I have been home for three days now from my Missions trip to Oklahoma. I have always been told that you go on the missions trip to change the world (or at least a part of it), but you always come home being changed by the people you meet.
They're right. I lived in Pittsburgh for going on 3 years, lived around it for almost 5, so close to 8 years total in the city and the neighboring towns. I never really saw the people around me. Even in the small rural community i grew up in or the one i live in now, i knew of people without ever really knowing them. I realize that I saw the physical person, the one standing before me, but it never really impacted me beyond the fact that their presence was there. I never really saw a need in them.
The truth of the matter is, you don't need to live near an inner city area, or a 3rd world country to meet people who are in need. I may struggle to make ends me from month to month sometimes, but i have never truly been without. I've always had a home, a bed, and something to eat. I've always had my basic needs provided for. I've never truly been alone, I've always had someone to turn to for help or support.
For some people these simple things I have always seen as constants and expectations in my life, they view as luxuries. I heard a couple of songs on the radio, that I have heard a million times before, but for the first time they take on a new meaning for me. They touch me deeper than they ever have before.
Even after the work is done Oklahoma, God is still working on my heart.
They're right. I lived in Pittsburgh for going on 3 years, lived around it for almost 5, so close to 8 years total in the city and the neighboring towns. I never really saw the people around me. Even in the small rural community i grew up in or the one i live in now, i knew of people without ever really knowing them. I realize that I saw the physical person, the one standing before me, but it never really impacted me beyond the fact that their presence was there. I never really saw a need in them.
The truth of the matter is, you don't need to live near an inner city area, or a 3rd world country to meet people who are in need. I may struggle to make ends me from month to month sometimes, but i have never truly been without. I've always had a home, a bed, and something to eat. I've always had my basic needs provided for. I've never truly been alone, I've always had someone to turn to for help or support.
For some people these simple things I have always seen as constants and expectations in my life, they view as luxuries. I heard a couple of songs on the radio, that I have heard a million times before, but for the first time they take on a new meaning for me. They touch me deeper than they ever have before.
Even after the work is done Oklahoma, God is still working on my heart.
I want God to open my eyes to the world around me. Even though I may not have some huge expendable income, I can still help others, that my life isn't all about me and my own little world but that there is a bigger world around me that God has commanded me to serve as a beakon of his light. If I can't follow his example, how will others ever know God the way I do?
God may command us to to be the light to the world and the salt of the earth, but He also gives us free will, the allowance to choose to obey or disobey. But why should i disobey? Why if he was willing to die for me, that I can't be willing to live for him? I refuse to hide in my spiritual shell and chose to do nothing about the world around. It's not about being spiritual and looking like a "good" person. It's about having faith in God, trusting in the one who has ALWAYS kept his promises, and living that faith bold and out loud.
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