Saturday, November 13, 2010
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Tea in the Mountains
Got to visit a couple the other day in the foothills of the Himalayas who have been missionaries in India for a long, long time. They are an extraordinary couple who pray and pray and pray for others passionately and often.
They have a patio that overlooks a scenic ravine -- God's Cathedral, as the husband puts it. Such is the impact that this couple has made for Christ in their hometown, that he said he could be paraded naked through town to mock him as a follower of Jesus, and he is confident that a host of local believers would follow him in the humiliation as a show of support. He was being facetious, but it's probably true.
Over tea, they told us of God's saving power in people's lives -- the kind of power that releases people from fear of and possession by demons. They've seen it. It is a very, very real part of life in India.
To have their faith, their testimony, their prayer life. That is the life we all should want as followers of Jesus.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Page 1 | How to Write about Africa | Granta 92: The View from Africa | Magazine | Granta Magazine
Page 1 | How to Write about Africa | Granta 92: The View from Africa | Magazine | Granta Magazine
This is one of the funniest pieces of satire I've read in a long time. Feel free to laugh out loud.
Monday, March 22, 2010
small
Had a great talk with my friend, Eric, Saturday night about the concept of small.
I can't think of one society in this world that equates smallness with greatness. But Jesus did. He told us point-blank that the least in His kingdom would be greatest, and that those who drive for first place would find themselves at the end of the line.
Take a look at the picture. The words "precious," "cute," or "sad" may pop into your head when you see this boy. But what about "great" or "enviable"? This kid lives in a slum in India, where 40 percent of the world's poor people live. Do you think he thinks of himself as great or enviable?
I think Jesus does.
Jesus chose the small and the unworthy to do his work during his time on earth, and he still does. However, when we Christians in America think about being effective for the kingdom, we think big. We're addicted to big -- big stores, big cars, big plans, big bang for the buck. Small doesn't suit us. Small isn't worthy of our attention. We don't like being small, we don't like being thought of as small, and we don't do small.
But Jesus does.
Jesus said that his kingdom (the worldwide community of Jesus-followers) is like a mustard seed, which is about a millimeter wide but grows to a height of 3 to 8 feet, depending on variety, soil, etc. Jesus also compared his community of followers to yeast, a single-celled fungus that does its work slowly but steadily in all kinds of roles, from making bread rise to fermenting wine to decomposing fallen fruit.
Nothing about mustard seeds or yeast is impressive. They are small, insignificant-looking objects. They don't look nearly as strong or capable as bricks or blocks of stone. But Jesus didn't compare his kingdom to big, impressive-looking things, did he? He placed great stock in the small -- good thing, too, or else all of us would be on the curb.
The next time you think about making a big impact for the kingdom, don't make big plans. Think about finding a small place in God's big story. Let him do big. Comparatively speaking, we're all just mustard seeds waiting to be planted somewhere useful.
I can't think of one society in this world that equates smallness with greatness. But Jesus did. He told us point-blank that the least in His kingdom would be greatest, and that those who drive for first place would find themselves at the end of the line.
Take a look at the picture. The words "precious," "cute," or "sad" may pop into your head when you see this boy. But what about "great" or "enviable"? This kid lives in a slum in India, where 40 percent of the world's poor people live. Do you think he thinks of himself as great or enviable?
I think Jesus does.
Jesus chose the small and the unworthy to do his work during his time on earth, and he still does. However, when we Christians in America think about being effective for the kingdom, we think big. We're addicted to big -- big stores, big cars, big plans, big bang for the buck. Small doesn't suit us. Small isn't worthy of our attention. We don't like being small, we don't like being thought of as small, and we don't do small.
But Jesus does.
Jesus said that his kingdom (the worldwide community of Jesus-followers) is like a mustard seed, which is about a millimeter wide but grows to a height of 3 to 8 feet, depending on variety, soil, etc. Jesus also compared his community of followers to yeast, a single-celled fungus that does its work slowly but steadily in all kinds of roles, from making bread rise to fermenting wine to decomposing fallen fruit.
Nothing about mustard seeds or yeast is impressive. They are small, insignificant-looking objects. They don't look nearly as strong or capable as bricks or blocks of stone. But Jesus didn't compare his kingdom to big, impressive-looking things, did he? He placed great stock in the small -- good thing, too, or else all of us would be on the curb.
The next time you think about making a big impact for the kingdom, don't make big plans. Think about finding a small place in God's big story. Let him do big. Comparatively speaking, we're all just mustard seeds waiting to be planted somewhere useful.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Monday, March 15, 2010
Easy Answers
I've had a lot of people come up to me since I returned home from India and ask me in all sincerity, "So, how was your trip -- good?"
It truly was -- but I don't like leaving it at that (and I usually don't). I don't want to say, "Yeah, it was good," as if I went fishing up north or took a weekend vacay with my wife. It was a trip to India to see amazing work among the poorest of the poor, work that gets a lot of financial support but not a lot of attention or in-depth thought from people here.
The thing is, it deserves a lot of in-depth thought. Easy answers, like "It was good" or "Yeah, God showed up" don't seem to cut it. I think sometimes we want the easy answers rather than the full answers, because the full answers require us to hit "Pause" on our lives long enough to think about uncomfortable things. It's hard to find time for that.
