“God Doesn’t Need You” and why I don’t believe it.

Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. ¹³ For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. ¹⁴ Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

¹⁵ Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. ¹⁶ And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. ¹⁷ If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? ¹⁸ But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. ¹⁹ If they were all one part, where would the body be? ²⁰ As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

²¹ The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” ²² On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, ²³ and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty,²⁴ while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, ²⁵ so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. ²⁶ If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
1 Corinthians 12:13-27

I’ve heard it is many times, as I’ve lamented our not returning to Newark, NJ to work among the inner city poor there.

God doesn’t NEED you.

And I know another person that heard words similar-

Young man, sit down! You are an enthusiast. When God pleases to convert the heathen, he’ll do it without consulting you or me.

That young man, he and I, we don’t believe it.

Not for a minute.

William Carey, who has become known as the Father of Modern Missions, was told to to shut up and sit down.

I’m so glad he didn’t.

And, frankly, I can’t either.

Not with knowing what I know, and seeing what I’ve seen, and knowing that these inner city poor are less than a 15 minute drive from most of us.

Saying that God doesn’t need me, is like saying God doesn’t need the sun to sustain life on the earth.

Granted. He could have designed things differently, so that He didn’t need the sun to sustain life.

BUT HE DIDN’T. IT IS HIS CHOSEN MEANS OF GIVING LIGHT TO THE EARTH.

And as a now-child of the King, and part of the Body of Christ, I have received the mandate to be the light, and to let my light shine before all men, that they may see my good deeds and glorify my Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:14-16)

And if I’m not doing anything different than my neighbor-being kind to those who are easy to be kind to, or befriending those who don’t make me feel too uncomfortable, or welcoming people into my home and my life people who have just as many resources as I do, or not going too far out of my comfort zone, then I’ve got no good deeds to even awaken someone’s attention-much less lead them to glorify my Father in heaven.

God made my hands and feet to be a visible display of HIS hands and feet in the trenches of dirt and heartache, and suffering and need. It’s how He’s chosen to do it, to include us in His Glorious Rescue Mission.

God doesn’t need me.

But He does.

Because I am a part of that beautiful Body of Christ, in which all of the fullness of Christ dwells.

And if I’m not GOING to the margins, to seek and save the lost, if I am not GOING to those who have yet to hear the good news of Jesus’ love, then I’m not obeying the Head. I am a disfunctional part of the Body.

A Body which is His CHOSEN means for making His glory known, CHOSEN to be the vessel through which His redemption plan unfolds, CHOSEN to be the mouthpiece to testify to the truth that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, CHOSEN to be the hands and feet and heart that actually suffers, and strives, and labors to make visible a (now) invisible Savior who suffered and strove and labored to win His rebellious people back to the Father.

God doesn’t need me.

you say,

Oh, but He does.

And He needs you too.

Ann Voskamp communicates these thoughts beautifully here

The death of grumbling

“Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did….we should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did- and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. We should not test the Lord, as some of them did-and we’re killed by snakes. And do not grumble, as some of them did- and were killed by the destroying angel.” 1 Corinthians 10:6,8-10

There you have it, ranked up there with sexual immorality and testing the Lord, the sin that brings death is the sin of grumbling…

And to combat the grumbling, I will count the gifts.

The only other alternative is death…
Death of contentment
Death of peace in our home
Death of relationship with my kids
Death of love and romance in my marriage
And most importantly, death of communion with my Father.
There are only two options, either death of all these things,
or the death of grumbling.
So let grumbling die, that abundant life might flourish…

The gift list continues….

70. Long nature walks with kids
71. The wonder of spotting an alligator and many turtles lazing in the sun
72. Little legs learning to walk
73. Little brothers playing like puppies and thinking it’s hysterical
74. Overhearing Trinity belting out songs downstairs
75. Baby fingers always exploring
76. Car rides with the kids and a captive audience to missionary biographies
77. A seven year old’s eagerness to obtain his own Bible so he can read it for himself
78. Backyard forts built by my own little brood plus neighborhood kids
79. The accomplishment of my little five year old shedding her training wheels
80. comraderie formed with my husband over surviving the young years and all that entails
81. The words ” I love you, Mommy”
82. Knowing the grace associated with those words, because that day I didn’t deserved to be loved as a mommy.
83. Little hands trying to be helpful
84. The community of believers who rally around
85. Learning to laugh over the ridiculously hard things, instead of cry over them
86. The physical act of laughing
87. Green eggs and green grits to celebrate St. Patricks day
88. The life and example of St. Patrick
89. Neighbors who love and enjoy our kids despite the noise level and mess level of our yard
90. Korean women bustling around the church kitchen
91. Running water
92. The ENDLESS playfulness of my two year old
93. Katy-Grace doing the “Ducks Waddling” song
94. The sounds of keys hitting strings which results in beautiful melodies
95. Being part of a homeschool co-op
96. That plans out and executes the science and art projects
97. So I don’t have to
98. A very faithful washing machine and dryer
99. The satisfaction of making your own laundry detergent
100. With little girls who are ever learning how to run their own home one day

