Treasures

This may seem strange to you.. or you may resonate with it somewhat- I found myself envying the people devistated by the hurricane. I went to Bay St. Louis a few weekends ago on a hurricane relief team. The people I worked with were amazing, it was truly a joy to be working with such delightful people. The houses were torn down and things were utterly destroyed by Katrina that ripped through the area about 14 months ago. I felt the all too familiar feeling of longing to be where those people are. I envy them because they have nothing- nothing keeping them from God. I was told by a good friend from Africa a few years ago that she couldn't understand for the life of her how we could be Christians in America. How true it is, all this clutter and busyness we have that mound up in front of God so that our view of Him is blocked and He often is easily forgotten. I envy them because God took all this earthly stuff that truly is unnecessary from them so that many, many indeed, were and still continue to be able to see the loving God much clearer. You see I often justify, "oh, this is good for my life, taking this time to relax" or "Oh, I need a day to sleep in so I'm not going to get up and pray" or "I'll read my Bible later, I just want to watch tv and go to bed"... you get the drift. Don't hear me saying these phrases are always wrong, nothing is wrong with getting some sleep or relaxing, Heaven knows we need rest and harmony. But how many times do I justify too much? I've got the "I'll do it tomorrow" syndrome big time. It's laziness ya'll. It's the voice in our head (that should be a huge red flag when we hear that voice) that says "it doesn't really matter. God says He'll still love you no matter what.. "

Earlier, I said the feeling of envying these people was familiar. I felt it in Africa a few summers ago about the village of kayamandi. The first few days of the trip I found myself paralyzed by hurt and brokenness for the desolate people there. Then the Wednesday of that first week, my third day in the village, we went on a group tour. Children began to gather around us as we walked and within a few minutes somewhere close to 100 kids were walking with us. I began to skip with my kids, singing whatever song came to mind, unconscious of the extra weight clinging to me, realizing I was ‘struggling with all of His energy’ and that is a surplus. Even with 2 kids clinging to me front and back, and 3 or so attached to each arm, it was the lightest I've ever felt. A burden had been lifted, a burden far heavier that human weight. I was told by my African friend that she felt sorry for me. ME! I have everything. Or so I thought. But ya'll- I found out on my trip that possessions, money, a home, medicine, food and all other physical things are great and should be highly regarded, but we don't need them. ALL that matters is that which is eternal. We will die without some combination of these temporal things, but we're going to die anyway and our eternal matters count forever regardless if it's tomorrow or years from now. All we need is that which is eternal.

I realized that in Africa and was so graciously reminded of it in Bay St. Louis. I envy them because they have no possessions keeping them from serving God with a whole heart and any previous high and righteous attitude was probably leveled by the storm. The people on the hurricane's path aren't perfect or fully following God, but they have been forcedly blessed to be one step closer than we are at following God whole-heartedly because the things they held dear were taken away. Our task of resigning them and wholly following is much more difficult. Randy Alcorn said that 15% of Christ's sayings related to possessions- more than talk of Heaven and Hell combined! "And He said to Levi, "Follow me." And leaving everything, he rose and followed Him" (Luke 5:27-28). Can I follow like that? what am I not willing to give up that needs to be purged from me?

commonalities

I have much to say most of the time, as those around me know all too well. I find our Christian dialect (if you will) to be rather amusing and saddening all at the same time. We flippantly throw around words as though people understand what we're trying to say or else we don't consider the full magnitude of the words we are actually uttering. One such example is the commonly bandaided phrase "God is in control". Now if you've had a serious conversation with me in the past few months I would almost undoubtebly imagine that you heard these piercing words come out of my mouth, but let me explain to you my perdicament. At different points during my day God chooses to unload (yet again- if you will) His meanings of things on me and for that moment I am stunned by the truth of the matter. Tonight was one such occassion. I've struggled a great deal with this concept of "God is in control." Yes, God is sovereign so we could sum up that He is in control over all things, sure. But think about it- Control over ALL things? Control over Katrina destroying so many homes, control over heartache and famine, control over my every thought, word or action, control over what the weather will be like today, control over what I'll write in this blog, control over what time I'll actually get out of bed in the morning, utter control? Now don't hear me wrong, our God is not a dictator, but does He truly have control?

But then I stop in my tracks, that often get far too deep and have a hard time turning back, to find that maybe that's not what our focus should be. Maybe instead of looking at it from such a sceptical viewpoint I should look at it from the perspective "what would life look like if God was in control?" How freeing ya'll! Think about, all those screwups and times you "missed your opportunity to share the gospel", all those terrible sins you've committed (terrible is not meant to rate the particular sin but to merely point out that all sin is terrible), all those discouragements and what we think of as "setbacks". Over ALL of those things, GOD IS IN CONTROL! How utterly freeing to realize we don't have to worry about anything past, present or future because God will provide. Maybe we can start here and then see the bigger picture of His control over disaster, famine, and other heartache. Maybe we can be freed here and see His great compassionate, loving plan of control and then find His control in the sad times. "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything present your requests to God who sustains you." Now, hold on a second, big disclaimer- If I truly had enough room to discuss such a broad topic as this I would do so, but I don't. To proclaim such a dangerous idea as I have just discussed could throw some into a sense of oversecurity and flippancy towards our actions on this earth, but God is JUDGE remember. By abiding in God we realize His control and by staying at home in Him we are freed from guilt and worry. Amazing.

I just think we so often hear concepts such as "God is in control" and we don't weigh them to find if they stand on their own. We don't sit and consider their full meaning and what exactly comes along with them. If we truly sat down and thought about things, so many of our Christian concepts don't work or intertwine. it's interesting really, and fairly obvious why our modern church is not the church of Acts. One such being the lack of true belief in our Bible......I'm not sure why I just chose to leave you with that because I have not intention of continuing that opinion tonight.. toon in next time!