Thoughts

Today I got a message from someone who is an alumnus of my high school. She graduated before I began high school, and I have not met her. She said she’s very excited about what I’m doing in South Africa and wants to help, and offered to do a bake sale to raise funds for me.

How awesome is that? A stranger contacts me to ask if she can raise money to give me toward the work I have been called into. God is good.

Since seeking God’s heart for love and justice and mercy and grace and peace – essentially for the reality of God’s presence to come into lives where He is most needed – blessings seem to have been piling up on me. In my mind, all I have been doing was living out what God speaks in His Word in the specific context He has called me to. It’s obedience. It is doing the right thing at the right time. There is nothing special about me. This could be anyone doing the same things.

And all I can think is, This is grace. It is gift. It is kindness. It is joy. It is a favor done without expectation of return. And I love it.

And it is good. I have people asking to bake for me. And really, it isn’t about me. It is about the thousands and thousands of women living in shame and humiliation and silence because they have AIDS and feel they cannot speak because they do not want they families and friends to cast them out of their community.

Thank you, friend I have not yet met. And friends I have met, feel free to hold a bake sale to give money for a cause that seeks God’s love. Organize a (non)talent show. You all are more creative than I am. So go use your gifts.

•

A friend of mine from Canada has been trying valiantly to raise support to pay for school costs and the price of an around the world plane ticket so he can do the two year PhotoGenX program. Bless his heart. The exchange rate is not in his favor. In the last few days, he has received a couple thousand dollars. God has shown His faithfulness to my friend to provide for his needs, to give him the things he asks for. God has shown His faithfulness to me in the last few days in a huge way. Praise God! And He has shown His faithfulness and providence of many, many students and staff in our group.

But what about the people for whom nothing has happened? For whom there have been no breakthroughs in money they need? Does God care less about them somehow? Have they not done something so God will do something for them? Is grace, this gift, not broad and powerful enough to extend to them?

Of course I do not think they have done something wrong or not done something. But why me? Why have I seen the blessings, the grace I have?

I pray it’s to be a blessing. I don’t know what I can do right now. I need to pray. I always need to pray. Mostly I need to listen more closely than I have been. But I also want to listen. I want to hear God’s word and obey in gratitude and joy…

I hope to have good news to share about my friends soon.

•

Why is it that in the accounts of Jesus’ life He talks so often about things related to money? And Jesus doesn’t say things that make sense to me or most of my friends, at least not with the way we have been taught to understand economics. Jesus talks about not making a fuss over paying taxes to the Empire that was occupying Israel (Matthew 22:17). Or earlier in Matthew, Jesus says not to be anxious about food or clothing because God will provide it (Matthew 6:25). Typically food and clothing have to be bought. And they cost a lot of money as your family grows. The two are connected in a fundamental way. There is freedom and release from anxiety about paying taxes to Rome – and Jesus says it’s Caesar’s money anyway – and freedom in knowing and trusting that God will provide the very basic needs out of His generous loving nature. Which is good since tax collectors working for Rome took much of the money anyone had. Jesus essentially says, “That coin with an inscription of a man? That’s human way of understanding and doing provision. God’s way? Well, God has put his inscription on the flowers.” What can you say in counter response to that?

And then there are stories for illustrating investment in the Kingdom of God. Lessons on giving, and supporting. Stories of financial sacrifice. Which makes me think that the issues I’m dealing with involving money aren’t new… =P

•

I guess my point was sort of that money, as one of the most looming concerns of YWAM students – and I think missionaries more generally – is not limited to myself, and is a hard thing and difficult to understand why it’s different person to person. But I think it’s clear that God cares. I do not even know how He could possibly be indifferent.

After all, God has made wildflowers to look more glorious than even the wisest, possibly wealthiest man ever.

From the grace that has been given to me, in God’s rich love,

Chris