In my tent………………………I am safe from the world.
In my tent………………………I have a great time with God.
In my tent……………………….I don’t have to deal with bugs.
In my tent. Life is good. It’s not complicated. It’s
refreshing really. I don’t even have to deal with people or interact with the
rest of the world.
Here’s what God said to me though………..
Life can’t be lived
inside a tent
I know it sounds like a pretty simplistic or even obvious
statement but first let me explain.
In my last blog I showed you pictures of my time in Nauta.
Which we spent on a boat on the Amazon.
The picture you see of my tent is on the basement of that
boat.
Here’ why being in that tent was so great:
*On that boat were
great friends like cockroaches, huge spiders and billions of mosquitoes. The
tent protected me from that.
*On that boat were a
total of around 35 people. And let me tell you community living can be tough.
Especially for someone who needs solitude like me. The tent gave me solitude.
*In that tent, I could
listen to worship music, read my bible, journal, pray and have a good ole time
with God.
But then I heard God say to me:
Nate, life can’t be
lived inside a tent
You see I have always found in very easy to love Jesus but
oh so difficult to love those who He created.
I mean, how could not love Jesus? He died for me. He
intercedes for me. He hears my prayers and loves me unconditionally. He fills
my heart with joy and gives ultimate meaning to my life.
I love spending time with Him. It’s easy to be in love with
Jesus.
But a Christian that stops there is really no Christian at
all.
It’s easy to love God…………………….very
difficult to love others.
It’s easy to stay in the “tent” of our churches or Christian
communities and enjoy the fellowship, good feelings and potlucks but not truly
take Christ out of the building and into a broken world.
It’s easy to be joyful and loving while in the “tent” of
praise and worship as we listen to our iPod’s and drive around town. But it’s
hard to praise the Lord by loving the hard to love after we take out the
headphones or get out of the car.
It’s easy to stay in the “tent” of God’s word spending vast amounts of time re-reading and
memorizing a passage like I Corinthians 13(The Love chapter) but difficult to
daily try to live out that passage.
Don’t get me wrong, time in the tent is necessary. Intimacy
with Christ needs to be number one. But brother’s and sister’s…………….
Pray God will give
you the grace and courage to actively live out your faith in a world that is in
desperate need of genuine Christians.
We as Christians can’t
afford to stay happy and content in our churches while the world burns down
around us.
Or deafen our ears to
the cries of the world while we listen to worship music.
Or blind our eyes to
people’s desperate need for Christ because our noses are buried in a bible.
A faith that is not
outward is no faith at all.
Father, give us grace, courage and passion to have our time
with you fuel a spirit filled, self-less loving, Christ exalting, justice
embracing life. Amen.
