As an exercise for our team training, each of us was asked to write shortly about something we believe.
This assignment was inspired by a national media project entitled
This I Believe.
For more information and to read other essays, please visit
thisibelieve.org.
This is believe …
In high school I had a friend named Charlie.
He was the elderly man who drove our church bus on youth trips and was the type to have a smile and a hug ready whenever he greeted you.
For whatever reasons, we were buddies.
Because of Charlie, I believe that one person can change the world.
During my sophomore year of college we found out that Charlie had developed a tumor in his brain.
The outlook was not good.
At the time, I was four hours away from home and knew that I would not have the opportunity to see Charlie again.
I did my best to write a note of love and then attempted to not think about it too much.
My mother called several weeks later.
She had just gotten off the phone with Charlie and wanted to let me know that he had talked about me.
He wanted to let me know that I was special.
That I could do anything with my life.
It was a simple message, but sitting in my dorm room that night it impacted me.
I have always struggled with the concept of evil in our world.
There is suffering and pain everywhere it seems.
I have long questioned: why?
Why would a loving God allow it?
How could a loving God let war rage on … or children be abandoned without parents … or despair to grip and ruin lives … or families to live on only pennies a day?
And why would he take an otherwise healthy man away from the people who loved him so dearly?
Almost two years later, almost out of nowhere, those questions in the back of my head have finally been addressed.
I believe that God
does have an answer to the problem of evil in our world …
it is us.
We
are the answer and the hope to the problem of pain.
A God who
does care and who
is loving is asking
us to be His hands and His feet in our hurting world.
A wise friend once wrote, “Their sufferings should become our sufferings, their struggles our struggles, and their pain our pain.
Only then will we be able to become the incarnate love of Christ to a world torn up by abuse, violence, disease and sickness, famine and starvation.
When will we realize that
we are the answer to the problem of pain and for our world to be transformed, we must be the ones to bear it?”
I believe we each can make a difference in our world.
To be love.
To be hope.
To be healing.
To transform our world.
And all for
His Glory and all by
His power.
I believe Charlie knew all of this.
He made a difference in the lives of those around him.
A
positive difference.
And I believe he wanted to pass that knowledge on to me.
In turn, I believe he would want me to pass that message on to others.
And now … I believe he would want you to pass it on as well.
Believe it.
Live it.
Change the world.
This I believe ….
