Perspective....

Our days are wavering when we gaze upon our own view and when we attempt to live out our days thru that lens. We are constantly asked the question, "Have you grown in your time there?" This answer is beyond our articulation, yet we can attest that God has granted us perspective as we have never known. Any person can 'see' poverty as displayed upon the 5 second commercial clip of a starving baby where flies are their constant companion. Yet, to sit face to face with that child who now has a name and a whole life story is a different story. We walked thru Matheri Slum here in Ngong as our brother Jp and sister Jenn were ministering with us. A little girl, about the age of 1 1/2 sat against a tin wall, and her gaze fixated on the many who rummage thru the trash heap daily for their 'nutrients'. 

I'm reading Crazy Love again and this time it grants a whole new perspective as I process thru in this context. Chan: “Because we don’t usually have to depend on God for food, money to buy our next meal, or shelter, we don’t feel needy. In fact, we generally think of ourselves as fairly independent and capable. Even if we aren’t rich, we are ‘doing just fine.’ Which is more messed up- that we have so much compared to everyone else, or that we don’t think we are rich? That on any given day, we might flippantly call ourselves ‘broke’ or ‘poor’? We are neither of those things. We are rich. Filthy rich.”
This little girl, lost from a family of true nurturance and care, was alone except the literally hundreds of flies that befriended her. In the States, you would never see a child this age, fending for herself, especially by a great trash heap- where drunkards and glue heads are her role models. I read Chan's words and I could more deeply whisper, oh how we are filthy rich.

Kizziar said, “our greatest fear as individuals and as a church should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.”
SO, then I thought of these little ones and Chan quoted Goetz who wrote, “too much of the good life ends up being toxic, deforming us spiritually.” ‘a lot of things are good by themselves, but all of it together keeps us from living healthy, fruitful lives for God.’ 

Our hearts have been shaken as we have witnessed first hand how so many people live in this world.  We have witnessed how lives are devoted unto the Lord's Hand to provide and to sustain and how joy infiltrates their lives even though they possess little in the temporal world. It is not an experience that leaves the forefront of your mind or the depths of your heart. THe comforts we are given in the States is beyond our measure-wonderful blessings and I acknowledge even more so in this context, the blessings of opportunity, efficiency that we hold there. Yet, i also see how dangerous it is for us as believers to forget the plights of others, suffering daily around the world and to lean as Chan stated with 'our refrigerators full...not depending on God on a DAILY basis." 

How true that 2 Cor. 13:5 tells us to ‘examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves.” I do believe that we are daily to take that self-inventory. I know that we never arrive until we reach our time in Heaven with our Maker and our Savior. I think that’s why Jesus said to deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow me. He could have merely stated Follow me and we know in His Word the validity and the power of that statement. Yet, he claimed that we must deny ourselves- knowing that we would face strong temptress desires in this world- and that daily we are to ‘share in his sufferings’ and follow after his example. 

Nouwen writes in With Open Hands: “It is hard to bear with people who stand still along the way, lose heart, and seek their happiness in little pleasures which they cling to...You feel sad about all that self-indulgence and self satisfaction for you know with an indestructible certainty that something greater is coming.” 

SO, have we grown in our time here?- I say with full assurance and bold conviction that the eyes of our heart have been enlightened and that our prayer is that we can daily live in the 'certainty that something greater is coming.' In whatever culture encompasses our days, we pray that God will show us how to live out the transformation that has been shaped within us. May we never forget the lives of Matheri and the others like theirs who desperately depend on God in ways that we have never experienced. May our lives reflect an orchestration of hands wide open in their service.