Yesterday, I was watching a YouTube clip of CJ Mahaney in which he was relating his salvation testimony.  In it, he said that when God drew him, it was more than just an invitation, more, even, than a calling.  He described it as being “summoned” by God to be born again.

I think of the story of Mephibosheth in the Old Testament.  King David remembers the promise that he had made to Jonathan, a promise to show mercy to Jonathan’s family.  David seeks out the only descendant left who is Mephibosheth, a crippled, deformed man who is bereft of property and provisions.  David summons him to court, provides for him, and invites him to eat at the king’s table.

This beautiful picture from scripture has so many parallels for those who have been born again.  One of the most poignant is that God summons us to his royal court, and, as in this story of David, his summons is to disabled, helpless people; it is an irresistible invitation to receive God’s extravagant mercy and grace.

Back around Easter, I worked on a poem that alludes to this idea:

Easter Sonnet

My wounds are stitched with a most sacred thread,

Invisible on this temporal skin;

Yet true as the cure for my soul’s sore sin

Is the string of love that gleams crimson red.

Once reviled, an orphan beggared and scorned,

Unpitied and pitiless both in turn,

I was chained to cravings–my one concern–

Grasping for glory though fallen, forlorn.

Then summoned by name to the royal court,

I knelt, ashamed, in that undefiled place

For even my best robes were foul and base.

The King raised me, gave His arm for support;

Then He unleashed His kindness like a flood

And bound my wounds with the thread of His blood.