Sometimes as Christians we have these desires and these so called aspirations of what we desire to become more and more like Christ. Is there anything wrong with these ideas? No, but what is our motivation for it? Is it really what we mean or something we pray because we need a filler for our Christian prayer. I’m not talking to anyone but myself here.
Lately I have been asking God for some new things… a new direction in my prayers. I have gotten to a point where I thought I needed something new from God. Well, I always want something new but again I found myself asking for something that I am not quite sure I could handle.Not really sure how I got here– that seems to be pretty common thing for me this year. I have had a lot of time lately to read this year too and some of the great things that I am learning are coming from these books. One of the common denominators for the last 3 books that I have read is to love others as Christ would. Yes, I know, it shouldn’t take 3 books to tell you this– just one. Well I guess it took several people to have drive this point home to me. So with this on my mind, maybe not my heart yet, I have been praying to love people in a way that I have never loved before. I asked God to give me compassion for those that are considered less, to see people with the eyes of Christ, to hear their cries, and just simply love them.
Well on this particular Sunday morning, God started answering my prayers in two ways. First I am ashamed that I had to learn that maybe I am just not ready or to selfish or to prideful to accept what I asked for. Our team just started our second service of the day– hour 2 of 4. This second service was not like the first by any means… not in our language, power failure, and extremely crowded and a little smelly. Well they gave us an interpreter for each row and I had an awesome guy who did a great job. For some reason, probably related to the selfishness or pride mentioned earlier, I started to have a grudge on this man. You see, he entered my bubble, no he tore it down like he had never heard of it! So with a foot of wide open pew space to his right and me cramped up next to my teammate to my left and with his legs and face right next to mine… I lost it (mainly because he created body sweat on me). I didn’t have a flat out breakdown in front of hundreds but mentally I was thinking everything but nice things about him and this situation. I was not seeing this guy with the eyes of Christ by any means. Auston, what are you doing?! I let something get to me, something that this guy has never heard of culturally, and I let that turn into the complete opposite of what I asked God for. 
A little redemption came not too long after these thoughts. The thoughts and everything negative that I was feeling actually left as I saw something I had never seem before. This particular Sunday that we happened to be a part of was Harvest Sunday. I have heard numerous sermons preached on the topic of Harvesting– the correlation between an actual harvest and that of harvesting souls. Well what was different about this one you might ask? Well for starters I saw people actually giving their first fruits. People actually came to church with baskets of beans, soy, shorgum, and millet. These people got it and I saw it 
firsthand. They had a raw truth that they followed and a raw desire to give God their first. This is love and by no means an obligation type. It did not end here… there was singing and rejoicing in a way that I have never seen. This was a singing that had compassion and was just plain simple- a simple love to their Father. I’m not really sure how this is going to end because it is still going on but I just wanted to share a little with you about what God is doing on this side of the world.
