still hungry...

Once again it is the season of fasting and prayer at my house...I thought I would repost a blog from several  years ago...many of the same thoughts currently.

I am thinking about hunger again. I know that seems to be a frequently visited topic in my blog posts, but… It really is something we need to think about more. I am not only thinking about physical hunger but I am specifically thinking about the deep hunger for God. Jesus spoke quite often about the hungry and hunger. In Luke 4 : 1-2 it says,

 “ Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil, And in those days He ate nothing, and afterwards, when they had ended, He was hungry.” 

And Satan being the ever clever liar was aware of that hunger and tried to get Jesus to turn a stone into bread. Imagine how hungry Jesus must have been after forty days? Some of us can barely last four hours. The devil knows that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach especially when really hungry. This was also apparent even in Old Testament days as Esau sold his birthright to his brother Jacob for some lentil stew. That was an expensive meal. However there is a tool that is available and often used to call our appetite into submission. It is a fast. Now I am not going into all the details and the whys and wherefores of fasting here. There are plenty of books written if you need to do a scholarly investigation on fasting. I will simply say it is a very powerful weapon when teamed with prayer to tap into the power of God to speak into your life. The enemy, Satan, wants you distracted and hungry for food and things of the world. When you fast and pray you focus sometimes very intensely on desiring what God wants and waiting to hear what that is. There is a long and extensive history of fasting in the bible and some amazing things have happened secondary to fasting and praying. Moses fasted and so did Jonah, Daniel, David and Elijah among others. Fasting takes you away from the world; it is a renewal of your spirit and a powerful form of worship. Fasting gives me an opportunity to change my diet. It is amazing when I am not attentive to what I eat that I gain weight and am still hungry. I am overfed as many of us are but lacking something in my diet. Fasting helps me to focus on Jesus, the one who can satisfy real hunger. The temporary hunger I feel is just that…temporary. It has to constantly be satisfied in a variety of ways. We struggle to appease this never filled feeling that affects everything in our lives, our jobs, our relationships and our sense of self worth. We become enmeshed in a tangled mess of lies and deception and live lives in the desperation of having to consume stuff to mollify our hunger. I have decided to tackle this issue and look at my own personal hunger. For all of us it is different. For many of us it is uncomfortable. It is not easy to face something which we hate to admit controls us and drives our every decision. But there is a reward to be had in doing this. In the bible in 2 Chronicles 7:14, it says,

 “ if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and forgive their sin and heal their land.” 

Can you deny that we need to repent and receive forgiveness? Can you deny the blatant truth that this land needs healing now more than ever before? Our hunger for the wrong things in this world has almost pushed us over the edge and for many it already has. It’s time. It really is time to stop the madness that pushes us to run in circles and never find peace. There is only one way. I think that it is clear what that way is. So, the question then becomes which you will choose. Are you hungry?? What will feed you this year? Or maybe we should ask…who will I feed??

A Short Testament

 

Whatever harm I may have done In all my life in all your wide creation creation If I cannot repair it I beg you to repair it, And then there are all the wounded The poor the deaf the lonely and the old Whom I have roughly dismissed As if I were not one of them. Where I have wronged them by it And cannot make amends I ask you To comfort them to overflowing, And where there are lives I may have withered around me, Or lives of strangers far or near That I've destroyed in blind complicity, And if I cannot find them Or have no way to serve them, Remember them. I beg you to remember them When winter is over And all your unimaginable promises Burst into song on death's bare branches.

" I thank God for keeping me alive "...

Three years ago today...the world ended. Well...for about 316,000 people it certainly did. We say that number so casual. We don't comprehend actually how big that number is especially when talking about deaths of people. So, think of it like this...the entire population of St Louis...gone, or Corpus Christi...all dead. Perhaps, this fact 40% of the top 100 cities of the US...one would be gone...forever. Shall I go on ? Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Orlando...I think you get the picture now. Each of those numbers was a person who was a part of a family and a community. A mom...a dad...a brother...a sister...a husband...a wife. Right before my local news was getting ready to come on the world came crashing down...literally. I have a very good Haitian friend that has been helping our team on the water system installation projects. He lives in Leogane which was the epicenter of the earthquake. Here are his brief words of that day:

January 12, 2010 He was 4:30 when I left Port-Au-Prince to go home. Shortly after, I heard a noise that came from far away and came towards me. My house was shaking heavily. It had a concrete roof that I had built, there was not too long. I imagined that the masons were not competent enough for the job and that was why the slab was s' crush. I hurried out to avoid that I am not a victim. I did not think it was an earthquake. I ran against the wall when I tried to get out of my room. I quickly said I was going to die, because it was for the first time I felt that way. I do not own me,my spirit away gradually. Leaving a chamber to move to another, wall had already filled the bed where I was down. The interior of the house was already white with dust blocks breaks. Arriving outside, that's where I started to understand that it was an earthquake. The house of one of my neighbors who had 3 levels was flat, 3 children was died. Many people were extended on the ground, cries for help came to me everywhere. Students of a secondary school which was very close, throwing cries of alarm under the blocs. It was unheard of. That day was the most horrible of all my life. I thank God for keeping me alive. Valdes INNOCENT.