Faith Builder

**I recently submitted this to a writing contest about how God grows our faith through pregnancy. Thought I’d post it, too.

Those stable, responsible let-me-tell-you-what-I-know church goers there in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. thought they were doing us a favor by telling this energetic, young, poor newly-wed couple about how to build a family.

“You really should have a couple of years to really get to know each other and build your relationship first.”

And what doesn’t build a relationship more than patience through pregnancy hormone swings, and late night craving runs, and a wife that learns to serve her husband even when she’s dead exhausted.

“You definitely should get yourself financially established first. Children are very expensive.”

And doesn’t the One who knits the priceless form in the womb, who provides the miracle of the eye, or the steadfastness of the beating heart, or the complexity of the human cell also know how to provide some clothing to cover it all and a place to lay the slumbering life, with a few diapers thrown in?

“Your education is crucial, and you should be able to use your abilities in your career before you get tied down with children.”

And the kind of education that lasts forever is the sanctifying one that a new human wholly dependent on you creates, and my abilities poured out to enable another’s to grow and flourish is the closest career I can find to the career path of my Lord, who lived, and died, not for Himself but for others.

Nope, we decided to let God be God. Not that it wasn’t scary. Not that we didn’t know how on earth we would pay for, provide for, give our lives for the gift of a child. But we knew a God, who from the beginning of time, built families in His perfect timing and way. As far as we reckoned, so far He had done a pretty good job so we’d let him keep at it.

His building of ours started five months into this marriage. Exactly two weeks before our health insurance would have covered a pregnancy. Exactly. On. Time.

On time for God to prove that if He decided to give a child to a ramen-eating, don’t-turn-on-the-heat-in-this-borrowed-house-because-we-can’t-afford-the-bill, couple who had just finished pleading with the insurance company that we were just a mere 14 days away from the insurance kick in date, then if they merely learned to plead to Him, He would blow.their.minds.

Hand in hand and heart in heart, we did plead with Him.
And He did blow our minds.

It wasn’t twenty minutes before the phone rang.

And on the other line was a job offer that would start 3 months before the due date, which would provide health insurance, including “pre-existing” conditions…..like pregnancies. And deliveries. Which ended up being in a hospital that could have been mistaken for a five star hotel.

And that was just the beginning.

Maternity clothes, crib and pack’n'play, strollers, car seats, clothes, blankets, pacifiers, diapers, more clothes, slings, more diapers (a three month supply!), baby medicines, bottles, breast pumps, baby books, baby toys, gift cards…..

All started streaming in.

We did not pay one dollar towards the needs of this child until he was four months old. We did not purchase one article of clothing for him until he was four years old.

If this God we serve can knit a miracle together in my womb, you better believe He knows how to come up with some diapers for that miracle’s bum.

And He knows how to breath faith into His children who, (even nervously) let HIM be the builder of the family.

How’s that for a response to those responsible, wise words which counseled against our first-born’s existence.

 

Blessed incubation

There I was, buried in the trenches of a fierce war…
Against eggs microscopic laid by
Pinworms.
(Sorry if this is too much information), but the battle consisted of washing all bedding, towels, and clothing in hot water every.single.day. Not to mention the vacuuming and bathroom cleaning every.single.day. The battle rivaled that of battling thrush, except every member of the family had them, and therefore was spreading them. Every waking moment was spent on staying on top of the battle.

Cleaning the toilet again, Clorox in hand, I told Him.

