Today I began the next step in my journey. I arrived into Gainesville, Georgia to the waiting arms of the Goode family to begin my new life with Adventures In Missions. The excitement of a new season of life is great as is the prospect of ministry, travel, adventure, growth and the newness of everything else. I will function as a jack of all trades initially but will focus my time on the Training and Discipleship areas of World Race. Program development, training, prayer – everything falls within this title but in short, I’m a minister – and proud of it.
As I come on board, blogging (along with diet and exercise) is a new resolution. My thoughts on the new year center around the basics. Altruism, in short, is selfless concern for others. If the greatest good comes from first loving God with the entirety of ones’ being and the outflowing of that love spills out onto others, we should be characterized as selfless, altruistic beings. Scripture says that the world will know us by our fruit – the fruit of love.
As I’ve been processing teachings, books, lectures, sermons etc. from my experience around the states and around the world, I’ve heard so many repackaging of this concept. Maybe it is a speaker’s intention to create profundity or to incite epiphany from his hearers or for an author to deliver the ever elusive “answer” to it all, but however you package it, it all comes down to the best way: an altruistic life.
Scripture says “he who wants to gain his life will lose it but he who loses his life for my sake will find it.” It’s so consistent in scripture that the more we focus on ourselves, the more baggage, issues, challenges, suffering and depression follow. We fight so hard for our happiness that we end up miserably (as it says in Ecclesiastes) “chasing after the wind.”
It’s a new year, a new opportunity to reorder our priorities. In VBS, we learned the secret to “J.O.Y.” is #1 Jesus #2 Others #3 Yourself.
