God loves to show off. In BIG ways.
Faith is the greatest thing in the world because it always holds the promise that no matter how difficult or dry the season, more and more each time God’s gonna jump out from behind a nasty situation or a problem or a person and shout SEEEEEE I TOLD YOU I WOULD COME THROUGH, LOOK HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU!!! And the more I walk with Him the more He shows me what little else I need besides that promise.
I’ve been getting really frustrated lately. Really restless where I am, feeling kind of stuck and disconnected, struggling to stay passionate and engaged. I’ve been getting frustrated at the lack of fruit, and the day-in-day-out seeking the Lord has become exhausting.
But God is so faithful!
Last week I was in LA with a group of students on a civic engagement trip, exploring the issue of LGBT homeless youth. We met with a huge range of organizations and partnered with a couple in community outreach. And turns out, God had a lot to teach me. The whole LGBT community has really been placed on my heart the last few years. I feel like in a lot of ways this community has just been dealt a much harder hand, and instead of reaching out with love and support, the church has done all it can to drive them away in condemnation, spitting at them as they went. To be honest it was really hard to see my friends who do identify as LGBT recoil at the news of me becoming a Christian. But if you’re reading this I just hope you know, that the Jesus I know, the Jesus I follow… it’s because of Him that I’ve really learned how to love you guys.
Half of our group at Venice beach, after our first day of outreach
What I’ll take away most from this trip was something I never expected to find there in the streets of Hollywood, among the homeless and the discarded, those on the run or those turned away, those forced into survival sex and drug addiction, those society has branded as utterly worthless.
Gratitude.
GRATITUDE! Walking around handing out sandwiches and water and snacks and condoms and socks at 11 at night and just talking to those stuck in a system that hasn’t been as kind to them, pimps and transwomen, the chronically homeless and those who for the first time didn’t have a place to stay for the night… I expected bitterness, disdain, offense, pride, and even aggression, but nothing could have prepared me for the gratitude.
12 students and 3 adults, completely out of place, doing nothing but giving up a couple hours of their time to walk around and hand out bags, to people who had fallen through the cracks of society and been forgotten about. Who were we to deserve their gratitude?? The more we walked, the more I felt my heart drop in shame, embarrassment, inadequacy, and pity. But in those moments, when my body was screaming what are you doing here, the homeless became real people to me, real hearts with real lives and real stories and real hopes and hurts and dreams and desires. And as the pity I had felt stewing in my gut began to turn into empathy, the strangest thing started happening. Voice after voice spoke up as we left each person, their arms full of goodies, calling “God bless!” as we made our way down the street.
And I think that’s when it hit for me, how backwards we can get it as Christians. We put God in a church and shine up the windows and blast the organ and take it on ourselves to get people in. And even when we don't, we sit around and wonder where he went, wishing we had more of Him. But Jesus has left that stone edifice long ago, and frankly I’m not sure He was ever there. He’s in the streets with the poor and the oppressed, the orphans and the widows and the sex workers and the gays, the broken, the ignored, the destitute; the beautiful. How do I know? Cuz I saw Him there, and I heard Him there, and He said He’d be there, and everybody on the streets already seemed to know, and told me so, as if I was the one who needed reminding. “God Bless!” And I guess I did need reminding. The kingdom of God is inside us, each of us, and the Holy Spirit was BLAZING that night.
One of these days I’m going to stop being surprised where I find Jesus, where the Gospel comes alive. We met a ton of incredible people this trip, people who gave up everything to serve alongside the homeless, who worked with passion and with love for the sake of something bigger than themselves. And whether Jesus was their motivation or not, I think Jesus would have cared an awful lot about the same people they were caring for. And if you don’t know Him but you’re here, boy I’d sure like to introduce you to Him.
This week the World Race stopped being something I wanted to do, and became something I needed to do. This is life to the full, and I need it, and I need to be living it with people as enraptured with the Lord as I am, and at the work the Lord is doing. Now that I’ve seen it, I can’t go on without it. I don’t want this religion or this traditional church to get in the way: give me Jesus, and put me where He’s working. I’ve seen and I've felt it, and I won’t be living unless I’m living there, living to the Lord, with the lost and the broken and the forgotten and the oppressed. That's my religion.
Love,
Danny
