Wednesday, April 4, 2007

Through the eyes of a child

Everyday I’m reminded of what a privilege it is to serve the God of all creation. In my heart, I know my deepest desire is to be close to God. Actually, I share that desire with you. It’s always there even when we try to pile it underneath the everyday tasks that bog us down and seek to kill our spirit. The Spirit that is within us that desires to dance with us every moment of our lives. The Spirit that frees us and makes us want to dance through life. If I’m honest with myself I realize that my friend, the world, is only making me an enemy of God. And, God within me envies intensely (James 4:4-5). So I, like you, are dealt with this great battle. So, how are we doing? I feel so comfortable in my ignorance, it’s quite bliss. But my God will not let me be. He is constantly disturbing my mind. He won’t go away. He is a persistent lover. And, when I’ve been brave enough to heed His call, His persistence has paid off in my life…I have been blessed. I love the story in Numbers 9:15-23. The Israelites danced with God. They moved and camped upon His guidance. Check it out.

Some of you know the story…in 1993 Darcy and I heard Him calling. It was a weekly invitation for us. That call to believe and follow became consuming until we decided to go forward. (On a totally unrelated note…you’ve got to know that, because I think plugging my nose makes me look like a sissy, I’ve got this little “trick” that I do when I go under water for short periods of time. I blow out air of my nose slowly so that water can’t come in. It’s my thing. I’ve never had a problem doing it, frankly nobody ever knew about it…until the day I was baptized. So, while I was underwater comptemplating the biggest thing I’ve ever done in my life, my body automatically began the process of keeping the water out of my nose. And I came up out of the water to cheering and laughter. I guess in the quietness and through the amplification of the microphone, the air coming out of my nose perfectly replicated the sound of a toilet flushing.) Anyhow…from that point on God has taken my hand and we’ve gone to new places. So we served in the church faithfully. Doing all of the “churchy” things that we are all familiar with. And we grew spiritually. In 1996 I went on a mission trip with our youth group to Arizona. Amazing. God spoke to me through the eyes of a 7-year old Navajo child. Through that glance He spoke…service, surrender, commitment, selflessness, sacrifice, love, grace, and what it meant for me to really live. And, even to this day God is clearing my ignorance and making me realize new things. It consumes me. And usually sometime after I’ve finished building a nice little kingdom for myself God comes in and tears it down and rearranges things. It’s a continued cycle of the beautiful refining of my life. And in this cycle God allows me to say “enough is enough” and take a break, but why should I desire to?

How could I when there are souls suffering? The vision is clear: give all you have to build His kingdom, not ours. And I have to ask myself what exactly does his kingdom look like? And the question even worse for my flesh, what am I doing to conform my kingdom to His. Let’s cut to the chase for those of is who know Him well…we are pulled away from living His kingdom on earth by the gravity of those believers around us that enable our complacency so that we all look the same. We should all have people in our lives that challenge us spiritually. Thankfully, God has put a few in my life. And, actually, we all share a mutual friend that challenges us…Jesus. If all of us are honestly desiring be more like Him (and not the most faithful among us), how are we looking? I know what I look like, pitiful but improving and with tons of potential. But this improvement in conditional. It’s conditional upon my surrender and faithfulness. I have to continue to ignore the pull of this world and, more importantly, not ignore Jesus' teachings on who is blessed.

So, the difficult truth that God haunts me with now is this realization. God isn’t looking at how much I give…He’s looking at how much I keep for myself. In our ministry, we live life among people that are looking for a way out. Some have no parents, some don’t know how to read, some are addicted, some live in shacks with no plumbing, and some of these are seeking for Truth. And that is just here where I’m at. On a global level we know there are people dying from starvation, lack of clean water, disease, and natural disasters. And if I look at myself as God does, how can I justify the little hoard of things for myself that I could share? I have to ask myself, what do I really need? Do I have an extra bedroom? Could the money I use for pleasure be spent on an individual in true need? And most importantly, will I be brave enough to keep what I need now, trust God, and give the rest away to those in need for the sake of His kingdom? I can’t wait to see what happens when I do…or better yet…when we all do.

Might we all be brave enough to dance with our Creator and follow Him,
Ron Everingham