Known by Our Deeds

It's fairly safe to say that most people, regardless of their religious identity, agree that helping people in need is a good thing. That's a broad statement, I know, but as it gets narrower we lose people.

Having compassion on the kid from Ecuador that you sponsor for $36/month is natural, even expected. Who wouldn't? God loves the poor, and we should as well.

Having compassion for your annoying, lonely neighbor or that awful internet troll is a different story.

Jesus, of course, said it the most succinctly when he said, "You have heard it said, 'love your neighbor and hate your enemy,' but I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you."

This is where we lose people. So we zoom out to the world and its many problems.

We are all fortunate-in a manner of speaking-to live in a time when a person can take up any cause that suits their passion: education. homelessness. slavery. racism. pornography. the environment. sex trafficking. poverty. Now more than in the last 30 years people want to talk about issues and justice, and many of them want to take action.

At church we speak often on getting involved in our community. I believe that anyone doing good for another person is worthwhile; even more, the effort towards sharing hope with the hurting can cause ripples of positivity that can change a community.

What stops us? Two roadblocks come to mind.

We are overwhelmed with the sheer need. Sending a box of clothes to an orphanage in Central America seems a drop in the bucket. You clothed 15. What about the other 300,000?

The other thing is cynicism, which stems from the realistic opinion that we can only do so much.

Over the summer I saw an Instagram post that featured a brilliant quote from a speaker at a conference about the refugee crisis. Under the caption the first commenter said:

I'm sure everyone applauds then goes on with their lives after this conference is over.

Listen. This guy isn't wrong. We do go to camp or a conference and hear a great speaker; we immediately commit to read the Bible in a year or feed the homeless, and often those moments fall away.

Does that make those moments worthless?

Is the 3 months you read the Bible every day until you got bogged down in Song of Solomon wasted?
Is the way God touched 1,000 people at a conference for naught? And if only 100 of them manage to do something for the world, does that truth somehow reduce or devalue the cause?

May it never be.

If anything, it's a reminder that humans suck without God's help. But be cheered: God is fully available to empower us to get involved in our neighborhood, our schools, our community, our country, and our world. He is able to help us not suck, and what's better, he is able to empower us to do amazing things to help the least of these.

One of my favorite organizations is the Preemptive Love Coalition. Read all about their mission here. Over the summer they used social media to ask for $35 donations to get much needed food and water to people trapped behind Isis lines in the city of Fallulah, Iraq.

People could have exercised their healthy cynicism like the fellow on Instagram. They could have said things like:

"there are so many other people to help."

Or, "why can't we help people in our own country?"

Or, "We still can't stop Isis this way."


And these thoughts, they may hold some truth. But luckily, thousands people did say:

"my $35 can do something for someone."

And, "the cause is just no matter how hard the climb."

And, "I will do my part to strike a blow against evil."

So what happened was this: hundreds of people with no hope received food, water, and the knowledge that they matter to folks in the United States; people that refused to be lazy or let glossy cynicism stand in the way of action.

We are in living in an age of action. Words and knowledge, so important in the forming of modern Christianity, matter less now in the face of a hurting world. Now more than ever, God's people need to be known by their deeds. All of us can carve out extra time or money to share, and even if it's a drop in a bucket, the person in the bucket is thankful.

A Blessing for My Teenage Daughters

Note: I wrote this to my teenage daughters (aged 13 and 15) on the eve of the first day of school (grades 8 and 10) because the speaker at our youth camp had basically told me to share with them everything I've been praying for them. This hot mess of a letter is the result.

July 31, 2016

I am writing this to you because I am not great at talking about the Important Stuff. I get sidetracked, your eyes glaze over, I start waving my hands around, and before I know it 30 minutes have gone by and I’m not sure I even communicated what I needed to.

What I’m writing today is Important. It’s Important because on July 6, God decided to show my name to our speaker at camp because He—God—had something to say to me. I cannot stress enough that THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN EVERY DAY.                

WHAT God wanted to say to me—and to you and your sister—was so important that he interrupted the speaker, and Camp, to tell us all about it.

I’ll recap what he said here:

What I have fought for, I need to pass on to you guys.

What I have prayed for you and your sister, I need to tell you so that God can make it happen.

What I have achieved with Him, you guys will have the power and grace to do better.

I’ve spent a few weeks asking God exactly what I’m supposed to bestow upon you girls, because if I’m honest, I pray for you all the time. The teenage phase has pushed me to my limits (so far) of prayer and trust that you, although you’re my daughters, are also GOD’S, and he is raising you.

I pray a lot for the stuff you’d expect me to: that you don’t hurt your body with drugs or alcohol or an unwanted pregnancy; that you don’t get your heart broken by a boy when you’re too young to recover; that you have a healthy body image and know that it’s who you are not how you look that counts.

AND THAT STUFF IS SUPER IMPORTANT…

But you could reach the age of 30 having achieved all of the above and still miss what I really want for you: that you live a life of power.

Believe me, staying away from drugs and saving yourself for marriage and being kind is a mother’s dream for her kids, but God’s dream is more and bigger: that you live a life dependent on his Holy Spirit, which will give you power to be radically kind, adventurous, encouraging, daring, loving, outlandish, patient, creative, and literally brilliant with who HE has made you to be.

It means actually loving your enemies. It means not giving a crap about what that mean girl thinks of you; and even better, hoping and praying for HER best, because she is a child of God, too. It means passing over what is safe and “just okay” for what is amazing and makes you passionate. It means saying “I don’t care if it’s normal or safe or popular or makes money, it’s hard and it’s beautiful and it’s true so I’m doing it.”

The fact that God spoke through the camp speaker wasn’t just for me, it was for you as well. Because our world needs people who love God in a new way. A way that powerfully teaches young people—YOUR PEOPLE—who He is without condemning them. A way that shows kindness over popularity and compassion over “we’re going to Heaven and you’re not.” Being that person takes work, and it takes God’s spirit, which is endlessly gracious, merciful, and loves every darn person that breathes on this planet.

Be brave. Do important things. Don’t settle for a life that is boring and empty, even as a teen, even in school. The reason camp and mission trips are so meaningful is that we get closer to the place where God’s kingdom and the world rub together (borrowing some words from our youth pastor here); in those situations we are doing God’s work with His spirit, and they feel real, like an adventure.

But life can be that way. School can be that way. Look for the thing that gives you the same heartfelt passion and exhilaration and say yes to it. It’s more of what our world needs, and can help people learn how loved and welcome they really are.

You have the power to do that in your place, with your people, if you live a life of power.