The bible teaches that the only way to live is to die. Jesus came, died and through His death we live.
Lots of people, christian or not, are trying so hard to live, but we must die…and surprisingly it doesn’t hurt us to die, it increases everything about our lives once we die. Just one of those biblical ideas that is crazy to the natural mind.
The Lord chose to remove us from afluent Aussie living, remove us from a $1,000 a week job, remove us from family and friends, remove us from safety, security and a thousand other things that we all take for granted in Australia and lovingly place us inside a huge slum. I suppose He did this for a whole heap of reasons, so we could help others, be His hands and feet…but also so we could die to ourselves, our own flesh. So we could work out what was really important and what was superficial about life. He took away our comforts, so He could be our comfort.
We live with people who often earn less than 100 pisos per day, less than AUD$2.50. I know no one in our slum who owns a car, no one who has a bank account, no one with any form of savings, no insurances, most have nothing that we would call a home…but some of them have JESUS, many of them give and are generous, but they have nothing at all.
We are learning what is important – it’s not important that we have things (Jesus is not against things), it’s not important to have extra of anything – it’s important to love people, it’s important to always help, always care, it’s important to be available – IT’S IMPORTANT TO GIVE YOUR LIFE AWAY IN THE SERVICE OF OTHERS (THE POOR). And then it’s important for the people that you help to go on and help some one else.
No one has to, or perhaps can change the world, but we can all do something to better it. I love the starfish story – little boy walking down a beach where thousands of starfish had been washed up on the shore and he was picking up one and throwing it back into the sea. Some one asks him why he is doing it, saying he is making no differance at. The little boy responds, by bending down, picking up another starfish and throwing it into the sea. He then says “Made a diferance to that one” and continues to pick up starfish. I love this story, this is what we do – one by one we save/change lives…YOU CAN DO THAT, EVERYONE CAN DO THAT. JUST GET “ONE”, SAVE “ONE”, HELP “ONE”, and when you are finished there do it again with another…how easy is that…BUT YOU MUST DIE. The more you die, the more you will live.
When you look at the photo gallery, the man in orange died…ask yourself, could you of helped him? I am not trying to make anyone feel guilty, we were here and we couldn’t save him, but I want you not to see the “big picture”, but to see the small one. Most of us cannot change or influence the “big picture”, but we can so easily become project orientated, church planting minded, community transformation focused…and we forget that it is all about people. I cannot change the world, but I can stop a little boy from starving to death.
A pastor once said to me “Fish swim, birds fly…do what you do before you die (meaning literal death)”, find something you can do and do it, find a person you can help and help them.
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