good coupon.” It turned out to be a great one; $3.00 off Tums. Was it just ironic or just a hint? It was a little hectic that day. Along with all the other things I do every Sunday I had to get the elements; I had to make and oversee the preparations; I had to recruit servers; I had to meet with the worship team to make sure they were ready for the songs in the communion service; I had to get my Powerpoint ready for the short message before communion; and then I had to oversee the service. It was not until the final moments of the service while the juice was being served by the deacons that I believe I heard the Lord speak to me. As I sat there with my head bowed in reverence and prayer, it was like He said, “You have spent a lot of time preparing everything else for this service to honor me but are you prepared to honor me yourself?” It was then that I remembered the Tums. Here was my prayer, “Lord, you warned me with the Tums not to do this in the flesh but I did it anyway. Forgive me for making this service more about the process of communion than about communing with You.” I am going to keep my Tums coupon as a reminder to keep my focus on the main thing and not to become too focused on the process.
Tums Anyone?
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