*
“Don’t think for a moment that because you’re in the palace
you will escape when all your people suffer. If you keep quiet at a time like
this, deliverance and relief will arise from some other place, but you and
yours will die.” There are a thousand ways for your soul to die, to be the
living dead.
You
are where you are for such a time as this – not to gain anything — but to risk
everything.
You are where you are for
such a time as this — not to make an impression — but to make a
difference.
*
Dear North American Church, After a Sunday morning in
Africa, you don’t look the same to me. You look hungry. Hungrier than anything
I’ve seen in Africa.
That one woman with no shoes and no husband and 7 kids, walk
up to the front of the church and put this bag of beans into the basket as her
love offering to God – my heart ached this raw conviction and I could feel it
with you, North American Church, what you really wanted: You’re hungry to love
like this. You
are hungry for the uncomfortable.
You are hungry to sacrifice your Starbucks coffees, your
NetFlix subscription, your dinners out for something More. You’re hungry for
more than vanilla services, and sweetened programs, and watered down lives.
You’re famished for More, for hard and holy things, for some
real meat for your starved soul, some real dirt under your fingernails, some
real sacrifice in your veins – some real Jesus in your blood and in your hands
and in your feet.
And I’m looking into the eyes of all these African children,
all these hungry, dancing eyes and the
Compassion teacher’s
literally dancing under the tree: “You all get to give!”
It’s not just the rich who
get to give – it’s all those who
give who get to be rich. You don’t wait until you have more before you
give to God – you give now so you get to become
more in God. It’s only
the people who give sacrificially who get to live richly.
It is hard for me to sing with them– when I’m living like
this – and my brothers and sisters are living like that. When too many North
Americans diet for a hobby, and too many Africans die for a meal.
When our churches have building budgets and
our sisters have
dying children. We aren’t playing
games here
. If God is real, if the King of Kings and Lord of Lords is
really on the throne, if we are all going to see our Jesus King face to face,
soon and very soon – then there’s a whole lot of us who are wild to change
things soon.
Now. For such a time as Now.
I am standing in Africa and there’s a whole
Esther Generation and
it is us who want hard and holy things because we want more than hollow lives. There’s a whole Esther Generation and it is
us who want our children to know the More Life,
a
life more than self-focus and cell phones, more than iphones, itunes, ipads and
iLove, who want them to know the More Life of loving the least, the lonely and
the lost and tasting the
joy of God.
I am standing in Africa and there’s a whole
Esther Generation and
it is us who are done with easy, who say to the North American Church:
Be concerned for the poor – but be no less concerned for us rich who claim not to be rich so we can
excuse ourselves from giving.
Be concerned for the poor – but no less concerned for us who have done just enough to assuage our
consciences,
just enough to pat ourselves on
the back,
but not enough that we’ve ever felt
sacrifice. Be concerned for the poor –
but be no less concerned for us who aren’t —
because
someday we will face Christ.
I am standing in Africa and you can hear the whole North
American Church, rising up, crying out: What if caring for
the poor was more than just caring about easing our consciences? What if caring
for the poor meant feeling sacrifice for the poor? What if we weren’t
really feeling care for
the poor – until we were really feeling
sacrifice for them?
North American Church, it is time: We are all done with no-risk, no-sacrifice,
no-point lives. It
is time: We are all done with the drug of comfortable and dare to live the
dream of uncomfortable. It is time: We’re all hungry for uncomfortable because
we’re hungry for God – and He is outside of our comfort zones. This.
Is. What. Faith. Is.
*
If we’ve really welcomed Christ into our lives – it means
our
lives are
evidence that we’ve
welcomed the
strangers and the neglected and the outcasts. The
Esther Generation lives
it and the
North American church is
hungry for something as authentic and organic as hospitality:
Don’t start with a program.
Start with a plate.
The radical practice of hospitality begins with each child,
each knock, each phone call: Every interruption of the day is a manifestation
of Christ. There
are no interruptions in a day. There are only manifestations of Christ.
One of Katie’s daughters had whispered it:
“Mommy,
if Jesus comes to live inside my heart, will I explode?”
And Katie had said —“No!” and
then —“Yes, if Jesus comes to live
in your heart, you will explode… That is exactly what we should do if Jesus
comes to live inside our hearts. We will explode with love,
with compassion, with hurt for those who are hurting, and with joy for those
who rejoice. We will explode with a desire to be more, to be better, to be
close to the One who made us.”
