Strange Blessings

Sometimes God's strength comes in crazy places. I am leading our missions team to South Africa in July and I have been very stressed about it. Recently I have been worried that I did not bring this enough before the Lord in prayer and I have worried that this will never work.

But God completely recharged my heart today. First, I had my ipod on at work and was listening to the podcasts of nlcf's latest series on pursuing social justice around the world (they called it "Ripples"). The stories of what people have done and are doing began to open my heart again to God's desire for the Church to be the leaders in bringing justice to the broken places of the world.

There were two verses that stuck out to me...
Isaiah 1:17: "Learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed.* Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow."

and Micah 6:8 "What does the Lord require of you? To do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God."

Just those could have been enough to inspire me, but God also used something else very odd. Saying this requires the confession that I watch TLC. A guy at my office calls it "The Ladies Channel" because long ago they stopped putting informative programming on there... and most of it's just reality-type shows.

So anyway, there's a tv show about a family named the Duggers. They're the really famous family with 18 kids. They're a conservative Christian family, and though the channel doesn't focus on their faith - it is obvious in the decisions they make. And there are times I've seen this show and it makes me crazy (some of the theological stances aren't entirely accurate...) but today it was exactly what God needed to tell me.

The dad and about 12 of the kids went on a mission trip to El Salvador to bring Christmas presents and food to some very needy families. Watching their missions trip and seeing all those kids and families in need completely broke my heart. I realized that no matter what we do in South Africa - whether it's digging ditches or playing with kids or whatever - we are honoring God with our sacrifice by just not being afraid to go.

Bob Pierce was the founder of World Vision and Samaritan's Purse and he said a now-famous quote that I want to bring before the Lord,

"Let my heart be broken by the things that break the heart of God."

That's why we're going to South Africa. And God is already laying out our steps.