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.

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.