It's storming now, but just moments ago it was bright and sunny from my view here in the corner booth of a local coffee shop. So, I guess you could say... typical Texas weather... unpredictable at best. When the sun was still beaming through the window, a lady sat down next to me and I noticed she had an umbrella. I thought it was strange then, but I'm realizing now as the sky grows darker, that she must watch the news! Maybe I should try that. How can I be a light in this world if I don't even know what's going on around it? Hmmm... I'll ponder and get back to that later. That's a whole 'nother post!!
On another note: I have been having such intense moments, even days, of clarity lately that I often feel my skin cannot contain me or that my words will not do justice. It's those moments of 'enlightenment' or whatever you want to call them that you wonder how you ever lived so naively before.
I began researching Fair Trade coffee (I'll be writing about that soon) as we start up Pearl Bridge (the coffee co. I'm helping start here in Dallas). The more I learn, the more convicted I become of the injustice & unrest that goes on around the world that we (especially Americans) do not even take the time to concern ourselves with.
With information on any topic we could conjure up at our fingertips, we waste these precious moments we have been given google-ing 'Designer Jeans' or 'Hollywood Gossip' or 'Investment Portfolios'. Just start typing and see what all the auto-text on your computer has saved from your past searches.
We seem more concerned with making our lives comfortable than helping to make others lives live-able. We get annoyed with the 'Donate to a Child' commercials that interrupt our re-run episode of Friends (which we've already seen 4 times). Our favorite team is playing and our attention diverts during these same commercials but quickly resumes when we see uniforms running across the field.
And perhaps the annoyance or the passivity result b/c our comfort zone is challenged with a brief moment of reality... but even beyond that, I think it is our globally-ignorant minds that have our hearts untrained in our responses to them. When we are confronted with the evils that comprise so many people's daily realities, we either don't know how to respond so we don't -or- our responses are laced with sarcasm to make light of the horror -or- we justify-away the surfacing emotions with a million excuses of why our lives do not intersect with theirs –or- we actually feel brief compassion & maybe even throw a few bucks at the organizations boldly fighting for these "poor people." But we don't dare take initiative to learn more than what we are spoon-fed… that would require something of us.
One of my favorite scenes from Amazing Grace (and for those who have read any recent blogs of mine... YES... I am AGAIN going to pull from this stellar movie) is the scene when William Wilberforce is seeking advice from John Newton (a slave-trader turned preacher who wrote the song Amazing Grace). William is debating whether to bring a bill before Parliament that will call for the abolition of the slave trade, which was an inhumane and deadly practice. John, having once been the captain of a slave trade ship over 20 years prior, still did not have strength enough to discuss the shame of his past with William. But what he did say as William questioned him about the slave trade was poignant and relevant to what I feel like the Lord has been showing me lately. He told William... "Do it! Pull their filthy ships out of the water" And then he warned him: "But you won't remain clean. You'll get filthy with it. You'll dream it. You'll see it in broad daylight...."(BTW: this is probably not verbatim)
Not that we are all called to be political activists, but I guess the point here and what I feel like the Lord has been showing me lately is three-fold:
Faith is manifested in action
Silence in the face of sin is sin
The ‘American Dream’ is a false reality we have created to isolate ourselves from the other 95% of the global population. I have a choice to remain ignorant inside the bubble or bust the bubble and engage my heart in a hurting world.
All this to say that I feel like the Lord has been whispering in my ear "Simplify". I don't need all this stuff and I sure don't want my life to play out like the final scene in Schindler's List. If you haven't seen it... go see it and do yourself a favor to learn a little bit more about one of the most gruesome events in history. Schindler was an affluent German that towards the end of the Holocaust began to open his eyes to the brutality going on around him which prompted him to buy the liberation of Jews one by one. He was responsible for the liberation of over 1100 Jews and today his name is remembered. But in the final scene of Schindler's List, Schindler is weeping thinking of who else he could have saved as he talks with a Jewish friend:
Oskar Schindler: I could have got more out. I could have got more. I don't know. If I'd just... I could have got more.
Itzhak Stern: Oskar, there are eleven hundred people who are alive because of you. Look at them.