I told Him, “Lord, you know I would much rather be building those relationship with the moms at the public school, so they can come to know You. I would much rather be leading Bible Studies. I would much rather be reading to my kids, or accomplishing that great unit study in our homeschool curriculum. I would much rather be accomplishing something significant for your Kingdom, but I’ll be broken here, cleaning the toilet AGAIN. And sanitizing the bed AGAIN. And washing those towels AGAIN. And while I do it, I will intercede. I will intercede for the hearts of the women I have started to get to know. I will intercede for those missionaries in closed countries. I will intercede for the many friends I have who have left home and comfort to share the good news in strange lands. I will intercede for the hearts and lives of my husband and children. And in all this tedium, it will become not just the work of the home, but the work of prayer.”

And during those weeks of tedium, those prayers offered up, were in a state of blessed incubation.

For when the time was right, my crossing guard-turned-friend brought it back up while I passed her in a fluster, trying to get four little ones across the street and to the school before I was late again to pick DJ up….she brought up the little booklet I had asked her to go through with me weeks and weeks prior.

“I finally finished that booklet you gave me. We can meet to talk about it this week, if you want.”

All those weeks of feeling like I was failing to follow through. All those weeks where the “only” thing I could do was pray. All those weeks of feeling like giving up trying to reach out to anyone.

He DID hear all those cries, while scrubbing toilets and carting laundry up and down the stairs!

And then, on a whim, I asked the acquaintance who had recently confided in me about her painful separation, if she would like to come over and join us.

And she said, “Sure!”

And then my other friend whom I had tried to do the study with last fall, said she would be willing to come over to do the study as well!

And hearts are ready for the sweet, blessed adventure of studying the Word of God together. Ready to allow the soul to be satisfied by the feast of Words spoken to us by the Living God. Ready to allow those words to draw us to THE WORD.

Ready to meet the One Whose humiliation and sacrifice paved the way for the mundane to become a holy rite, a place of Kingdom Advancement. For His sacrifice made me clean, clean enough for the Holy Spirit of God to dwell in me. Clean enough to have that Being enter in with me as I do the mundane, and clean enough to offer prayers up which are heard. Clean enough to be a vessel and instrument of intercession. and I learn that prayers offered up are never unheard,
They just may rest in blessed incubation for a time.
Maybe just in time for pinworms to be gone.

The Lowest and Highest of Callings

“Who is the greatest?”

His friends asked him the question…the same question we ask, here, two thousand years later. Why?

Because we all long to be great….at least great at something.

Great at blogging. Great at networking. Great at cooking. Great at eating organically. Great at mothering. Great at leading Bible studies. Great at homeschooling. Great at a career. Great at homemaking. Great at juggling more than the next stay-at-home mom. (and if I didn’t have so many little interruptions all day, I COULD be really great at those things!)

To be great is to be recognized as being something.

But to be a Christian is to lose that striving after being great in order to be something, because Jesus has already been Great Enough, and His Greatness, wins us the status of being great- in God’s eyes.

And Jesus’ answer to those…to us…foolish friends of His, flies in the face of every standard of greatness that our culture screams at us.

“He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.” Matthew 18:2-5

So as a stay work-at-home mom, I have the awesome privilege of working daily, with those that Christ has given us as the model of greatness. I get to witness the greatness daily, hourly. And what does it look like?

messiness,

playfulness,

selfishness,

dependence,

nearsightedness,

joyfulness,

neediness

care-freeness

So, if I want to be great…I am to look like THAT?!?

If I like it or not, having five little souls thrust into my life to shepherd and to raise, often makes me look

EXACTLY like that.

For this seemingly low calling of changing diapers, and scrubbing behind-mommy’s-back-nail-polish stains out of the carpet, and holding whiny two year olds WHILE trying to get dinner on the table for everyone, and no-REM-cycle nights when ALL the kids take turns waking up to need something, and cleaning up what I just cleaned 30 minutes ago, and teetering piles of laundry beckoning my attention, and refereeing who gets to play with what….

just seems so lowly.

and insignificant.

and it makes me incredibly

messy

selfish

dependent

and nearsighted

But in an upside-down-Kingdom, where the King Himself enters in to neediness, becoming needy himself in a human body and dealing with neediness-doing His fair share of cleaning up messes, and refereeing fights, and feeding lots of people , and hardly ever having a minute to himself, it is NOT so lowly.

Because Jesus has declared that the people whom I get to work with, as a mother of five little ones,

are the greatest in the Kingdom.

And I get to be with them, day in and day out, 24/7.

And that is what I call a

HIGH calling.

We must win them.

We had just finished going through Barnabas Aid’s prayer guide for the persecute church.  Nearly every single prayer plea was for Christians suffering in the hands of Muslim persecutors. That’s when Dave called to tell me he found an international student that needed a room to rent, and would it work out for us to rent ours to him?

