thoughts for the day

It’s hard to believe it has been a year since the earthquake in Haiti. I hate to be a Debbie Downer (sorry, Deborah, but it’s just the saying), but I wonder what the natural disaster of the year will be in 2011? It’s sad to say that my awareness of global disasters really only started in 2004 when there was a major tsunami on the other side of the world. Since then, I’ve been paying attention. And every year some type of disaster inevitably throws millions of people into the kind of tailspin that changes your life forever…  and bursts into the American media for a week, maybe two. Then we’re back to The Bachelor and whoever else is wearing the least amount of clothes that month. Sad. So much suffering, and we are like ostriches with our heads in the sand.

One of my spiritual heroes is Francis Chan. He always makes me take a real hard look at my motivations and my choices, and he exemplifies a life that is simply wrapped up in God… it’s about God, for God, with God. I want that for my own life, and so he is a role model to me. If you aren’t familiar with Francis, he is the former pastor of a church in Simi Valley, CA called Cornerstone. (He wrote the books Crazy Love and Forgotten God as well… I’d recommend both.) I doubt I will ever meet him on this side of eternity, but I continue to be mentored by his teachings, and I pray that God will plant His truth deep into my heart.

After Francis resigned from Cornerstone earlier this year, he and his family sold their home and went overseas for a few months to several countries in Asia to serve among the poor. I would give anything for Joshua and I to be able to do the same. I hope that after Joshua gets his RN, maybe we will. I know that Joshua left part of his heart in India and I have an inexplicable urge to go to Asia. Maybe it’s not so inexplicable.

We’ll see what becomes of us. For now… patience, growth, surrender, and trust. I wonder if God asked me to sell all of my possessions and give myself to the poor, if I would have the gumption to obey. It’s a gnawing question for this sojourner living the life of a middle-class American.