Oskar Schindler: If I'd made more money... I threw away so much money. You have no idea. If I'd just...
Itzhak Stern: There will be generations because of what you did.
Oskar Schindler: I didn't do enough!
Itzhak Stern: You did so much. [Schindler looks at his car]
Oskar Schindler: This car. Goeth would have bought this car. Why did I keep the car? Ten people right there. Ten people. Ten more people. [removing Nazi pin from lapel]
Oskar Schindler: This pin. Two people. This is gold. Two more people. He would have given me two for it, at least one. One more person. A person, Stern. For this. [sobbing]
Oskar Schindler: I could have gotten one more person... and I didn't! And I... I didn't!
Schindler finally realized what I hope to increasingly live by: when you give away your life you find it! This is no revolutionary statement; God has been whispering it to us through His Word for centuries if we will just listen.
“If you cling to your life you will lose it; but if you give up your life for Me you will find it.” Matthew 10:38-40
But we do a good job of convincing ourselves that we need the Highland Park zip code… that we need the upgraded car… or the designer labels… or the clothes for our pet… or for our kids to play on the best (not to mention most expensive) select sports teams… that we need a vacation splurge b/c we deserve it… or that we need extra square footage… the list goes on; simply add to it the last thing you were convinced you couldn’t live without that didn’t affect your overall health or well-being whatsoever. And even for those of us who recognize all this stuff in our lives as wants not needs, we still justify them by the standard set by the world. But we are nomads here… called to be in the world and not of the world. Too often though our lives look no different from those that call this Home. We should not get too comfortable here, for this is not our destination.
There is nothing wrong with this stuff we are immersed in. As the Word says it is not money that is the root of all evil, it is the love of money that is the root of all evil. It is not a sin to buy a new Hummer for your recently graduated teen, or to buy your pet poodle clothes for every holiday, or to get French manicures each week. When our focus is merely on eliminating stuff from our lives we have slowly become a Pharisee, a slave to the Law once more. But Christ came & with His death freed us from the Law… He unchained our yoke of slavery & released our hearts to soar underneath the wings of His grace. So we are free now… and what should we do we do with our freedom? We have seemed to take on the mentality that our freedom is ours to do with what we want. And because our culture perpetuates this belief, we are not challenged to think otherwise.
I have often wondered what it is about Christians overseas that enable them to “get it” in a way that we often don’t over here. A young man who recently converted to Christianity in Palestine, which is predominately Muslim, understands with clarity the weight of the freedom He has been given in Christ. As Christ encouraged His disciples, this Palestinian man ‘counted the cost.’ I’m sure he did not passively make the decision to follow Christ. He knew for him this would mean family disownment, social isolation, persecution, imprisonment, poverty, and possibly death. It was not a flippant decision. Not one made to simply secure his spot in Heaven but one made that required ALL of him… daily. Especially here in the good ole Bible Belt of America, Christ’s sacrifice has been watered down to merely represent a ticket to Heaven. We do not ‘count the cost’ b/c there is really no cost required. Christ came to set us free and so that freedom means we go about life as usual and oh, now we’re going to Heaven (insert sarcasm)!!! We have been given a gift and rather than give of it to others, we keep it for ourselves. Try explaining this to the Palestinian who now suffers daily for his decision. He would marvel that this goes on and he would probably think it is a rare occurrence. Little does he know that it is indeed a tragic plague, not simply an isolated occurrence.
The Palestinian would probably be sad to know that Jesus plays only a small role in our lives… b/c to him, Jesus is EVERYTHING. Jesus was meant to be more than a name tag, but we consistently miss out on “life to the full” b/c our t-shirts are graced with His name, but our lives look nothing like Him. We turn to the more visible things of our culture to define us and it becomes harder and harder to see Him in our reflection.
I write this not to evoke any feelings of guilt... but definitely feelings of conviction. For guilt drags us further away from God's plan. But conviction is a precursor to action! May our hearts be pricked now so that we do not stand before the Judgment Seat one day and feel like Oskar Schindler. God doesn't give so that we can make our lives more comfortable. If we have been blessed, it is our responsibility to bless others out of that we’ve been stewarded…not hoard it for our own selfish advancement or personal comfort. But it seems the more we have, the more we think it is ours to do with what we please.
