Humanity loves big, instant results. We like epic stories with results and we like it to happen quickly.
-David slings a stone and kills a giant instantly
-Jesus tells the lame to stand up and walk or gives sight to the blind instantly
-Paul flips his entire life around, instantly, after an encounter with God
-Moses parts the Red Sea and upon return it instantly takes out the army of their enemy.
These stories and similar ones are found all throughout our history.
These are earthshaking moments in the story of God and people. Though perhaps the unsettling truth is that the majority of our history is filled with stories that are not so stimulating in comparison.
I find myself struggling to write these blogs because I want to have an awesome story to tell. We are partnering with organizations that do amazing things and are the hands and feet of Jesus by sacrificing and serving people that society wants to forget about. I struggle to describe the impact these organizations have on their surrounding communities. The things we do everyday are rarely glamorous and I love that. But it doesn’t necessarily make for the most incredible stories.
We aren’t the superheros in the story of God. We are the individual grains of sand in the desert. Isaiah 40:15 says the nations are a drop in a bucket of water. Does that make you afraid that your life is insignificant? Does the thought that you are a snowflake in the storm, that melts away, disturb you?
Life is hard and then you die.
But out of all the possible outcomes God still picked you to be here. To be a part of the hard struggle.
And you still are a part of a world that is fashioned by God. Jesus says even the hairs on your head are all numbered. If you look at the world you see that God cares about the small things, and the small things make the big things work.
These ministries are all thinking about the big picture. We are such a small part of all that they are doing. We help in little ways that enable the ministries, that host us, to promote positive change and gain spiritual ground in their communities. After we’re gone these ministries are good for caring forward and building on the little momentum we were able to offer. This has been showing me how important it is for the body of Christ to be active. I’ve been ecstatic to be in the background and be a pack-mule for these ministries.
We help serve food, play games and color with kids and the elderly.
We sit down with men struggling with mental illnesses and talk about spirituality.
We clean and fix up the compounds we stay at.
We organize hospital equipment.
We clear fields of weeds and rocks in order to host after school programs and camps.
We organize closets.
We take inventory.
We break rocks with pick-axes.
We shovel mountains of dirt into wheel-barrows.
We love big, instant things.
But the hugeness of God’s narrative doesn’t call almost any of us to be main characters. It calls for us to be grateful to even be in the story and to do our small, big part.
