Today I find myself asking what am I willing to sacrifice for the sake of the gospel. For the sake not only of the gospel but to go to those who seem to have no value. We find ourselves at the end of a lonely highway in the middle of nowhere. Spending time with neighbors, going to a prison in a nowhere frontier town, in slums, a tribal village.
If I get real honest when I look at most of these people they are never going to matter much, not in the way we think of as a society. They are very unlikely to change, to get educated, to tithe, to send their kids to college. Maybe a few in our neighborhood as society is making more room for that here, but the tribal kids I was with today? 2012 they are living in mud huts, sitting there chewing coke leaves, drinking terere without much ambition or teeth. Thank you Ricco for passing it to me.
Worse yet are some of the prisoners. Not only are they unlikely to contribute to society they are a drain. Two new guys today were in a dirty, disgusting little processing cell. They asked us to pray for them. Ricco asked why they were there, the one we could understand said he beat up his woman for trying to leave him. Great, a #@#$$#@ and I was praying for him.
We have other connections too, some of which seem more important, or at least easier to stomach. Still Corumba is the end of the world and not likely to amount to much. Even if I became a great missionary to the wealthiest people here no one who didn’t already know me would be likely to hear of me.
It could be easy to convince myself to go back to the US, to minister in my own culture. Shoot I could work at McDonalds, be far more comfortable, lead a bible study, do outreach with our church and it would be just as valid and important of ministry. There is no great high calling in being here.
I could really get ambitious and go pastor a church somewhere in the US making a fair living, be in easier circumstances and be used by God just as much as here.
What is it that makes us stay? Even more to be excited to stay? What is it that makes the price seem so small to love the people who don’t deserve it?
Today I really believe it is because I get to taste, touch and sense what God’s heart for me might be. You see I don’t really feel that way about the people I describe above. It is doubtless how I would feel without God’s love though. Equally as doubtless that in truth I am far more worthless then them to God.
Ricco preached today at the prison and I just enjoyed listening. He shared how Jesus called Lazarus from the dead but spiritually speaking we are all dead without Christ. Amen.
In Christ I am no longer the dirty prisoner that makes me uncomfortable to talk to. I am a loved child of him that can take joy in sharing that love with others. Sharing that love with those that don’t deserve it, all of us.
What an amazing Lord we have, if he can place value in those beautifully dirty tribal people there may be a little hope for me.
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