Resurrected

After another long blog hiatus, I feel compelled to journal a little bit on some of my reflections and shifts occurring within in me, post Monterrey. The theme of the week was SHELTER.

PART 1 - actually a reflection from the last day...

"Lord, what do you want me to understand about your shelter today?"

It is new every morning. I will provide it in new, and in a myriad of ways, all yet to be revealed to you. It is not static, it is in constant motion and changing. Don't let the difficult things you saw dissuade you; rather, wrestle patiently with the difficulties of this world, be honest with your emotions. When confronted with despair and depravity, do NOT look away, or over-spiritualize an easy explanation. Call on my name, cry out in your distress on behalf of the least of these, and I will answer you. I will provide shelter.

Do not be afraid to have your heart broken. In your brokenness, I will be able to work in and through you, accomplishing "good" which is moving in a direction only I can see.

PART 2 - journaling on the plane back home

(Paraphrased from Rodo) Orphans are taught that they have a father in heaven who loves them, who cares for them, who adores them. In simply loving these children, providing them with shelter, with shoes, birthday presents, hugs, affection, a tussling of their hair, we reinforce the Father's love for them, we truly embody it for them. We reinforce that God provides for all of their spiritual needs, their shelter.

There are experiences which cannot be summed up or "sorted out" easily. These questions that come forth need time to bounce around the room a little bit. God sometime takes aim at the box we have put Him in, shooting it with a slow-moving bullet that takes dead aim at our misconceptions and the way in which we have limited his character. Our understanding and belief in Him grows when we struggle with questions and have our box destroyed. It damages our cheap, easily formed theological concepts that spring forth from easy suburban American living. From the damage, may their emerge a deeper understanding of just how loving and compassionate our Lord is, how much he adores us (as he adores the children).

Let the slow moving bullet take dead aim at the ideas I've formed with judgment, ideas that I've idolized above a God who is real, a God who is not restricted by my ideas of who He is.

PART 3 - The orphans ministry to Americans

How is it that children in Monterrey can have an effective outreach ministry to change the lives of successful Americans? I come to them numb, materialistic, stressed and with a heightened sense of my own importance. The children give me the gift of my own heart back. In their joy and love, they embody Christ to me as much as I to them, rescuing me from myself, instead of the other way around. If this is not the ultimate dichotomy, the paradigm being truly turned upside down, I am not sure what is.

Lord, ingrain these images and lessons, and continue to bring your redemptive work into my life.