Several months ago, we were asked to meet up with several friends who are from a nation I will not reveal. They love their nation and its people and they love their culture. But they face death daily…
We met in Washington, DC to introduce them to friends, contacts, and opportunities to tell their story and the actions they have chosen to take because they love their nation, its people, and their culture. They asked for nothing. But in asking for nothing and simply telling their story people stepped into their story to ask, “How can we help?”
We met with people whose names you would know and their positions you would be very familiar with. These people of power and influence were moved by the story of my friends and, in those moments, it was as if their world went silent and all of the demands of their position(s) stopped because the story of my friends filled the room, the void, their hearts, their minds and they were wrecked. These were sobering moments, but leaving every meeting there were hugs and prayers and smiles because in the midst of what my friends face in their nation, they left buckets of hope in the offices and the lives of those we met.
“When you do the common things in an uncommon way, you’ll command the attention of the world.”
GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER
On my last day with my friends, they asked me to meet with them and they asked me this question: “Will you protect us?” In my western mind I knew what that meant (fists, words, guns, power, etc.),but I wasn’t sure what they meant? As we spoke, I began to understand a bit more, but not all of what that means, yet. “Will you protect us?”: Will you protect us in praying? Will you protect our anonymity? Will you protect our story because it is our story? Will you be with us? These are far from my cultural experience. We would want strength and dominance, headlines and articles, money and power to protect us. They want prayer and anonymity, presence and preservation of their story. Quite the opposite, but isn’t that what Jesus looks like? He always looks like the opposite. ALWAYS…
In April of 1912, the world’s greatest ocean liner set sail for America. They said she was “unsinkable.” But when the Titanic hit an iceberg and began to sink, 20 lifeboats were lowered and 19 rowed toward safety, but one, Lifeboat #14, rowed toward the cries of the lost and the dying to save a precious few.
Sir Isaac Newton went through two years of waiting. He isolated himself on his family farm while the Great Plague of London swept through in 1665. In his confinement, he didn’t waste his waiting. During that time, he invented calculus, discovered the nature of light and the laws of gravity. That year for him was called The Year of Wonders.
On February 22, 1943, German Sophie Scholl was executed for leading a student resistance called “The White Rose” against Hitler. She was 21 and a follower of Christ. Her last words were: “Stand up for what you believe in even if you are standing alone.”
I am a connector. I am not in the “rescuing business,” but in August I received several calls seeking help to rescue a number of people from Afghanistan. I began to make some calls connecting individuals. Two weeks later we received word that we had saved about 11 individuals from Afghanistan who were marked for death. Who were the individuals who made up this team? I wouldn’t begin to know. In these situations, it is better to not know your right hand from your left. PLEASE pray because this is far from over.
“You are the salt of the earth…You are the Light of the world… Let your light shine before men… and praise your father in heaven.”
Matthew 5:13,14,16
What do these stories have in common? They were UNCOMMON… What Jesus has called us to is UNCOMMON. He did not call us to being ordinary or to escape into a crowd.
Be UNCOMMON. It’s what we were made for.