“Yes! We’d love to meet him and see what we can work out.  Where is he from?”

“He’s a Muslim young man from Libya.” I hear on the other end of the line.

And I’m embarrassed to confess the very first thought that flashed through my mind.

“He’s going to bomb our house.”

It’s true.  It’s the very first thing that came to my mind, and in light of last weeks events, and the many worldwide ones, and 9/11, it probably runs through yours as well.

Fear of radical Islamist and their slow, strategic infiltration of countries throughout the world, including our own, haunts me. Fear for my children, and fear for their children haunts me.

But not for long. Because, just as I had to remind myself of the truth when my first thought was that this Libyan man who ended up becoming like a family member was going to bomb our house,  I also have to remind myself of which Kingdom I belong to. And where my Hope and Security rests.

For persecutions, nail-embedded bombs, and crashing towers are a temporal thing, and I serve a King whose Kingdom lasts far longer, and has far greater power than the encroaching power I see entering into this temporal “Land of the Free”.

And I serve a King who did not run and hide from those that would crucify him, but who entered into their midst that He might win the few whose hearts would open to a love and forgiveness and truth found in Him.

And I serve a King who even today has not turned His back on the 1.6 billion Muslims who have been told lies about who Jesus is, and who live, and work, and play, and raise children in a darkness yet to be infiltrated by the Light of the World.

And I serve a King who told us to love our enemies, and pray for those who persecute us.

Because He Himself did so.

He even loved me.

And because I was once an enemy of the Living God, declaring jihad on anything or anyone who got it the way of fulfilling the god of myself, and he didn’t ignore me.  He didn’t move away from me.  He did not hate me.  He died for me.

So our family moved into a place of personal death of fear, death of stereotypes, and death of pride.

And we extended our hearts, and our home, to a man from the religion that licenses the killing of my brothers and sisters in northern Africa, and the Middle East and throughout the world.

And OUR world opened up. We got to know quiet, thoughtful Adnan whose smiles were brought forth most frequently when seeing our children play. Which led to meeting his friends, and celebrating their graduations, birthdays, and births of new babies. Which led to the joy of getting to know “James and John” through a Christmas hosting program. Which led to adopting our next very Muslim, Libyan tenant-turned-family member, Nader.  Which led to his entire family, including his parents come to stay with us over the course of the next few weeks. Which has led to a whole new view on Muslims.  The Muslims who DON’T make the news because they are busy working, and taking care of their children, and having parties for their friends, and living a quiet, humble life, just like we are. How do I know?  Nader’s mother, Wafa, brought me a stack of old pictures from Nader’s childhood (brought from Libya to be put in a slideshow at Nader’s upcoming wedding).  And they could have been a stack of my own family’s pictures…Vacations to the beach, toddlers running around in diapers, siblings playing dress ups, trips taken to other countries, Boy Scout events (yes, they have Boy Scouts in Libya), birthday cakes, and smiling faces pausing in the middle of life’s joys to be captured on camera. And they stop to say their prayers, and they memorize the Qaran, and celebrate their religious holidays, JUST LIKE US.

Except.

Except, they do it without the Light of the World reigning in their world.  They do it, having been lied to about the real Jesus, and therefore living in ignorance of Who He is.  They do so always trying to obtain a righteousness, good enough for Allah, when a Righteousness has already be paid in blood, and given freely to them to receive as a gift, not as an earning,

IF

SOMEONE

WOULD

JUST

TELL

THEM.

AND SHOW THEM. AND PRAY THEM INTO THE KINGDOM OF THE KING OF LOVE.

What better way to reach a people who have been so unreachable for the past several decades.  We are hindered from going THERE.  But they are coming HERE.  And we cannot ignore them, or hide from them, or fear them or fight them…… we must win them.

Win them with love. Win them with hospitality. Win them with generosity. Win them with forgiveness.  Win them with prayer. Win them with the TRUTH.  For Truth Himself, won us, and now lives in us, and He is strong enough to overcome every hint of fear, stereotyping, and pride in our hearts, if we just offer up to Him ourselves.

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The Little Evangelist

He thought of it all by himself.

My tender at times, but all-boy at others, oldest child.

The child that I desperately wanted to homeschool.  The child who was sent off to “big, bad public school”, by a tearful mommy.