May we feel the weight of responsibility we’ve been given and live lives that are poured out offerings. May this living water not become a lake in our lives but a river… and may we discover the blessedness and the fullness that He intended us to experience as the waters flow out not just in.
On another note: I have been having such intense moments, even days, of clarity lately that I often feel my skin cannot contain me or that my words will not do justice. It's those moments of 'enlightenment' or whatever you want to call them that you wonder how you ever lived so naively before.
I began researching Fair Trade coffee (I'll be writing about that soon) as we start up Pearl Bridge (the coffee co. I'm helping start here in Dallas). The more I learn, the more convicted I become of the injustice & unrest that goes on around the world that we (especially Americans) do not even take the time to concern ourselves with.
With information on any topic we could conjure up at our fingertips, we waste these precious moments we have been given google-ing 'Designer Jeans' or 'Hollywood Gossip' or 'Investment Portfolios'. Just start typing and see what all the auto-text on your computer has saved from your past searches.
We seem more concerned with making our lives comfortable than helping to make others lives live-able. We get annoyed with the 'Donate to a Child' commercials that interrupt our re-run episode of Friends (which we've already seen 4 times). Our favorite team is playing and our attention diverts during these same commercials but quickly resumes when we see uniforms running across the field.
And perhaps the annoyance or the passivity result b/c our comfort zone is challenged with a brief moment of reality... but even beyond that, I think it is our globally-ignorant minds that have our hearts untrained in our responses to them. When we are confronted with the evils that comprise so many people's daily realities, we either don't know how to respond so we don't -or- our responses are laced with sarcasm to make light of the horror -or- we justify-away the surfacing emotions with a million excuses of why our lives do not intersect with theirs –or- we actually feel brief compassion & maybe even throw a few bucks at the organizations boldly fighting for these "poor people." But we don't dare take initiative to learn more than what we are spoon-fed… that would require something of us.
One of my favorite scenes from Amazing Grace (and for those who have read any recent blogs of mine... YES... I am AGAIN going to pull from this stellar movie) is the scene when William Wilberforce is seeking advice from John Newton (a slave-trader turned preacher who wrote the song Amazing Grace). William is debating whether to bring a bill before Parliament that will call for the abolition of the slave trade, which was an inhumane and deadly practice. John, having once been the captain of a slave trade ship over 20 years prior, still did not have strength enough to discuss the shame of his past with William. But what he did say as William questioned him about the slave trade was poignant and relevant to what I feel like the Lord has been showing me lately. He told William... "Do it! Pull their filthy ships out of the water" And then he warned him: "But you won't remain clean. You'll get filthy with it. You'll dream it. You'll see it in broad daylight...."(BTW: this is probably not verbatim)
Not that we are all called to be political activists, but I guess the point here and what I feel like the Lord has been showing me lately is three-fold:
Faith is manifested in action
Silence in the face of sin is sin
The ‘American Dream’ is a false reality we have created to isolate ourselves from the other 95% of the global population. I have a choice to remain ignorant inside the bubble or bust the bubble and engage my heart in a hurting world.
All this to say that I feel like the Lord has been whispering in my ear "Simplify". I don't need all this stuff and I sure don't want my life to play out like the final scene in Schindler's List. If you haven't seen it... go see it and do yourself a favor to learn a little bit more about one of the most gruesome events in history. Schindler was an affluent German that towards the end of the Holocaust began to open his eyes to the brutality going on around him which prompted him to buy the liberation of Jews one by one. He was responsible for the liberation of over 1100 Jews and today his name is remembered. But in the final scene of Schindler's List, Schindler is weeping thinking of who else he could have saved as he talks with a Jewish friend:
Oskar Schindler: I could have got more out. I could have got more. I don't know. If I'd just... I could have got more.
Itzhak Stern: Oskar, there are eleven hundred people who are alive because of you. Look at them.
Oskar Schindler: If I'd made more money... I threw away so much money. You have no idea. If I'd just...
Itzhak Stern: There will be generations because of what you did.
Oskar Schindler: I didn't do enough!
