More Than Food
Every day while in San Diego we would go out on the streets with water and some food. Our mission was to use the food as a way to enter into conversations with people on the streets.
One day our team met a guy named Jamal (I changed his name just in case). Jamal was a big dude. Probably 6′ 6″ weighing about 250. Football player type. He was probably in his mid 50s.
We handed Jamal a bottle of water and a burrito and talked to him about how he was doing. After a few minutes of breaking the ice he opened up to us in an incredible way. He was on the streets, and yet he had a job. He worked for a moving company, but still couldn’t afford a place to stay. He would be up at 6am every day waiting for the train so that he could get to work on time. Because he didn’t have a place to stay, he would wash his work shirt in a public restroom sink every night so that it would be clean and presentable the next day for work. Jamal told us about his family, his granddaughter (who calls him ‘G-Pop’), and his experiences on the streets.
Before we moved on we had a chance to hold his hands and pray with him. Afterwards, with tears in his eyes he shook the burrito and said, “Y’all aren’t just giving us food, you’re giving us hope.”
I would have been scared of Jamal before. He is a big, intimidating guy. But underneath the exterior stood a man who was in need of hope. I learned that what is needed more than anything on the streets is the hope of Jesus Christ.
Extreme Makeover Home Edition
I received this text from my wife during youthgroup last night:
“I’m watching extreme home make over and I’m already tearing up. Why do I do this to myself?”
I had to chuckle to myself because I do the same thing. I watch Ty (darn him and his perfectly sculpted hair) and his crew enter into the lives of people who normally have a seriously difficult life, build them an amazing new home, buy them a ton of stuff, and I can’t help but tear up a little, too.
The only other time when I get teary is when Sarah McLachlan animal cruelty commercials come on the TV. Maybe I have a soft spot for dogs, but I can hardly watch sad puppy faces while listening to the emotional moan/singing of McLachlan.
But here’s what I’m wondering:
Is there some sort of formula to this?
And if there is a formula for tugging on my emotional heartstrings,
Does it actually make any impact on my life?
I mean, after watching these things I don’t immediately want to go out and help a family in need or save an abused puppy. In fact, I normally decide I need a snack, make popcorn, and turn on Dog the Bounty Hunter. What was the point of the intense emotions I just experienced? It is like I was turned into an emotional factory, churned out some tears, and then was turned off (only waiting to start again next Sunday).
What do I do with this?
Prison
My wife and I visited a young women’s prison facility yesterday with a ministry from our church. There are 40-or-so teenage girls who are incarcerated in this facility for crimes that would cause an adult to do prison time. Our church, hand in hand with a couple other local churches, goes once-a-month to bring these girls a church service with music and preaching. These girls were literally crying out to God for forgiveness. We could see the pain and shame in their eyes. It made our hearts break.
As my wife and I were driving up to the facility we realized that it was less than 1 block away from the apartments we lived in when we first were married. Yet, we never knew this facility existed, let alone any of these girls who were locked up inside.
And as we drove away, my wife said, “those girls are just like our community’s Dalit. We don’t want to see them. We don’t want to recognize they are there. We just want to throw them into ‘slums’ and pretend they don’t exist.”
This was profound. What would Jesus want us to do with these gals?
Matthew 25:39 ~ When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?
Jesus Freak
Last night at youth group I taught on the end of Luke 7. Jesus is invited to Simon the Pharisee’s home for a meal. He is shown none of the custom honors due to a guest (water to wash feet, greeting kiss, oil for head). A ‘sinful woman’ came and showed him much more honor by washing his feet with her hair, kissing his feet, and anointing his feet with expensive perfume.
One of my students said, “Well, that’s kind of creepy.” And that was a true and honest statement. What this woman did made everyone uncomfortable. Everyone, that is, except Jesus, who commends her faith and forgives her sins. To borrow an overly used stereotype, she was a Jesus freak. She was willing to make herself uncomfortable and everyone around her just to be near the Christ.
This makes me uncomfortable, and I’m not sure I’d be happy to be in the place of the sinful woman. I’m much more comfortable being just another dinner guest. Don’t notice me. Let me blend in. No embarrassment. Comfortable.
But is this who Jesus calls me to be?
Fear
In going through this whole thing with Maryse’s health I have experienced fear in a different way.
We have been in the place where fear of the unknown has been prevalent. Being sick for 1 1/2 years with many doctors trying to diagnose you to no avail has given us lots of unknown things to fear. But the last week we began to move from the fear of the unknown, to a fear of the known. If her test results had come back with something in her brain causing these symptoms then our fears would have a name. They would be known.
I don’t know which is worse…the unknown or the known…but both are scary.
Are you more scared of the unknown OR of things known to you?