The child who I caught using God’s name in vain, which resulted in a LONG talk (and by God’s grace, NOT a lecture, but truly a talk) about honoring God and not giving in to what his peers were doing.

The child who was overjoyed that we were doing Christmas clubs so that his classmates could hear about the real reason for Christmas (or maybe it was more because tons of kids were coming over!)

That child who sometimes gets under my skin and exasperates me with his immaturity, but who also dumbfounds me with ideas like this one.

“Mommy”, he says, “I have a good idea.  Kyle and Christian and Josh don’t know about Jesus and the Bible, so what if I bring our Jesus Storybook Bible in for show and tell..”

“…And then we could give one to everybody in my class, so they could read it at home like we do…and we could give one to everyone in my reading group, too”

I was thrilled that he even thought of this idea.

Paying for the idea, did not thrill me though.

We tallied it up and we needed to buy thirty-two books, that are at least $10-$15 a pop.

We already had several that Danny had bought for oober cheap in bulk, and we needed $200 to get the rest of them.

Very impressed by the biography of George Muller, we decided to start asking God for the money to buy the Bibles.

and we kept asking.

and we kept asking.

and I looked at the calendar and counted down the weeks until school gets out, and how long it will take to get the books after we order them.

So I decided God could use me holding a yard sale to provide the money for the Bibles.

I worked hard and stayed up late each night preparing and we gathered and priced and sold our things in preparation for our move,

and we made $160.

“Not too shabby…I’m sure God can bring the next $40 in somehow”, I think to myself.

The very next day at church, with my feet still hurting from being on them so much from running the yard sale, and my body still weary from all the late nights and lack of sleep,

someone comes up to me and hands me

a check

for $200.

And my son, and his weary mother, stand in awe of the God who provides for Daniel Josiah’s first (of, hopefully, many) big endeavor to share the love and truth of a God and Savior, whom he has started to fall in love with at this young age.

And as a seven year old, he sees that

money follows ministry. And if God has put something on your heart, and its really from Him, no matter how big or small, He will provide for it.

And our job is to ask, expect, and receive.

Not for US, but for the sake of HIS GOOD NEWS being made known among the nations, even here in Oviedo, FL.

 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. John 15:16

And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.  John 14:13-14

one of his moments of hilarious immaturity…I told him to pick up and he started taping things to the wall…

My Little One Year Old!!

A year ago, yesterday

Zao Malachi Iverson

entered our world.

And this first year of life has been a blessed one!

The smiles, laughter, and joy this little one has brought are innumerable. Trinity’s class presentation yesterday consisted of her sharing about her brother and how she is so thankful that he is part of our family. “Malachi brings lots of laughter to our family” she said…a five year old testifying to the joy of LIFE (and the many of them in our home). This little guy, so curious, and so determined to keep up with the little brood that is always running around is a constant joy….even when he’s unloaded the pantry shelf for the tenth time today. He interacts with his brothers like a little puppy…ready to tumble and wrestle, crawl and “run” around the house chasing each other.  He patiently plays the role of “baby” to his sisters who love to carry him around and mother him. He never ceases to give mommy little joyful respites to her day as we cuddle or tickle or blow on bellies to create laughter and that huge all-encompassing grin. How thankful I am, that we did not just settle for “what we could handle” and prevent this little one from entering into and blessing our lives.  

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Because She is HIS

There are more of them here than you could possibly count. Big ones, small ones, rich ones, not-as-rich ones. Ones with rock concerts every Sunday and ones with organs and orchestras. Ones with the top theologically trained preachers in the world, and ones preaching the health, wealth and prosperity gospel. Not just one for each denomination, but hundreds for each denomination. We live in a place with them meeting in every building, school, and storefront you can imagine. We are literally SURROUNDED by CHURCHES here in Orlando.

And where did God lead us to worship, plug in, and serve after having, for five years, worked with a church that could suck one’s spiritual life dry? He led us to a small Korean church looking for someone to preach in English with the goal of reaching English speakers in the area.

The first Sunday here, after listening to Korean songs, preaching, and prayers, standing in line to eat extremely spicy Korean food, with all Korean chatter filling my ears and images of beautiful Asian faces surrounding me, I whispered over to Danny,

“Did we just get transported to Korea??”

We had several different job offers…at some really great, friendly (and mostly white) churches.

But after that second Sunday, and a meeting in broken English with the head pastor, we couldn’t deny it.

We both felt called to this place.