Dealing with the poor and foreign cultures and God's work there requires a lot of thought about what causes poverty and how that foreign culture differs from my own and how God is reaching into that culture with his transforming love. A lot of times, those thoughts need to be refined and re-thought, just because of my own ignorance or new information that trumps the conclusions I came to before.
It truly was -- but I don't like leaving it at that (and I usually don't). I don't want to say, "Yeah, it was good," as if I went fishing up north or took a weekend vacay with my wife. It was a trip to India to see amazing work among the poorest of the poor, work that gets a lot of financial support but not a lot of attention or in-depth thought from people here.
The thing is, it deserves a lot of in-depth thought. Easy answers, like "It was good" or "Yeah, God showed up" don't seem to cut it. I think sometimes we want the easy answers rather than the full answers, because the full answers require us to hit "Pause" on our lives long enough to think about uncomfortable things. It's hard to find time for that.
Dealing with the poor and foreign cultures and God's work there requires a lot of thought about what causes poverty and how that foreign culture differs from my own and how God is reaching into that culture with his transforming love. A lot of times, those thoughts need to be refined and re-thought, just because of my own ignorance or new information that trumps the conclusions I came to before.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Greatness and God-days
Delhi, India, boasts some great sights. Among the greatest is the Qutb Minar, the tallest brick minaret in the world. Seeing it invokes awe -- especially when one considers that it was finished more than 600 years ago, without cranes or modern construction equipment of any kind. It is exquisite and masterfully crafted.
The tower was constructed as a statement of the power of the conquering ruler who destroyed the temples that once stood on the site and built Qutb Minar from the rubble.
As enduring as the tower is, though, God's word reminds us of how temporary men and their lives are.
In Psalm 90:3-6, Moses writes, "You turn men back to dust, saying, 'Return to dust, O sons of men.' For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night. You sweep men away in the sleep of death; they are like the new grass of the morning -- though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered."
That fresh, green grass can spring up for hundreds of years, like an empire in all of its glory. And then, inevitably, it withers up and fails. By the evening of the God-day, the day that lasts for a thousand years, it is gone. In that that one God-day, the lives of countless millions begin and end, and they swear on all that they know that what they see rising up in glory before them will last forever, and that it is great. But God knows the truth -- that at the end of the God-day, it will be pathetic and old and rotten. If we could see that eventuality for what it is, we might be embarrassed to call our great accomplishments great.
Later on in that same psalm, Moses asks God, "May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendor to their children. May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands."
Bricks and stone, and the people who craft even the greatest works out of them, are bound to crumble. While the Qutb Minar and some buildings around it are still standing, the people who built them are long gone, remembered only by historians and the people paid to invoke their names to tourists.
The only thing that really lasts is what God himself ordains and blesses. Let's not quickly forget that.
The tower was constructed as a statement of the power of the conquering ruler who destroyed the temples that once stood on the site and built Qutb Minar from the rubble.
As enduring as the tower is, though, God's word reminds us of how temporary men and their lives are.
In Psalm 90:3-6, Moses writes, "You turn men back to dust, saying, 'Return to dust, O sons of men.' For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night. You sweep men away in the sleep of death; they are like the new grass of the morning -- though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered."
That fresh, green grass can spring up for hundreds of years, like an empire in all of its glory. And then, inevitably, it withers up and fails. By the evening of the God-day, the day that lasts for a thousand years, it is gone. In that that one God-day, the lives of countless millions begin and end, and they swear on all that they know that what they see rising up in glory before them will last forever, and that it is great. But God knows the truth -- that at the end of the God-day, it will be pathetic and old and rotten. If we could see that eventuality for what it is, we might be embarrassed to call our great accomplishments great.
Later on in that same psalm, Moses asks God, "May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendor to their children. May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands."
Bricks and stone, and the people who craft even the greatest works out of them, are bound to crumble. While the Qutb Minar and some buildings around it are still standing, the people who built them are long gone, remembered only by historians and the people paid to invoke their names to tourists.
The only thing that really lasts is what God himself ordains and blesses. Let's not quickly forget that.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Meeting India with Compassion
If someone asks you for a definition of compassion in 10 words or less, throw this at them: Making love for the needy a verb. A lot of people in the West think of India as a stinking hole, a place to get out of as soon after arriving as possible. After spending a week there, I have no idea what they're talking about. In India I saw poverty rivaling that of any squatter village in Manila, any hill village in rural Guatemala, any barrio in Lima. But in the slums of Delhi, I got to see hope, too -- real live hope born of a relationship with Jesus and the compassion for the hurting that goes with it.
I've attached two photos -- one of two children from the slums of Delhi, the second of a child from the slums of Delhi who belongs to a Compassion Intl. project.
Take a look at their faces, especially their eyes. Granted, I saw happy faces in the slums and glum faces at the church that runs the Compassion project. But what you see here exemplifies the air around those kids. The girls walking around the slums had that faint ambivalence that just leaked out. The girl on the right? She's helping lay out mats for her classmates to sit on for lunch. She has purpose. She has hope.
The lives of the girls in the first photo are the living result of a world that kicks the poor aside while talking of peace and personal fulfillment. The life of the girl below is the result of living faith -- the kind of faith that is accompanied by action (see James 2:14-17). She has the benefit of being cared for by people who, when they say they believe in Jesus, show it by showing Jesus to the poor.
That's why I could go back to India tomorrow. I saw faith alive and growing and walking around the slums of Delhi and the villages of West Bengal. I love that. I want that. I am honored to have seen it with my own eyes.
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