Deserving?

In reading through Under the Overpass, I came across this quote:

"Christ died for men precisely because men are not worth dying for: to make them worth it." (C.S. Lewis)

Check out http://bibliosblog.blogspot.com/2005/07/under-overpass-portland.html for the context.

Under the Overpass - Portland

“What Sam and I quickly learned living on the streets is that daily basics play a huge part in defining both a person’s social status and self-respect. No bed, no shower, no toilet equals no dignity.

“Think about it next time you walk past someone huddled in a doorway. It’s the easiest thing in the world to decide that the woman or man huddled there is choosing to dress in rags and reek of urine and body odor. Their choice, of course, means you can’t be blamed for ignoring her or him. The person doesn’t want to be pleasant, so you don’t need to care. At the very least, you don’t have to respond as you would if it were your mother or your brother huddled there” (107).

*I have used the “choice” rationale to deny assistance to someone in need. Yes, people have made bad choices. Why does that mean we should not help them? Because they don’t deserve it? Should we get on the topic of what people/we deserve? I’m certain none of us will be left standing. God, help me treat those in need as You would treat them through me, as only I am able to do. (I believe each of us brings the presence of Christ in a unique way).

“An ongoing struggle to find safety, a place to sleep, a bathroom, and food becomes dehumanizing for anyone. One experience at a time, a person’s sense of dignity and sense of self-worth gets stripped away” (113).

“Blithely allowing this terrible stripping to occur is a blot on the conscience of America, and especially on the conscience of the church. If we as believers choose to forget that everyone – even the shrunken soul lying in the doorway – is made in the image of God, can we say we know our Creator? If we respond to others based on their outward appearance, haven’t we entirely missed the point of the gospel?” (113)

*What will it take to awaken me? What will it take to awaken the church? We are distant from the Lord’s heart if we are distant from those in need.

“Christ cared a lot about the simple dignities. He stopped to talk to lepers, and touch them with healing (Luke 5:13). He prepared meals for strangers. He rescued outcasts. He wept with those who wept.

“Of course, the issue isn’t completely defined by our response. The consequences of substance abuse, poverty, and irresponsibility have left countless men and women on our streets without a single outward shred of dignity. But Christ is not deterred by that. As C.S. Lewis wrote: ‘Christ died for men precisely because they are not worth dying for: to make them worth it’” (113,14).

*Father, help me see people as sacred.

Under the Overpass - D.C.

Mike and Sam spent 28 days in D.C. (July 1 -28, 2003). Being a resident of the city, this section hits close to home.

"Begging is hard. It's something you expect hungry dogs to do, but not men and women made in God's image. The minute you put out your hand, or open your guitar case, it feels like you're writing 'failure' and 'weakness' all over yourself. You're telling everyone who walks by, 'I am unable.' The message blares up and down the sidewalk, and acroos multiple lanes of traffic. And the message doesn't stop screaming until you pull back your hand, or close up your case" (61).

*I'm not sure I've ever thought about the "hard work" of begging. In fact, when I see someone begging, I often think about how they need to work, to get a paying job and get off the street. I (maybe we?) read "If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat" (2 Thess. 3.10), and we hide behind those words, shielding ourselves from reaching out. We forget Paul's other words, " Admonish the idle/undisciplined, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. See tha tno one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone." Word.

"In his book, The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning writes, 'We are all equally privileged but unentitled beggars at the door of God's mercy'"(62).

"A hungry man can be a fast learner. When you come to a table with nothing but need, yo uare grateful for things you might have pushed aside before. And when you kneel, hungry and broken at His table, you receive a grace from Him you might, at some other time, have completely missed" (71).

*How many times have I missed His grace? How often has He resisted my proud heart/attitude? God giving grace to the humble is a thread woven through all of Scripture. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst...

George Muller - Ch. 3

"After a true relish for the Scriptures had been created, he could not understand how he could ever have treated God's Book with such neglect. It seemed obvious that God having condescended to become an Author, inspiring holy men to write the Scriptures, He would in them impart the most vital truths; His message would cover all matters which concern man's welfare, and therefore, under the double impulses of duty and delight, we should instinctively and habitually turn to the Bible. Moreover, as he read and studied this Book of God, he felt himself admitted to more and more intimate acquaintance with the Author. During the last twenty years of his life he read it carefully through, four or five times annually, with a growing sense of his own rapid increase in the knowledge of God thereby" (49).

*I think of my recent spiritual deadness and much, if not all, can be attributed to being disconnected with the Author of the most incredible of stories - the story of life and the story of our lives!

