A Deeper Place
My life in Honduras at times brings me to a crisis of faith...
How does 'faith' work for people who are so desperate and hungry that they would steal anything just to eat?
How does 'God's plan' work for the children who are starving to death and living with a mother whose addiction eats before the family does?
Why does Cumi Joy have an opportunity to eat well every single day while relatives of hers live in extreme poverty without even a glimmer of hope for change?
I stopped buying into the typical Christian response just about 2 years ago... I used to sit in the land of opportunity and slap easy labels on poverty. I used to live completely oblivious to the actual lives of immigrants, homeless, hurting, starving people. Oh, I took my cans to the food pantry and I gave a few bucks in the Salvation Army red kettles. (I love the Salvation Army, by the way - they played a hand in keeping my Aaron alive in the womb of his biological mother).
Bottom line, I did not understand one iota about my poor neighbor. How exactly could I then expect to show my neighbor any kind of love?
It is sad that it took God's transplanting me to another country to be able to open my eyes a sliver to the atrocities that my neighbor lives through.
So, if the typical Christian response to the poor does not match up to what is reality in this dusty place, what does?
My friend, Jennifer, a missionary on sabbatical posed this so much more beautifully than I ever could:
A deeper place after that.
I'm digging in and looking forward to the place where the Gospel I love meets the faces of the poor that I love. It is not at all about prosperity or material wealth, folks. It is about Jesus.
He understood the poor. He loved the poor.
If it takes me every day I have left, I will seek the same.
How does 'faith' work for people who are so desperate and hungry that they would steal anything just to eat?
How does 'God's plan' work for the children who are starving to death and living with a mother whose addiction eats before the family does?
Why does Cumi Joy have an opportunity to eat well every single day while relatives of hers live in extreme poverty without even a glimmer of hope for change?
I stopped buying into the typical Christian response just about 2 years ago... I used to sit in the land of opportunity and slap easy labels on poverty. I used to live completely oblivious to the actual lives of immigrants, homeless, hurting, starving people. Oh, I took my cans to the food pantry and I gave a few bucks in the Salvation Army red kettles. (I love the Salvation Army, by the way - they played a hand in keeping my Aaron alive in the womb of his biological mother).
Bottom line, I did not understand one iota about my poor neighbor. How exactly could I then expect to show my neighbor any kind of love?
It is sad that it took God's transplanting me to another country to be able to open my eyes a sliver to the atrocities that my neighbor lives through.
So, if the typical Christian response to the poor does not match up to what is reality in this dusty place, what does?
My friend, Jennifer, a missionary on sabbatical posed this so much more beautifully than I ever could:
So this became my measuring stick: if my definitions for faith and favor and provision and faithfulness and so many of the other words we kinda throw around in our Christian circles – can’t hold up for a woman standing in the middle of the dump working to feed her children AND one of my very wealthy friends in suburbia – they’re not truth – cause the gospel … the GOOD news was intended for everyone and God never meant for either side to get “cheated” as He granted His promises. They were for everyone. It’s changed everything.
It has gone as far back for me as this: God can I trust you? Are you trustworthy? Cause let’s be honest that question isn’t answered nearly as honest or flippantly when you’ve truly and purely loved and lost. It doesn’t roll off your tongue after you’ve watched starvation and corruption up close. It begs for an answer from a deeper place after that.
A deeper place after that.
I'm digging in and looking forward to the place where the Gospel I love meets the faces of the poor that I love. It is not at all about prosperity or material wealth, folks. It is about Jesus.
He understood the poor. He loved the poor.
If it takes me every day I have left, I will seek the same.
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