The Refrigerator

By a twist of events we landed in the basement for prayer. We were a bunch of men sitting around asking God to pour out love, and as we sat emptying out hearts and refilling, recharging with that sweet Spirit of the Lord, I became aware of the old refrigerator next to me.  

It was gurgling and churning, chugging away.   It was scraped up, dented, paint chipped, and soiled from its many years living in the basement....yet here it was next to me, whirring.

It was doing its job.

I don't know the brand name of the refrigerator.  I don't know how old it is, how well it's made, or how much it cost the day it was wheeled off the showroom floor.   Don't really care.

It's doing what it was designed to do.

Fulfilling its purpose.

Plugged into the source of power, and it's working.

God,

To the rest of this world, make me like this refrigerator.

If I can just keep plugged into the source, if I can remember daily that my value, my identity, is found in You, I'll be able to do the things in this world that You designed me to do.

The world might kick me shut now and then, doors might slam shut from time to time, and on that outer shell if I've really lived, there should be an ample amount of scrapes and scars.  Life should be soiled into my pores.

But on the inside, where the power of Your Love flows, I'll be filled.

Not measured by the standard of man, but instead by the breadth of Your Hand.

When I'm held by You my name, my status, my rights.... my glory is not my own.  

Help me to do just what You built me to do.

In Your Name.

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.  

Eph 2:10

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self–discipline. 

2 Tim 1:7

If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. 

1 Cor 13:3

Finding our Place

We're not certain of anything yet, but this may be a possible house to rent in Haiti.  It's actually right on the road I just mapped in March.  We'd need to look at digging a public well, which carries a hefty cost.  I think it could be a great place to start, bringing clean water.  I seem to recall a story of another man, sitting at a well, talking to a woman about a different kind of water...the eternally quenching kind. :)

There is something more to pray about.
It's possible we may open a home for the restaveks in the area, under the wing of Mission Haiti.
We don't know any details right now, but we would appreciate prayer.
If we do open a home for these kids, this house obviously wouldn't do. Maybe when I go in July God will give me a great big flaming arrow, pointing the direction.  Maybe I'll hear him say, "Go Ye Forth, Daniel!"
Mostly I think He'll just smile, and ask me if I trust...after all, the big flaming arrow and the voice of Charlton Heston booming just wouldn't be 'Faith', would it?

You know when your toddler is finally getting confident in his or her steps, you can feel the strength in their legs as they stomp, stomp, stomp, marching along the path.  Then there comes a point when you have to release that death grip they have on your finger, watch them wobble like a duck and see how many steps they'll take.

Perspective

What does it take to be a missionary today?

To do as the bible says, to go and make disciples.
In the workplace, at home, or around the world, 

it really comes down to just one thing.

Perspective.

Really, you say?  What could that possibly have to do with it?

Consider this:

You can go the best school.

You can have the best teachers.

You can have the best training.

You can study under the greatest minds.

You can have the full backing and support of the church.

You can have the blood of royalty flowing through your veins.

You can be gifted in linguistics.  

You can be passionate and full of fire.  

You can be on the cutting edge of society.

You can, in the eyes of the world, be completely and totally accomplished.

You can be gifted.

Guess what?

It still comes down to

 Perspective.

Where you fit in a God-sized economy.

There was another man who was top of the top, best of the best in his class. 

He had all of the above, including

Power.

Money.

Status.

Reputation.

Job security.

The right name.

And yet he considered his entire life-work of accomplishments comparable to one thing:  

Poop.

Yep. Stinky. Smelly, Steamy

Excrement.

Allow me to burn this illustration into your mind:

Take a big whiff...hold it..... really let it sizzle the hairs in your nostrils....

in fact, click on the image and get a nice close-up....

hold it...really study it....

ahhhh.

Can't you almost smell that from where you're sitting?

That's right.  

In Philippians 3:8, Paul said every credential in his life amounted to something so worthless that the mere sight and smell might make you gag, all for the greatness

of just KNOWING Christ.

So what does it take to know Jesus Christ, to be found in Him, to be about 

His business

and not our own?

Perspective.

If you step in a little 'credentials' along the way, whether they be your own or the residual of someone who's traveled the road before you,

no worries.

Just scrape it off and keep walking in the Lord.

When it's His power and not our own, 

that's when we'll have what it takes to make disciples.

Living Life Less-Than

http://www.thegrio.com/news/haiti-still-sick-from-child-slavery-epidemic.php

This report came out today, in an effort to keep light on a problem that's once again largely ignored by the world, Slavery.

The girl we sponsor in Haiti is also a child slave, a restavek.

The modern day equivalent to a house servant.

What I've yet to understand is the perspective, the rationalization.

It's considered normal, common practice. I've even met a pastor who I'm told has a restavek. A Christian.

So where does this line become blurry?

Where did we lose the love that Jesus taught?

You want a roof over your head? You want to live? Then you do anything and everything I tell you. You'll be lucky to sleep on my floor. You might eat if we have anything left over. You will not be on the same par as the family...you will be less-than.

For them, it comes down to the ultimate, basic choice in life.

Do you want to survive or not?

“I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.“And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea." ~ Jesus Christ.