Last night, however, one of our kids made me "off the charts" proud. It was one of those moments where I realized that he had gotten a larger grasp on the world and God's desires...and in that moment I was proud. Our kids were playing in the backyard with some others when they decided to start taking cup fulls of water and dumping them in our sandbox. It was at that point that I overheard Joshua say, "Guys lets not waste the water...do you know how many people in the world that don't have clean water?" I was beaming inside. He got it! It was a moment where he was looking outside of himself and was considering the plight of some of the poorest of the poor in the world. Now, I know it was just a couple of cup fulls of water, but hey, he got the message we have been talking about that 1 billion people in the world do not have clean water.
It got me to thinking. I imagine that when our heavenly Papa hears things like this come out our mouths and sees our hands in action it makes Him smile. Afterall, it is a message that He has been sharing with His people for centuries - the least matter to Him. Consider Isaiah 58 where God is speaking through the prophet Isaiah to call them to what true fasting was. It is not merely the spiritual experience or a religious exercise or a deepening of one's walk with God in going without food, rather He was calling them (and is calling us) to spend themselves on behalf of the poor as the action of true fasting. Consider these words,
" 9 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
"If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday."
It also means when we move toward this kind of action towards the least that we have permitted God to do a deeper work in our lives. We have suspended judgment of someone else in order to demonstrate His love to them. We have suspended those judgements we pass such as; "they should help themselves, or they are reaping what they sowed, or they are lazy, or they are ignorant, or they are corrupt" and instead have chosen to respond to others in the same way He pursued us in Jesus - He suspended judgment by making His love known. This kind of loving response would truly rock our world.
I want to live my life truly spending myself on behalf of those who have been on God's heart throughout the centuries. And may I suspend judgement and instead get to know their names, their situations and suffer alongside of them while doing all I can to alleviate their suffering with all Our Dad has given me. May I lay down my need to be right and instead pursue what God has already shared with us to be right - to care for those in need. I believe when we as Jesus followers truly catch this in our hearts and let it flow out in our choices and actions He sees it and it makes Him beam as His love is truly expressed in loving action and suspended judgement for our world.
" 9 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
"If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday."
It also means when we move toward this kind of action towards the least that we have permitted God to do a deeper work in our lives. We have suspended judgment of someone else in order to demonstrate His love to them. We have suspended those judgements we pass such as; "they should help themselves, or they are reaping what they sowed, or they are lazy, or they are ignorant, or they are corrupt" and instead have chosen to respond to others in the same way He pursued us in Jesus - He suspended judgment by making His love known. This kind of loving response would truly rock our world.
I want to live my life truly spending myself on behalf of those who have been on God's heart throughout the centuries. And may I suspend judgement and instead get to know their names, their situations and suffer alongside of them while doing all I can to alleviate their suffering with all Our Dad has given me. May I lay down my need to be right and instead pursue what God has already shared with us to be right - to care for those in need. I believe when we as Jesus followers truly catch this in our hearts and let it flow out in our choices and actions He sees it and it makes Him beam as His love is truly expressed in loving action and suspended judgement for our world.
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