In His Embrace: Purpose and Perspective

Philippians 2:12-13

¹²

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, ¹³for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

There must be purpose in what we do. There must be. God is good. He is orderly...He is perfect...He is the Master Planner!  So there must be purpose in what we do. Everyday we go about our lives..we do things that we have done the day before and the day before and the day before that... But what is the purpose?

Have you ever driven down a road that you have driven down a hundred times before but something was different? The same buildings and houses and signs....yet something is different. A few weeks ago I was on one such road. I saw things I had seen a hundred times before. But this time my mind went to a different place. I kept asking "why". What is the purpose in that? At the end of the day, was it really necessary?  I saw two realities collide that day, ours and theirs........

I think it all really started to "click" for me when I went to Ethiopia for the first time.  I was truly changed. I was affected..or maybe afflicted with a new way of seeing things. It was like the way I saw everything was now somehow different. In some ways more clear....and in other ways more I felt like I just couldn't see at all.

In Ethiopia I saw so many things that struck me. There are things that we do on a daily basis that we don't think twice about. Things that for most in Ethiopia (and other countries) are a luxury. A hot shower.... soap.... a smoothie.... vitamins.... water in the middle of the night from the bathroom faucet just 20ft from our bed. How about washing dishes.... we fill the counter tops with dirty dishes from popcorn the night before and a buffet of different choices for breakfast. We fill the sink or load the dishwasher..add the dishsoap and off we go. Every morning I saw a woman who lived next to our guesthouse outside washing not just a few cups, but laundry in a plastic tub. No soap. No running water. Rain or shine..she was out there. I suppose doing it outside was better than inside the tin shed they lived in that most likely did not have lights or electricity. I saw the inside of some of the 6 X 6 sheds made of tin and tarps that they called home. The floor was dirt..the walls were cardboard and a few had a couple pictures of Jesus hanging up. There were just 2 or 3 plastic cups, even though there were 6 people living there. There was a 3 gallon yellow plastic jug. It used to hold vegetable oil. Now it is the water supply. Water for them didn't come from a faucet...it came from a 1.5 hour walk one way to a well where they stood in line to fill the 3 gallon jug and then walked the 1.5 hour walk home again. I did not see a "closet" just a few pieces of clothing hanging on a rope across the 1 room home.

Honestly, this is reality. This is where my life, my reality and theirs collided. This is where I was changed. This is when my perspective changed. Here is where God reminded me of a question I had asked him when I was a young girl. "Why did I get to be born here?" "How come I wasn't born in some far away African tribal community?" I wish I could say that He gave me the answer right then and there. He didn't. Instead I believe that He planted a seed that day. A seed that would grow in my heart and change the way I would look at things. Mostly the way I would look at myself and my life and how I lived it and how different it was from those whose realities are so very different than mine. The lives of the oppressed, the poor, the fatherless, the abandoned, the widow....the orphan.
James 1:27 The Message
Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.

I don't think that God doesn't want for us to have nice things...running water...electricity...closets with clothes... I just think that we often times can forget where it all comes from. We should have some conflict in our lives. We should be uncomfortable when we hear about famine, drought, oppresion, child traffiking, the number of children as orphans dying every day (23,000), the number of unadopted 4 yr old children in orphanages with special needs that get transferred to adult mental institutions because they are "unwanted". We should be uncomfortable..... We can forget that we were born here in the land of plenty for a reason, for a purpose...and not in a tribal community or poverty stricken country. We are commanded to care! To care for those who are the least of these... to tend to those in need. And it is more than just a few coins in the bucket or writing a check once a year... WE CANNOT LOOK AWAY. WE CANNOT PRETEND WE DONT KNOW ONCE WE HAVE SEEN!
Proverbs 24:12
If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,”
    does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who guards your life know it?
    Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done?

Bless my husbands heart. He just smiles and sometimes shakes his head. I can't help it. I just can't. All around I see things differently. I am changed. I am, some would say, obsessed. I just don't see, think and feel like I used to. This didn't happen overnight....it was a gradual thing. God puts something in your heart and He works it out to His plan and by His timing. I think He wants us to see things from His perspective. To be burdened for what burdens Him. To love what He loves and hate what He hates. To be made more like Him as we are continually being transformed.
Romans 12:1-2
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. ²Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Maybe the pictures below will serve as a visual to what conflicts in my heart. To what I try to reconcile in my heart and mind and soul. So as you look at the pictures below I hope you can really SEE what they represent. I know that we live in a world that is constantly changing and people are seeking more and more and want to always be moving forward. BUT... we are leaving so much behind in our trek to move and get ahead.

I don't know what God will speak to you as you look....or as you ask yourself the why question...but I know He absolutely has something to say to you! Maybe it is the way you will look at the full refrigerator or the next time you get up for a glass of clean water. Or maybe it will be the way you look at any abundance in your life. Whatever it is that God wants you to see from His perspective please listen and let Him stir your heart to His leading!

Some of the pictures are hard to look at...and they are not meant to point fingers of guilt..just to make us think about those things we see and do without thinking twice.

A Different Perspective..........something to think about.........

Architecture For Cars....