What has been the most horrible day of all your life ? And...more importantly, did you thank God for keeping you alive ? I am sure we all have had a bad day...perhaps, some really bad. Days like January 12 2010 would surely wound your psyche very deeply. So, you take a hit...a very big hit and life goes on. It's called psychological resilience and the majority of the Haitian people have it. My good friend Valdes certainly does. This resilience is a process and not necessarily a character trait. Two of the main factors determining the ability to bounce back from adversity is being connected in a family and belief in God and again, the Haitians have got that down. It is simply unimaginable the suffering and tragedy of that day and obviously, it still reverberates in peoples lives, like many tiny aftershocks, to this very day...three years later. These serious calamities often times cause us to ponder many questions in our minds. I think the biggest question we always ask is...WHY ? I have heard many people even say “ of all the people in the world for something like this to happen to...Why Haiti”. It is just our nature for us to ask and question and have this need to know answers. In the Old Testament, when tragedy and extreme loss befell Job, who was considered a godly and righteous man. His plight certainly had many asking a lot of questions. This is what we do when we we do not understand and forget, if only for a minute or two, Gods sovereignty. Basically, God’s sovereignty means that He is the Supreme Ruler who immanently and personally rules over all the affairs of the universe—and this includes our personal lives both as individuals and as a local body of believers. Yeah, I am sure that is hard standing looking at a pile of rubble that was your home, just minutes before. Or, seeing children crushed to death in a school. I know, it's hard for me to even look at and I wasn't there. It was hard for Job. It has been hard for innumerable people in countless tragic situations. But, here's the good news... God’s sovereignty is a place of rest for the child of God, as well as a cause of worship. I can tell you that a lot of Haitians I have met certainly have got this one fact down pat. Their faith and trust in the sovereignty of a loving and knowing God is stronger than ever. Just like my friend Valdes who said, “ I thank God for keeping me alive”. Indeed...I thank him too.

The international led response to the 2010 earthquake. NGOs successfully acquired well over a billion dollars. Foreign NGOs in Haiti provided an easy way for non-Haitians to act on feelings of compassion and generosity. Unfortunately, making foreign donors feel good has done scandalously little for Haitians. A year after the quake, over 60% of the money given to private charities remained in their bank accounts earning interest. Meanwhile nearly half a million people made homeless by the earthquake remain in squalid camps. A year after the quake, only about 1% of destroyed homes had been repaired . In January 2012, two years since the quake, figures released by the United Nations show that of the nearly US$4.5 billion pledged for reconstruction projects in 2010 and 2011, only 43 percent has been delivered. Venezuela and the US, which promised the major share of reconstruction funds, have disbursed only 24 percent and 30 percent, respectively. Japan and Finland are among the few donors to have fully met their pledges. The data shows that some crucial sectors face particularly large funding gaps. In 2010 and 2011, for example, donors disbursed just US$125 million of the US$311 million in grants allocated to agriculture projects, and only US$108 million of the US$315 million in grants allocated to health projects. Only 6 percent of bilateral aid for reconstruction projects has gone through Haitian institutions, and less than 1 percent of relief funding has gone through the government of Haiti. A January 2012 Oxfam report said that a half a million Haitians remained homeless, still living under tarps and in tents. Haitians cannot vote any NGOs out of Haiti, nor do they have a government capable of regulating, or better still replacing, NGOs. Most perversely, foreign NGOs often have a vested interest in opposing Haitian sovereignty which would impose greater NGO transparency and accountability to Haitians. There are foreign NGOs in Haiti doing impressive work in a way that does not trample Haitian sovereignty. Paul Farmer’s Partners in Health is an obvious example. Please read about him and their work.

Be Kind

Be Kind

we are always asked

to understand the other person's

viewpoint

no matter how

out-dated

foolish or

obnoxious.

one is asked

to view

their total error

their life-waste

with

kindliness,

especially if they are

aged.

but age is the total of

our doing.

they have aged

badly

because they have

lived

out of focus,

they have refused to

see.

not their fault?

whose fault?

mine?