And over the past year and a half, with Danny preaching an English service, we have seen God do some beautiful things in the small flock of English speakers that He has drawn to this place as well. And it was refreshing to learn from and intermingle with these precious Koreans.

And then, we abruptly were notified that the service and ministry Danny led would be ending.

We were shocked.

They said they would like for us to stay but were free to go if we were so inclined. Not to mention the very humbling and confusing series of events surrounding this situation, staying meant worshipping each Sunday in Korean, and having a little headset for someone to translate the Korean sermon into broken English so we could have a remote clue as to what was going on.

And just as God brought us here to minister, God also brought us here to learn, and to be humbled, and to strip down completely anything that keeps us committed to a place other than for the sake of His beauty displayed in Her…

The beauty of a Savior who washed peoples from all cultures and all nations so that there could be a beautiful image of His love and unity in His bride,
The Church.

Not the activities associated with what the Church does.

And, if anything, this whole humbling mess brings questions that clear away the fog of what we think we are committing to on a Sunday morning…

Why do we show up to a place of worship each Sunday?

Is it for the awesome praise band? Is it for the preaching (my husband’s a really good preacher, if you don’t mind me saying so)? Is it for socializing with all the people I can easily relate to and receive encouragement from? Is it a grand social club? Or entertainment? Or a spiritual message that makes me feel better? Is it even just for the sake of ministry?

Or is it the coming together of unlikely siblings to rejoice together over a common love of a common Savior that has made us into an uncommon family. And despite language barriers, and cultural barriers, can I show up in expectation that I will meet my Father, and hear my Savior’s voice even in the eighties praise songs joyfully belted out in Korean, or the sermon translated into very simple English with a lot of disconnect in ideas, and a very different leadership style. Do I really believe that when I show up to all the foreignness that I show up to experience the fullness of Him who fills all in all? (Ephesians 1:23)

Do I show up because I long for…

Him?

And HE has made her to be His means of moving and speaking and ministering, this side of glory.

I long for all the fullness….even fullness that gets uncomfortable

So,

I show up because she is HIS.

Going to the Hard Place

Living and working in the inner city undid me. Being sent to the hard places taught me the Gospel. It undid my self-righteous, just-spiritualize-everything mentality. It taught me that being a Christian, a “little Christ” was so much more than memorizing verses and meeting people in comfortable coffee shops to discuss the Scriptures. Being a Christian is far more gut wrenching, but also more glorious than showing up to all the church’s different events to socialize with all these people that were exactly. like. me.

It taught me that those verses about the poor weren’t simply about being “poor in spirit” or seeing myself as “poor in God’s sight”. It ACTUALLY MEANT POOR PEOPLE. People who would ask for help, and never be able to return the favor. People we would invite in for dinner, and we would never get invited back over. People who were so different from me, but needed friendship, so hanging out with them didn’t “fill my emotional tank’.  Most often it meant smelling the strong smells of unlaundered clothing, giving time and energy when I didn’t really feel like it, and making myself available, on God’s time table, NOT MINE.

I learned that being a Christian, a “little Christ” meant having hands that got dirty. Noses that smelled the stenches. Ears that heard the heart-wrenching trevails of pain, betrayal and baggage that sends one’s mind whirring. Mouths that speak truth, and pray over situations far too desperate than anything I could help in my own strength. Arms that actually hold the neglected child. Minds that actually work to solve problems of how to keep that teen from being locked up, or how to get the power company to turn the heat back on, or the landlord to wait just a little longer while we gathered the rest of the rent needed for that family of eight. It meant showing up with every component of my humanity to make myself available to spend myself on the poor. And all this is impossible without a heart transplant in the hard, hard place, of my own heart.

After living in a hard place, “the poor” was no longer a statistic for me. They had names, and faces, and stories. They went from being a “project” to being my neighbors, my familiar faces, my friends-BEST friends, and even family…my “adopted” sons and daughters, aunts and uncles for my kids, mothers to me who, in all their brokenness and perseverance became my heroes. And in those years of pressing through the hard places to the point of falling in love with the place, the people, the life there, some resolves were formed in my heart.