Itzhak Stern: You did so much. [Schindler looks at his car]
Oskar Schindler: This car. Goeth would have bought this car. Why did I keep the car? Ten people right there. Ten people. Ten more people. [removing Nazi pin from lapel]
Oskar Schindler: This pin. Two people. This is gold. Two more people. He would have given me two for it, at least one. One more person. A person, Stern. For this. [sobbing]
Oskar Schindler: I could have gotten one more person... and I didn't! And I... I didn't!
Schindler finally realized what I hope to increasingly live by: when you give away your life you find it! This is no revolutionary statement; God has been whispering it to us through His Word for centuries if we will just listen.
“If you cling to your life you will lose it; but if you give up your life for Me you will find it.” Matthew 10:38-40
But we do a good job of convincing ourselves that we need the Highland Park zip code… that we need the upgraded car… or the designer labels… or the clothes for our pet… or for our kids to play on the best (not to mention most expensive) select sports teams… that we need a vacation splurge b/c we deserve it… or that we need extra square footage… the list goes on; simply add to it the last thing you were convinced you couldn’t live without that didn’t affect your overall health or well-being whatsoever. And even for those of us who recognize all this stuff in our lives as wants not needs, we still justify them by the standard set by the world. But we are nomads here… called to be in the world and not of the world. Too often though our lives look no different from those that call this Home. We should not get too comfortable here, for this is not our destination.
There is nothing wrong with this stuff we are immersed in. As the Word says it is not money that is the root of all evil, it is the love of money that is the root of all evil. It is not a sin to buy a new Hummer for your recently graduated teen, or to buy your pet poodle clothes for every holiday, or to get French manicures each week. When our focus is merely on eliminating stuff from our lives we have slowly become a Pharisee, a slave to the Law once more. But Christ came & with His death freed us from the Law… He unchained our yoke of slavery & released our hearts to soar underneath the wings of His grace. So we are free now… and what should we do we do with our freedom? We have seemed to take on the mentality that our freedom is ours to do with what we want. And because our culture perpetuates this belief, we are not challenged to think otherwise.
I have often wondered what it is about Christians overseas that enable them to “get it” in a way that we often don’t over here. A young man who recently converted to Christianity in Palestine, which is predominately Muslim, understands with clarity the weight of the freedom He has been given in Christ. As Christ encouraged His disciples, this Palestinian man ‘counted the cost.’ I’m sure he did not passively make the decision to follow Christ. He knew for him this would mean family disownment, social isolation, persecution, imprisonment, poverty, and possibly death. It was not a flippant decision. Not one made to simply secure his spot in Heaven but one made that required ALL of him… daily. Especially here in the good ole Bible Belt of America, Christ’s sacrifice has been watered down to merely represent a ticket to Heaven. We do not ‘count the cost’ b/c there is really no cost required. Christ came to set us free and so that freedom means we go about life as usual and oh, now we’re going to Heaven (insert sarcasm)!!! We have been given a gift and rather than give of it to others, we keep it for ourselves. Try explaining this to the Palestinian who now suffers daily for his decision. He would marvel that this goes on and he would probably think it is a rare occurrence. Little does he know that it is indeed a tragic plague, not simply an isolated occurrence.
The Palestinian would probably be sad to know that Jesus plays only a small role in our lives… b/c to him, Jesus is EVERYTHING. Jesus was meant to be more than a name tag, but we consistently miss out on “life to the full” b/c our t-shirts are graced with His name, but our lives look nothing like Him. We turn to the more visible things of our culture to define us and it becomes harder and harder to see Him in our reflection.
I write this not to evoke any feelings of guilt... but definitely feelings of conviction. For guilt drags us further away from God's plan. But conviction is a precursor to action! May our hearts be pricked now so that we do not stand before the Judgment Seat one day and feel like Oskar Schindler. God doesn't give so that we can make our lives more comfortable. If we have been blessed, it is our responsibility to bless others out of that we’ve been stewarded…not hoard it for our own selfish advancement or personal comfort. But it seems the more we have, the more we think it is ours to do with what we please.
May we feel the weight of responsibility we’ve been given and live lives that are poured out offerings. May this living water not become a lake in our lives but a river… and may we discover the blessedness and the fullness that He intended us to experience as the waters flow out not just in.
