This is why I go....

August 19th

I have an amazingly cool story to share. For those of you who aren’t “the religious type” please read; I’m not a fan of religion either, but I really love my relationship with God and you might like hearing about this… maybe?

A few weeks ago the students were given the opportunity to pray about which outreach location to go to. Some were worried that God would not speak to them. I was speaking to one girl (let’s call her Wendy) in particular and told her that I know from experience that God cares about the details of our lives and that He really will tell her specifically which place to go (of three options). She was surprised to hear that a big God cares about the details of our lives. I told her a couple stories from my own life of how God has shown that to me, and she said “huh” (like, huh interesting). Fast forward. Same girl. In our week of teaching about prayer she feels that God is affirming the worshipper in her. She is greatly encouraged by this and starts singing more and worshiping in her heart more frequently. “Lord, it would be really great if I had an ipod to listen to worship music with,” she thinks quietly to herself one day. A couple days later another girl (who was not present for the “God in the details” chat and who does not read minds and could not have read Wendy’s mind) gives her ipod away to Wendy with a note that says “I felt God telling me to give this away to you, to show you that He is a God who cares about the details of our lives.”

Are you kidding me? THAT is God. Not only does that speak to me of the reality of God, but to me it also speaks HEAPS about His character. This is His intention for everyone- to show us that He is so caring and so loving, and active in His love. This is not always communicated successfully; not everyone has Wendy’s ipod experience to back up claims of His goodness. But I think that is largely because He has chosen to use people to demonstrate His love. He uses us to speak things to one another, to be the person that hears Him say “give this person your ipod” and does it not even knowing that that is the answer to a secret prayer. Sometimes we hear Him and are able to be a part of a miracle. Sometimes we stuff it up or don’t hear it altogether. But that doesn’t change the fact that He is speaking and His intention is to demonstrate this love to EVERY person on this planet. That is His heart.

I got another glimpse of God’s heart this week. A friend of a friend took his own life. I don’t know this person at all, but when I heard the news I cried. My heart hurt. I felt like God was sharing His heart with me, a tiny fraction of it, in that His heart breaks when things like this happen. Because His intention for people is good, His intention is to bring hope and peace, freedom and fullness of life. It literally gives His heart pain to see His children living in sorrow and despair and inflicting pain on themselves and each other. But He has given us free will, because He wants to enter a loving relationship with all of us, and that can’t be forced. For some, their free will can bring agony and destruction into their lives and the lives of the people around Him. He is active in trying to stop this, He is active in pursuing us and showing His love, but because He largely (but not exclusively) works through people (remember the ipod story), it doesn’t always get communicated. Some might think, “well, it’s pretty stupid of Him to work through people, because of course we’re going to mess it up. That’s too much responsibility! He should just do it and leave us out of it!” But we live in the physical and He is spirit, so it is His kindness, humility and love that cause Him to work through physical beings –so that He can speak to us in a way we hear, receive and give His touch, give physical gifts through us, show us visible things through other people – all things that He couldn’t do or would be harder to do if He chose not to work with us and through us. Not to mention He loves to co-labor and partner with us. Just like a Dad wants to play games or build stuff with his kids. He doesn’t want us to be puppets or strangers, He is close and works alongside us.

That is why we go. This is why I work for a non-profit missions organization. Our free will can bring so much pain into the world, for ourselves and for others. Or…. our free will can be the agent of His demonstrations of love. We can be the ones that show others His ability to speak, His attention to detail, His heart of compassion, His pro-active efforts to communicate His undying love for us. I want to be His communicator. I want to be His agent of love. I want to spend my life being someone who God uses to show people His real, active, tangible, unfailing, healing love.

That’s why I am going to South Africa and Cambodia.

On September 5th, I leave for South Africa. I will be co-leading a team of 11 students with one other staff member. We will be in South Africa for 10 weeks. Then we will go to Cambodia for a month. We will be serving the people of these countries, helping in any practical way we can (teaching English, cooking meals, etc.) and showing love and value to the people we meet. There is sooooo much more I could say, but I am trying to keep this entry shorter than my previous emails ;)

If you would like to hear more or if you would like to support the outreach through finances (current need is $2000 AUD) or prayer please let me know!