1. I will never live in the suburbs again.

How could I? Knowing what I know of the pain and suffering of these neighborhoods full of broken families and disfunction, that just need some neighbors who could be a beacon of light and an example to them. How could I ever live apart from having the need and brokenness on my doorstep? How could I live in a comfy place, with manicured lawns, and stable people (and yes, I know that there is brokenness everywhere, but there are common graces that suburban life GREATLY takes for granted). How could I go back to that way of life when Julissa needs a real home to stop by at after school, and Jaquil could use a hot meal tonight for dinner, and Vernard and TiTi need an example of what marriage looks like. How could I live apart from the freshness, the raw truth of the poverty that most of the world lives in. I need it in my face to keep my heart in check from spending on myself and my own comforts. I didn’t want to join the ranks of those who live inoculated from physical need, because it was that very physical need that helped bring a spiritualized Christianity into the nitty gritty of real life for me.

2. I will never be part of a “bells and whistles” church.

I know what its like to show up on Sunday to set up band practice and have to put pots and pans around the sanctuary to catch the rain through the leaking roof. I know what its like to be so desperate for Sunday School teachers because kids without parents are showing up and need to be taught the Word of God. I know what its like to be desperate for more hands to hold little ones so struggling single moms could be freed up to actually sit in the service and gain nuggets of truth and encouragement to give them strength to struggle through another week. I know what its like to have desperate needs to minister to but just not enough bodies to make the Body do what Christ intended it to do. And because of all that, I couldn’t tolerate spending extra money on fog machines or special lighting or serving Starbucks coffee after worship…could someone please come down here and help us serve a hot meal to these kids after worship? It’ll be the only cooked meal they get this weekend. Or could some of the money that you use on your “wow” affects during worship, be used to patch our roof so we’re not sitting amongst all these pots and pans? Or could someone be willing to forego the comfy feeling of a social event on Sundays so that these kids that have no stable parents, much less mentors, have a decent Sunday School teacher? No, where-ever God would send us, we would always seek to yield any gifts we might have to help a small, struggling church, because we know what it is like to be one.

3. I will never go to the Bible belt.

There is a VAST need for Bible believing church in the inner cities, in northeastern U.S,  in most countries all over the world, not to mention the absolutely unreached peoples of the 10/40 window. No, may my energies never be used to “reach” people who live amongst churches on every street corner, when people in my neighborhood, and people around the world, don’t have that luxury, or have NEVER EVEN HEARD the Name of Jesus. Everyone gets “called” to the southeast where there is already such a culture geared towards Christianity. I don’t want to help “carry the telephone pole and help the side which already has ten people on one side, while just one person carries the other all by himself”. No, having seen the need of just one inner city setting, I vowed in my heart that I would only go where the needs were the greatest and Christ is proclaimed the least.

Well, God laughs at our inner vows, evidently. And He sees bigger sights than we see. And He sees the hard places of our hearts, and sends us to the hard places that will break that hardness.

And just how the hard inner city setting softened parts of my heart, it hardened others, to the point that there is more breaking that needs to be done.  So, come June, guess where God is calling us?

1. a wealthy area

2. to be involved in a HUGE church (nothing against this church…it is doing awesome things and they love Jesus, its just so…well…different)

3. in Atlanta, GA-smack dab in the middle of the Bible belt

WHAT is going on?!? This is not the hard place I was preparing for!

And my prideful heart, thinks God needs some help running His Kingdom.

I think the Lord of the Harvest needs some help directing the harvest workers.

Well, this whole ordeal is God’s gracious way of putting me in my place.

The hardest place I could have ever been sent to.

So, when Danny, came back from his prayer and fasting, seeking God’s face for our next step, and “Atlanta, GA” was his answer

All we could do was by our bed, and poured out our hearts to our Guide

and cry,

and pray,

“Lord, this is the hardest death I’ve had to face. Aren’t all those passions and desires for the poor something YOU put there? Isn’t that what your Word speaks of? Isn’t going to the hard places something you command? I didn’t conjure this up on my own! And I don’t understand, but I trust You. Please take this grain of wheat, falling to the ground and dying, and produce many seeds from it (John 12:24) Its all I’ve got to offer. And I want my life to count. To count in the lives of those kids and families. To count in the lives of people who have never heard your name. And because I’m yours, I will go to the hard place.  My hardest place.”

Explanatory Note:

**Danny has been chosen to participate in Perimeter’s Church-Planting Residency program. He will be working for and be trained by Perimeter for the first two years and then we will move into an inner city setting in Atlanta to launch a church (finally!) amongst the types of people I feel so strongly to reach. After that (5-7 years total) MAYBE the Lord will permit us to move back to the city that has so strongly has gripped my heart.