"Such motives for Bible study it is strange that any true believer should overlook. Ruskin, in writing Of the King's Treasuries refers to the universal ambition for 'advancement in life,' which means 'getting into good society.' How many obstacles one finds in securing an introduction to the great and good of this world, and even then in getting access to them, in securing an audience with the kings and queens of human soceity! Yet there is open to us a society of people of the very first rank who will meet us and converse with us so long as we like, whatever our ignorance, poverty, or low estate--namely, the society of authors; and the key that unlocks their private audience-chamber is their books.

"So writes Ruskin, and all this is beautifully true; but how few, even among believers, appreciate the privilege of access to the great Author of the universe through His word! Poor and rich, high and low, ignorant and learned, young and old, all alike are welcomed to the audience-chamber of the King of kings. The most intimate knowledge of God is possible on one condition--that we search His Holy Scriptures, prayerfully and habitually, and translate what we there find, into obedience. Of him who thus meditates on God's law day and night, who looks and continues looking into this perfect law of liberty, the promise is unique, and found in both Testaments: 'Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper' ; 'that man shall be blessed in his deed' (Ps. 1.3; Joshua 1.8; James 1.25)

"So soon as George Muller found this well-spring of delight and sucess, he drank habitually at this fountain of living waters. In later life he lamented that, owing to his early neglect of this source of divine wisdom and strength, he remained so long in spiritual infancy, with its ignorance and impotence" (50).

*What most people know and what is most often said about Muller is focused on his prayer life. His prayer life, though, was absolutely connected with his discipline of reading the word of God, out of both duty and delight! Duty and delight often go together in the Kingdom :)! I love the idea proprosed by Ruskin that reading gives us an audience with the author, and how incredible that we have an audience with the Author! Love it!

Under the Overpass - Denver

I began reading Under the Overpass (2005, Multnomah Press) today. The author, Mike Yankoski, went on the streets for five months as a homeless person, even though he is from an upper-middle-class background. He started in Denver, then moved through Washington, D.C., Portland, San Francisco, Phoenix and San Diego.

Commenting on his decision to go, he writes the following:

"The hypocrisy in my life troubled me. No, I wasn't in the grip of rampant sin, but at the same time, for the life of me I couldn't find a connecting thread of radical, living obedience between what I said about my world and how I lived in it. Sure, I claimed that Christ was my stronghold, my peace, my sustenance, my joy. But I did all that from the saftey of my comfortable upper-middle-class life. I never really had to put my claims to the test (15)."

Here is an unbelievable and sobering statistic Mike found during his research phase:

"According to the National Coalition for the Homeless, in the United States, more than 3.5 million people experience homelessness during any given year. That means that more than one percent of our population this year will be eating out of trash cans and sleeping under bridges" (17).

*I had no idea there were so many homeless people. I mean, I have lived in places like Long Beach, CA, where there are many homeless people, and now in D.C., but to think that more than 1 out of every 100 Americans are homeless! Let that sink in...

Mike surrounded himself with an advisory board and set off with a partner, Sam. His advisers helped him fine-tune his overall purpose:
1. To better understand the life of the homeless in America, and to see firsthand how the church is responding to their needs.
2. To encourage others to "live out loud" for Christ in whatever ways God is asking them to.
3. To learn personally what it means to depend on Christ for my daily physical needs, and to experience contentment and confidence in Him. (19)

The words of an addict named Peter: "I've been on the streets too long, been addicted too long, been dying too long. Do you think it'll (the mission recovery process) work?" (35)

* Something about his phrase dying too long really struck me. What a powerful way to talk about life apart from Christ, for anyone. It's just that those who are homeless and destitute have a clearer picture of their condition than do those whose wealth and comfort buffer such feelings/insights.

"Something critical is missing in places that care for the broken and needy if the only pepole there are also broken and needy. Without the presence of people in the rescue missions whose lives are not defined by addiction, alcoholism, crime, and mental illness, there is little positive influence. Chaplains and pastors can only spread themselves so far" (46).

"If we are the body of Christ--and Christ came not for the healthy but for the sick--we need to be fully present in the places where people are most broken" (46).

*Oh, I feel the stirrings. I have been thinking about volunteering some of my time at a shelter on R street. Perhaps it is time to start doing. I have taken myself out of ministry-type situations because of my own shortcomings in life. Time to start living. I've been dying too long.

"Changes for an addict takes a lot of work, a lot of prayer, a lot of God - and usually more than one restart. Almost every day I'd seen setbacks. Watching men destroy a year's worth of rehabilitation with a single bad decision had been frustrating and painful. But even though the path to recovery was winding or interrupted, I had seen lives change" (51).

