Tradeshow Intercession

By David Hobbs

[Before reading this post, read the last 2 posts in the order written and it will be in context. All three stories happened within days of each other.]

The Christian Booksellers Tradeshow in Atlanta (July, 2007) was a massive event. It took place in one building of the World Congress Center, which in itself is a huge facility, filling floors of meeting rooms, auditoriums, etc. But the epicenter was the main exhibit hall in the lowest basement, a cavernous room with 9 acres of exhibits containing over 400 exhibitors in 3 categories: Book and Bible, Gifts, and Music.
The first day was a blur of activity. I found the booth of the Christian Small Publisher’s Association, my group, and met the others from the group who had come to exhibit, a brave band of unknown souls up against the Zondervans and Thomas Nelsons of the Christian publishing world.
And then came the book signings, of which I was the first. We pulled a little table out into the aisle, where I sat with a stack of my books. Others in the group went out into the teeming throngs handing out catalogs of our books and inviting book buyers to come to the table to get a free, autographed copy of my book. Soon I was signing and passing out books as fast as I could write for the better part of an hour. Then my hour was up, and it was my turn to go out in the crowds and hustle for other signing authors. Thus the day flew by, with hardly time to eat.
By Tuesday, that part of my responsibility was over, and I was free to walk the aisles and check out the exhibits. I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount and variety of what was available: printed books by the thousands, audio books, online books, companies that would print books one at a time, foreign printers from India, Mexico, and South Korea, brokers who would find a printer for you, ghost writers, illustrators, companies that sold curriculum for Sunday School, children’s church, youth ministries and adult classes, companies that would turn your printed book into an audio book, companies that would translate your book into Spanish, or Russian, or East Timorian—it went on and on. And then there was the gift section, a seemingly endless array of candles, jewelry, knick knacks, banners, paintings, choir robes, posters, chairs, vestments, church calendars, coffee cups, greeting cards, offering envelopes, communion servers and . . .
“Wow,” I thought, “all this because of one Man.” The thought that this was all because of Jesus made me wonder, “What would Jesus think if He were here wandering these aisles with me?” And then I remembered that He was indeed wandering these aisles with me because He was in me. I immediately went inside my spirit and started checking to see if I could get a read from Him. It didn’t look good. “What if Jesus were walking these aisles in the flesh, as Jesus? How would the people respond?” I thought for a minute. “Hmm. Well if He wasn’t wearing nice clothes and didn’t have money to spend on their wares, they wouldn’t give him the time of day. They wouldn’t care a whit about His teaching. These people aren’t here to get the answers to life’s problems; they’re here to make money! This is not about Truth, or lost souls, or redeeming the earth from the curse, or establishing the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth; this is about business!”
The sad truth of this reality brought me down from the euphoria I had been feeling from the high of meeting people and getting my book out into the big world. But I soon got caught up in the whirlwind of activity again, looking for contacts, talking to people, networking, etc. and forgot about it.
Later, back at my hotel room, I was like a kid after way too many sugary treats, who had been running around at a birthday party past his bedtime. My body was exhausted but my mind was spinning a mile a minute. I tried to pray, but after making an attempt for awhile, I found myself working the Suduko puzzle from the USA Today newspaper left under my door that morning. “What the. . . !” I couldn’t even remember making a conscious decision to do that. I tried to pray again, but it was no use; my mind was off in a million directions and all my body wanted to do was sleep.
I gave up and lay down in bed, pulling the covers over me and letting go into the bliss of dreamland. As I lay there waiting for unconsciousness to overtake me, my mind wandered over the events of the day. I remembered that “What-if-Jesus-were-here-moment” and in my mind’s eye saw the exhibit hall as if from a crow’s nest perched above it with the multitudes thronging the aisles below.
That mental picture was a trigger! In an instant it all came back. The power of God hit me: I snapped awake, bolted up in bed, swung my legs over the edge to the floor and began interceding. All the tiredness and lack of focus vanished as if they had never been. I was seeing it from God’s perspective and my heart was breaking. All that He had done in sending Jesus to redeem lost man, all that it had cost Him, all that it had cost heaven for the Son of God to be tortured, rejected, humiliated, and finally crucified; from sweating the great drops of blood and the loud cries of agony in the garden to that tortured cry on the cross, “My God my God, why hast thou forsaken me?!”—all that, for US, and we turn it into nothing more than a way to make money! I was crying now, my body wracked in great sobs. I kept saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” It seemed like the ultimate rejection and humiliation, greater than what they did to Jesus on the cross. They didn’t know any better then [“Father forgive them, they know not what they do”], but we know exactly who Jesus was, why He came and what he accomplished. We know all about Him driving the money changers and sellers of doves out of the temple because they had turned His Father’s house into a place of merchandise. And yet we hadn’t learned a thing, just kept thoughtlessly repeating the same mistakes in our day.
I fell back on the bed, my body convulsing in agony. My words had turned to gasping cries. The tears were streaming from my eyes and my nose was making a mess. I staggered into the bathroom for tissues, blew my nose, and flopped down once more on the bed while the convulsions gradually subsided and the mind-wracking thoughts and visions ceased.
Finally a great peace settled over me and I was lying in the arms of Jesus, resting from the torrent of emotion. I couldn’t change what they were doing to Him. But through prayer, through the intimacy of the Spirit, I could share the sorrow with Him, and that seemed to be enough.