THE WORD 4 ev 1

November 23, 2009

Read Matthew 6 (click here for link)

It is amazing how the darkness scares us, even long after we are grown-up. Although we have outgrown the need for night-lights and teddies, we are still terrified when we cannot see because of the darkness in life. What will happen tomorrow? What if I don’t do this now? Who is going to take charge of that? The answers to these questions and more are usually in the dark. We can’t see them and that scares us. But what does Jesus say?

“My word is lamp unto your feet and light unto your path.” (Psalm 119:105)”

Today our Lord admonishes us not to worry. Be like the lilies or birds, he says. They really don’t do much of anything except live and God takes care of them. Then Jesus points the finger at us. “You of little faith…,” he says, “What is your problem? Why can’t you just trust me like one of these little flowers?”

Yesterday, Pam and I had the opportunity to catch up with a dear friend of ours. She is an example of one of those rare Christians whose faith and clarity for living according to God’s direction is enough to make me covet. But it is inspiring to hear her story. Even from the beginning she possessed faith enough to listen to God when many of us would have balked. God had made it certain to her as a young girl that she was to leave her family in China and move to America so that she could study at a Christian school. Of course, doing this meant being disowned by her pagan family. She ended up studying at Concordia University in Austin, Texas. She graduated with an education degree. She moved to Hawaii to begin teaching in a struggling Lutheran School. Over the years we lost touch with her. However, yesterday, Pam received a phone call from Cynthia. The two friends rejoiced at hearing each other’s voices again.

We were surprised to learn she had quit her job a while ago and gone through a missionary school and had recently returned from a long trip to Africa. Her mission there was among some of the poorest and most pitiful people on that continent—to feed and care for those who were in hospice, dying from the AIDS virus. Many of these were children—rounded up from the streets; their parents dead from the disease and themselves also infected. These children (although still healthy in appearance) where told that they would soon die and therefore were placed in hospice by the government. But food is always in short supply there and a place like hospice (a place for the living dead) is the first to be denied. Cynthia told us how she watched in horror as one little boy peed on the ground to make some mud. Then stooping down, he formed that mud into a little pie, set it to the side to dry, and then returned to eat it. He had no other food for that day!

But Cynthia continued to probe the darkness for the Savior’s voice. She told us of the amazing ways that God worked through her and her missionary friends. Her stories can only be described as miracles—real miracles! She told us how before she and her friends left for Africa they had decided not to get any vaccinations because they were expensive and without them there would be more money for buying food to feed those dying children. To their surprise, (but not the Lord’s) not a single one of those missionaries came back with even a simple cold or flu virus. Cynthia told us how she was caring for one elderly lady, who the doctors informed her would be dying soon. But one day Cynthia told us that God told her to go over to that woman and ask her to walk. Cynthia, in her trusting way, obeyed, and soon the two of them were walking hand-in-hand down the hospice hallway. That dying woman was released from hospice a week later, healthy.

So what do we make of stories like these? I’ll admit my western, logical, take control, map-it-out, no nonsense approach to life has a hard time dealing with the simple trust Cynthia had that God would make things right. Certainly, I am not advocating that we should forgo vaccinations or make a mass exodus to Africa; rather, I am pretty sure that God wants us to put down roots just where we are. But what are we rooted in? Every future moment is a moment of darkness. Are you walking forward trusting in God or trusting in yourself? One thing is certain. If you continually seek to cover all your bases, then don’t always expect God to work for you, because you are doing God’s job for Him. Perhaps it is not so much as we normally think: that God helps those who help themselves; He helps those who need his help! Whose help are you going to seek when you are afraid of the dark?

In Christ,
Pastor Aaron