“Your Majesty!” Michael burst into Jesus’ office without his customary polite knock. “They are rioting in the streets again! I think we should…..” He stopped mid sentence and stared.
Jesus was sitting at his desk, chin propped on his hand, and a look of pure satisfaction on his face. In front of him sat a large, golden bird cage. He didn’t even stir. “Come look at this” he murmured.
Michael was already looking. The cage sat in the middle of the desk, with papers shoved casually to one side to make room for it. Michael noticed ruefully that some of them were signatures he was waiting for. But no matter, Jesus was never in a hurry, but he was never late either. The cage was a work of art. Thin bars of pure gold, carefully wrought together in the most beautiful fashion. It had the marks of creative genius all over it, and Michael knew immediately this must be one of Jesus’ prize possessions. But it was the interior that struck Michael. There was no pretty canary singing its heart out to its maker. No parakeet showing off its acrobatic skill. Not even a beautiful talking parrot. Instead, there was a man. A man sitting at a desk, working, completely unaware that he was being observed. As Michael leaned in for a closer look, the man picked up his headset to take a phone call.
“Mid Valley Meats” in a quiet, measured voice.
Michael knew as soon as he looked what kind of man this was. Even without the context of the golden cage, he would have known his kind anywhere. After all, he’d been observing men and their ways for as long as they were around, and there is nothing new under the sun. There was about this man a quietness and a peace that only servants of the Most High can have. His face was lean, but his eyes were kind. His bearing erect, but there was no high look about him. He reminded Michael of the prophet Daniel, but with different clothes. That and the headset of course.
Michael voiced the question in his mind. “Why sir, do you have him in a cage?
Jesus smiled and caressed the cage, which immediately responded to his touch with an extra glow. “His name is Timothy. Timothy Foster.”
Michael remembered the name. “Isn’t that one of the men they had in the lot a few years ago when Columbiana was sending someone to Haiti?
Jesus cocked an eye at Michael. “I had him in the lot when I was sending Robert Beck to Haiti.”
“Yes sir, you knew what I meant.”
Jesus smiled. “Yes that’s him.”
“And now he’s in a cage. Is there a correlation? I seem to recall he was really hoping to be the one going.”
Jesus leaned back in his chair and reached to caress the cage again, which responded with a musical tone like distant bells. “Not only was he hoping to go, he has dreamed since he was a young man of serving on a foreign mission field.” There was something positively indulgent in his tone.
“But,” said Michael, forgetting for a moment the emergency he’d come to report, “instead he’s running a business, when he’d rather be serving. He’s a man in a cage.”
“Exactly.” Said Jesus with a fond look at the man.
Michael broke protocol for the second time that day by pulling up a chair uninvited and sitting down. Jesus didn’t seem to notice.
“ So why would you put a man who wants to serve you in a cage running a business? Don’t you have plenty of the slightly greedy type to run businesses?”
Jesus’ blissful look clouded a little. He brought his fingertips together and studied them for a moment. “I do indeed. And I’m quite a bit more worried about them than I am about any riots I must say.”
“So why did you put him in there? And why doesn’t he leave? I notice the door is hanging wide open.” Even as he said it, the man in the cage, still on the phone, walked casually to the door and leaned against its frame. But he did not step outside.
The cloud was gone from Jesus’ face in an instant and he grinned like a school boy. “I thought you’d never ask. The truth is, I didn’t put him in there. I asked him to go in there, and he walked in of his own accord. He can walk out again whenever he wants, but he never has because he knows that’s where I want him. He is one of the best examples of submission I have in the kingdom right now. It’s so beautiful I had this special cage commissioned just so I can get it out and look at it whenever I want! He patted the cage again, and sparks flew off it like miniature fireworks.
Jesus, Michael noticed once again, had a way of taking what you thought was important and completely diverting your attention. “So what do you plan to do with him?”
“I’m not going to do anything with him. I’m going to keep working with him. He’s not my pet, he’s my partner. For the time being I’m going to let him keep showing the slightly greedy types how a kingdom oriented business is run. Listen to him!”
“Ma’am I’m very sorry your order was confused with someone else’s. If you’ll bring it back I’ll be happy to switch it out for you.” A slight pause during which a wry smile spread across his face and then, “Ah yes, I can understand how you wouldn’t realize until after you’d eaten it just what happened. Why don’t you stop by and we’ll get you what you ordered free of charge? ….. Very well, have a nice day.” And almost as soon as he’d hung up the phone rang again. “Mid Valley Meats,” in the same undisturbed voice. “Yes Jerry, how are you, and how did your Mother’s surgery go?....
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Jesus breathed.
“Will he ever get to go to the mission field?” asked Michael.
“He’s never been off of it,” was the answer. “He’s just a bit slow realizing it. I’ll explain everything once he gets here.”
“Now, about those riots?”
The Arrow team, at your service.
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