Filling in My Blank: A Journey (2)

We started here talking about Filling in My Blank, sharing a journey of God slowly penciling a place that had been blank for too long.  So now, where to start? The story, of course, isn’t about me, it’s about God—so it has no beginning and no end. But I do remember little glimpses of when He began to let me in on His secret—that He so loved the world.

For me, really it began with my brother. My brother is a God-loves-the-nations fanatic. Quiet, reserved, and often speaking in mono-syllables, you wouldn’t know unless you scratch the surface a bit. But one poke and out pours a river of solid conviction that God’s heart is for every tribe, tongue and nation to worship Jesus as Lord. I still remember back in college, when we asked him to speak at our college ministry gathering.    Most of it sounded like a foreign language to me. I liked teaching 3-point messages with lots of alliteration (still do!), about how to live for God in our daily life. All of which is well and good and needed, but I wasn’t sure how tribes and tongues and nations had much to do with it.

Fast-forward eight years or so, after traveling to Brasil a couple times, England, Italy, France, Switzerland, and Israel. After watching my brother travel to India, China, Tibet, Kazhakstan, and Africa. I’d seen bits of the world and it made me very glad to live in America (and I still am, by the way!). I was still writing my alliterated messages, He was still preaching that same old God-loves-the-nations bit. A few particular moments stood out to me. One, was watching as he was offered two “dream jobs.” Both offered him *ahem* plenty of money. His dilemma? He wanted the lower-paying job because of the flexibility of living wherever they wanted, but knew that the higher paying one would enable him to give more to God’s work overseas. Truly, that was his dilemma. Naturally, I’d have already been on mls scoping out mansions, but he was determined not to raise their standard of living, but rather to give the newfound excess away. I shook my head. I really did not understand. He and his family settled in a modest home. (My admiration then turned to his wife, because if my husband had that job I’d have been kicking and screaming for the mansion down the street and a new SUV.) I still remember visiting them and seeing these gigantic new homes just right down the street from where they bought. Why on earth, I thought to myself, would you not buy one of those? Of course I wouldn’t say that out loud—how materialistic that would sound! 🙂 I mean, if God blesses you, why not enjoy it? That just didn’t make sense …

Shortly thereafter, the first poke at my heart began. It was a small poke, but a poke to be sure. Now, just to clarify, I have always been a firm believer in giving. Oh yes. Tithing from day one when my parents put a quarter in my fat little hand to put in the offering. But somehow I think I only saw the half of giving that is my obedient and joyful response to God. In other words, the way I saw it, all I was responsible for was getting it out of my hands and “into God’s.” And that is definitely a very good step! If you are there, please hear me, that is a great step! We do give to God and everything belongs to Him. And we ARE to tithe to our local churches and trust our God-given leaders to use that money as they see fit.  That is part of belonging to a local congregation.  But we shouldn’t stop there! I realized that I could go my whole life mindlessly writing my tithe check, without every really going above and beyond and giving with my mind and heart.   Recently my brother worded it like this, in his article on international giving:

“If the purpose of your giving is just to satisfy some religious obligation or clear your conscience, then I guess it doesn’t matter where you give it. If the purpose of your giving is to make a real tangible difference in people’s lives, why not look for how your monies can make the biggest impact for those that need it most?”

The difference was that my giving wasn’t relational it was religious. I was happy to give to God, but had no interest in actually alleviating any particular needs. I had no faces in mind. It was only about my faith, my trust in God, my journey. This is hard to articulate. Does that make sense?

Then God started stirring in my heart an idea for the LiveDifferent Challenges. Birthed from a simple story that a friend of mine told: He was going through his closet to pull out some sweaters to donate to a clothing drive his church was doing. Of course he pulled out several of his least-favorite that he hardly wore. “Give your favorite sweater,” he sensed God saying in his heart. “What?! My favorite J. Crew sweater! I wear it all the time. I love that one. No homeless guy will appreciate how nice that sweater is.” And then of course he remembered that he wasn’t giving clothing just to that guy, he was giving it to Jesus (Matthew 25). And, God wanted him to love that homeless man, even though he would never meet him or see his face.  God wanted my friend to give the homeless man his very best.

So the LiveDifferent Challenges began. I know they were nothing radical, but they were a baby step for me to take. Going a year without buying clothes was a challenge for me, but we (my brother, of course, matched me dollar for dollar) were able to dig a Jesus well in Asia to provide clean water for a village. That impacted me. For the first time I actually had my heart pricked with a teeny tiny bit of compassion for these beautiful people, created in the image of God, who didn’t even have clean water to drink. Gospel for Asia uses these wells to share the gospel with the people of the village. Realizing that I could partner with faithful ministers to provide physical needs and share the gospel—this was so exciting to me!

Also exciting at this time was the miracle-blessing of God providing a pastoring job for Jeff. In a swift dream-come-true series of events, we were landed plop on the top of the hill in beautiful West Linn, Oregon. God was finally blessing us! Hooray! It was as if all our prayers had been answered. We had an income, health insurance, two healthy children, and a brand-new beautiful home that was (and still is!) more than I ever dreamed I’d ever live in. We were (and are!) gushing over with thankfulness. Ahh…big exhale. Let’s settle down and throw away every single moving box.  I’m never moving again!!

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Fast forward. I was blessed to get more involved in women’s ministry, Jeff continues to love his job, we love the people we serve with, and we’re still delirious with joy at the fact that they continue sending us a paycheck every month. 🙂  Last Spring I found out that as a church we’d be doing a series this fall loosely based on the book The Hole in our Gospel, and all the church leaders were given a copy. It looked neat. I took mine home and put it on the shelf.  I had dozens of books to read so it would have to wait.  We then decided to continue to do live teaching and write our own studies for women’s Bible study in the fall. The topic? The book of James. So that things wouldn’t be stressful once fall arrived, I started studying and writing homework in June. Later in the summer, I had the privilege of visiting the Real.Life. Exhibit through Medical Teams International. You can see where this is all going.

Really, I didn’t have a fighting chance. You put the book of James, The Hole in our Gospel, and the Real.Life. exhibit all together and anyone with a pulse will dissolve in a heap on the floor. After the exhibit I was stirred, but felt sort of helpless as I sat and tweaked our budget—a dollar here and a dollar there. I couldn’t figure out any way to spend less so we could give more! And it wasn’t as if I could travel to those countries or volunteer any more of my time. I’m a busy ministry mommy, and sensed that I’m right where I’m supposed to be in terms of location and vocation. I could pray, yes. I was gripped by a thought that perhaps there was something else. God, what else can we do?