Would it not be worth it to see, in part, the face of God and experience His smile than to give our lives to what is empty and self-serving and temporal?
“It is likely that I will die in my bed (which he did on April 17, 2015). My successor will die in prison. His successor will die executed in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the church has done so often in human history.”
Cardinal Francis George of Chicago
In Mark 3 Jesus “called 12 to be with Him…” What does it mean to be “with Him,” to be with others, to be with them? We give little attention to the power of presence and the resulting affect it
has on people, places, and cultures. We are driven by immediate results rather than patiently pursuing the heart of the person, the places, or the cultures. If you allow God to create, measure and control, and you give yourself, by faith, to the task of investing
in the lives of others, then you are free to just be “with them.” No agendas, no preconceived notions and no expectations of outcomes.
BUT there are. People are changed, places are transformed, and cultures experience renewal by simply being with them and leav- ing all the rest up to God.
Whenever I take a trip I always have a plan, but I am always looking for the real reason that I am on the trip. It is the unknown reason(s) – the mystery and wonder of God unfolding before us that is almost magical. Was it the Muslim taxi driver who I asked to tell me his story and after 20 minutes he was smiling and hugging me?
Was it the two hours I had with two brothers, Rami and Nashat, who love Jesus and are doing amazing and daring things in The Middle East to show Muslims that Jesus is worthy to follow and at the same time, empowering and encouraging Jesus followers to live by faith and not by fear? Or was it the unexpected hour with Matthew from Wichita who is studying at The Hebrew University and longing to follow Jesus more closely? So much of the unknown reasons remain just that, unknown. But in the unknown there is a plan. Whether we see the fruit or fulfillment of that plan is less important than if we are willing to step into it. Usually it begins with a “hello” and a willingness to be interruptible.
A few months ago I was reminded of one’s willingness to be interrupted and one’s decision to be a presence while on a visit to Jerusalem. I awoke very early to travel to the Yahuda Hotel to meet with my friend who is from the Chicago area. He was in town for a gathering of church leaders who deeply care about that part of the world. He is a doctor not a pastor. But he takes the time to travel across the globe to make his passion(s) a reality. It is a sacrifice of time and a sacrifice of family and a sacrifice of finances and a sacrifice of soul and spirit because in each case he is giving something away. Or is he? There is no promise that he will be compensated for his sacrifice of time, family, or money, but there is a continual promise that God will renew his soul and his spirit. It is endless… So why do we hesitate to make our passions a reality? Is it because we value what will not last more than what is eternal? Is it because we have replaced what was our identity for what we think should be our identity? Is it the fear of the unknown or is it that we forgot how precious and deep and overflowing Jesus’ love really is?
I think that if we would simply obey God in the random circumstances of life we would find a world open up before us that is breathtaking because we would “see the face of God.”