I am asked to hide

my viewpoint

from them

for fear of their

fear.

age is no crime

but the shame

of a deliberately

wasted

life

among so many

deliberately

wasted

lives

is. 

Charles Bukowski

Unexpected gifts...

I really think sometimes that we overlook the true actual meaning of Christmas and our enjoyment of it is adversely impacted by a lot of emotional baggage from many Christmases passed by. Christmas is about joy and giving and the generosity that fills our hearts during the holiday season. To truly understand the magic and subtle nuances you have to see it through childlike eyes. You really still have to believe in Santa despite every single logical and factual reason not to. We are conflicted because we want to give in and abandon the rigidity of our thoughts and ponder...if only for a second...maybe he is real. I am more convinced than ever that Santa is real and oddly enough he lives...shhhhh...in my house. You might never believe that my wife is Santa if you saw her. No white beard...no round little belly...and certainly no pipe clenched in her teeth. However, she is in fact, “a right jolly old elf”. At Christmas she transforms and becomes childlike and so filled with wonder and amazement that I can't help but to get swept up in her merriment. I have a confession...I am rather a scrooge. I sometimes get caught up in and beat down by the “other” Christmas...the crass commercial one. However, my own live in personal Santa always manages to show me something I would have missed...every single year...without fail. 

So, we have recently moved to Louisville and are living in an interesting neighborhood of a lot of little houses that many look the same. The neighborhood, from what we have observed, is pretty diverse in numerous ways. On our many trips of driving in and out, one particular house has caught both our eye and attention a lot. I honestly cannot offer a rational explanation why. I mean, I do know, but it may sound a little weird to some. At this house, all through the summer, an elderly woman sat in a rickety chair next to her dog, beside the street in her postage stamp sized back yard. We would always wave and she waved back and smiled broadly. We have met a number of our neighbors and that certainly is what we are supposed to do. Even more importantly, we show love for our neighbors by doing good for them. In Galatians 6:10 it says, 

"Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.". 

One thing that is plainly evident in the scripture is the benevolence of followers of Christ toward others. Jesus, of course, was certainly always benevolent in dealing with the masses who sought his help. He helped everyone whom He could help. In Luke 6:19 it records one occasion when Jesus healed all who were there. He fed, with fishes and loaves,  the massive gathered crowds when they were hungry. He spoke with deep heartfelt compassion to all that needed it. Peter summed up his masters attitude saying that we should be,"casting all your care upon Him, because He cares for you." We also find this compassion and taking care of neighbors evident in many notable Christians of the first century. One example is Dorcas who was "full of good works and charitable deeds." . And there was Cornelius the God fearing Centurion described as "a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, who gave alms generously to the poor…" . In Titus 2:14 it says that Christ,"gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." .The term good works would include whatever beneficial things we can do for others. When we have Christian love, we will want to help those who need it, as we are able. 

So, my little Santa casually mentioned that we should do something special for our “waving” friend, I just smiled and realized that it was already decided. I have discovered anything mentioned by my wife very “casually” and quite random is, in all probability, a direct communique from God . So, off to the store the two little elves went. What subsequently ensued was a brief cooking frenzy and some fanciful gift wrapping and much joy and laughter. The little impish one was giddy at the prospect of just walking up to some completely unknown persons door and presenting them with these unexpected Christmas gifts. I was watching and listening to her imagining how much they would enjoy what I would have enjoyed myself...well, except for the dog biscuits. Then that thing that happens every Christmas to me happened... the last remaining bit of scrooge and bah humbug was washed out of me by the tears streaming down my cheeks. We got out of the car and walked up to the door. For a brief moment I fantasized that we were the magi bearing symbolic gifts of ham, pumpkin pie and dog biscuits. I was snapped out of my reverie by an elderly gentleman opening the door. “Hi” we blurted out. “We are your neighbors from a couple of streets over” I said. He looked both confused and curious at the same time. “ I am Mike and this is my wife, Joanne and we wanted to tell you Merry Christmas” I went on. He's still looking and evaluating...”where did you say you lived ?” he asked. “A couple of streets over” I said as I offered up our gifts. He still seemed to be trying to figure out these very strange people at his door and accepted the unexpected surprise. He then said “ well... thank you very much and Merry Christmas to you all “ and turned and went inside. My little secret Santa gave me a wink and a knowing smile that said...mission accomplished. Indeed...it was and will continue to be.