*Amen. Let it be true!

George Muller - Intro/Chs.1-2

George Muller of Briston by Arthur T. Pierson (1944)

I've read a little about George Muller (1805-1892) before, but never in-depth, so I pulled this meaty biography off the bookshelf.

Organization of book:

1. From his birth to his new birth or conversion: 1802-1825

2. From his conversion to full entrance on his life-work: 1825-1835

3. From this point to the period of his mission tours: 1835-1875

4. From the beginning to the close of these tours: 1875-1892

Here are some quotes and reflections from the first two chapters:

"The divine Hand in this (Muller's) history is doubly plain when, as we now look back, we see that this was also the period of preparation for his life-work--a preparation the more mysterious because he has as yet no conception or forecast of that work. During the next ten years we shall watch the divine Potter, to Whom George Muller was a chosen vessel for service, moulding and fitting the vessel for His use. Every step is one of preparation, but can be understood only in the light which that future casts backward over the unique ministry to the church and the world, to which this new convert was all unconsciously separated by God and was to become so peculiarly consecrated." (p. 28)

* Recently, in a Ministry Mentoring small group w/ Pastor Mark, we have been talking about our passions and the paths to pursuing/developing those passions. Looking at Muller's life and the lives of all the saints before us, I am becoming more and more certain that every step is one of preparation, regardless of how seemingly insignificant or hard or horrible the current step might seem! That can be hard to swallow, especially if you're like me and wish that the path to pursuing our passions was always as clear to us as it must be to God! :) Ah, what room for faith and growth would be left if we could see the path so clearly? Seems that the journey is essential, because that is all there is anyway. We will never arrive, at least here on earth. Learn from the journey. Do not despise the days of small things. These are truths I need to remember!

"Nothing is more wonderful in histroy than the unmistakable signs and proofs of preadaptation. Our life-occurences are not disjecta membra - scattered, disconnected, and accidental fragments. In God's book all these events were written beforehand, when as yet there was nothing in existence but the plan in God's mind - to be fashioned in continuance in actual history - as is perhaps suggested in Psalm 139.16.

We see stones and timbers brought to a building site- the stones from different quarries and the timbers from various shops-and different workmen have been busy upon them at times and places which forbade all conscious contact or cooperation. The conditions oppose all preconcerted action, and yet, without chipping or cutting, stone fits stone, and timber fits timber-tenons and mortises, and proportions and dimension, all corresponding so that when the building is complete it is as perfectly proportioned and as accurately fitted as though it had been all prepared in one workshop and put together in advance as a test. In such circumstances no sane man would doubt that one presiding mind-one architect and master builder-had planned that structure, however many were the quarries and workshops and labourers.

And so it is with this life-story we are writing. The materials to be built into one structure of service were from a thousand sources and moulded into form by many hands, but there was a mutual fitness and a common adaptation to the end in view which prove that He whose mind and plan span the ages had a supreme purpose to which all human agents were unconsciously tributary. The awe of this vision of God's workmanship will grow upon us as we look beneath and behind the mere human occurences to see the divine Hand shaping and building together all these seemingly disconnected events and experiences into one life-work" (31-32)

* Amen! Thank you God for making us your poema - your poem, your workmanship! Thank you for making the events of our lives connected, meaningful, and purposeful, even when we don't see it or plan it!

"George Muller found in the word of God one great fact: the love of God in Christ. Upon that fact faith, not feeling, laid hold; and then the feeling came naturally without being waited for or sought after. The love of God in Christ constrained him to a love-infinitely unworthy, indeed, of that to which it responded, yet supplying a new impulse unknown before. What all his father's injunctions, chastisements, entreaties, with all the urgent dictates of his own conscience, motives of expediency, and repeated resolves of amendment, utterly failed to effect, the love of God both impelled and enabled him to do - renounce a life of sinful self-indulgence. Thus early he learned that double truth, which he afterwards passionately loved to teach others, that in the blood of God's atoning Lamb is the Fountain of both forgiveness and cleansing. Whether we seek pardon for sin or power over sin, the sole source and secret are in Christ's work for us" (35-36).

* Just a great reminder through the life of Muller that we are both saved and sanctified by grace. The work in our lives that began through the power of Christ must continue through that same resurrection power. Fill us, Spirit. Fill us.

Biblios Blog?

Biblios is the Greek word for book and this is simply a book log - a place where I am going to blog through books I am reading. I will be including many quotes and some reflection. Feel free to comment or even become part of the biblios blog rage, if there is one :)!!