laying on the living room floor flat on my back…
“what are your expectations of the race?” I asked…
“Expectations? I don’t have any.”
“yeah, I think you do…”
we had one of the best conversations, hashing out what our purpose in this life is, what we are really supposed to be doing here while we get ready for the race…what this is all going to look like. We talked about things we were anxious for and things we were excited about. Things we thought would be struggles, and things we thought would be highlights of the trip. We had such a good talk. We then researched Christian news headlines for the next hour.
God hasn’t been letting me be very comfortable lately…and I’m not really ok with that, I know it’s good, but it’s not easy. I know, deep down, one of my expectations of the race is that I will draw closer to God, and I also know, deep down, that I should be drawing closer day by day.
I started re-reading one of my favorite books last week “Irresistible Revolution” and what is really neat is that things stand out to me this time around, that I never noticed last time. Short background to get you caught up, Shane is telling a story of the time we went to Calcutta (Kolkata) to work alongside Mother Theresa, and the expectations he had for her, and her ministry. Having spent some time in India, this story is close to my heart. I can almost smell the place when I think about it. Shane’s experience in Calcutta was different than he expected…he worked with many people, but one of the places was within a leper colony. Shane says that within the leper colony is where he really saw the Bible come to life. Referencing John 14:12 “Very truly I tell you, all who have faith in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father” Shane lays out his personal struggle with this verse, and how he hasn’t really seen any lepers healed in India, even though he has seen many people try. Even though he touched them, with the name of Jesus, they still went home lepers that day. The longer Shane stayed in India, the more he began to discover that the greater things Jesus was talking about wasn’t necessarily miracles…
“Jesus raised his friend Lazarus from the dead, and a few years later, Lazarus died again. Jesus healed the sick, but they eventually caught some other disease. He fed the thousands, and the next day they were hungry again. But we remember His love. It wasn’t that Jesus healed a leper, but that he touched a leper, because no one touched lepers. And the incredible thing about that love is that it now lives inside each of us…We are the body of Christ, the hands and feet of Jesus to the world. Christ is living inside of you and me, walking the earth. We shall do even greater things because the love that lived in the radical Christ now lives within millions of ordinary radicals all over the planet.” “For the record I am a strong believer in miracles…”
Reading that revolutionized my outlook. I carry around the love of Jesus, to a world of people who are looking for answers, looking for healing, and looking for love. And who knows, maybe as I spread the love, Jesus will come alongside me with a miracle, or healing, or two. One thing Shane remembers Mother Theresa always saying was “Calcuttas are everywhere if we only have eyes to see, find your Calcutta.” He then goes on to describe that leprosy is a disease of numbness. The contagion numbs the skin, and the nerves can no longer feel as the body wastes away. The way they detect the disease is by rubbing a feather across the skin, if the person cannot feel it, they are diagnosed with leprosy. To treat leprosy, you dig out the scarred tissue until the person can feel again. We live in a land of lepers, a land of people who have forgotten how to feel, how to laugh, and cry, and love. We live in a land haunted by numbness, and we can bring the love, and feeling, and life of Christ back to that land.
This is my expectation for the race. I expect it to be different than can imagine or expect. I also expect myself to carry the love of Jesus, here and now, and then and there.
