Monday, June 25, 2012

Heal Your Enemies

A knock at the door.

"Mama, should we answer it?"

"Yes, children, answer it."

She'd been sick for over a month and hadn't been out of the house.  Inter-ethnic tensions in the community were higher than they'd ever been.  People were being killed...mysteriously.  Everyone on edge.

"It's one of them,"  the kids told her.  "Should we let him in?"

"Of course."

The man, a different race, a different religion, entered her humble Sentani dwelling.

"My child is sick.  For five months we've done nothing but see specialists.  She's still sick and our money is gone.  We don't know where else to turn.  Would you come pray for her?"

"Don't go Mama!"  The kids clung to her.

Deceit.  Conspiracy.  Treachery.  The air was thick with the fog of these...and he was one of them.

"Live for God.  Die for God."  With these words she left her home and went with the man.  For four days she prayed for his child.  At the end of the fourth day, God healed the child.

"With Jesus, there is always hope,"  she told the father and returned to her children.

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We're rich.  What else can I say.  Every Sunday we get to sit in church and hear people get up and share stories like this one told by a Sentani woman in obviously frail health this morning.

I can't imagine two worlds more different than the world I see here in Papua, and the world Jesus saw around him in Palestine two millenia ago.  But the words that he spoke on a long-ago hillside in Palestine are being followed by a few simple people out here in Papua...including a mother in poor health who is following this Jesus down a narrow path.  He spoke on that hillside.  He still speaks today.  He says,

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Denial

Denial as a coping mechanism gets a bad rap.  It works for me.  And apparently the apple doesn't fall far from the tree in these things.  Cameron stepped on a broken bottle at the beach and needed stitches.  One dose of denial (in the form of an Asterix & Oblelix comic while you're being stitched up) = two shots of novacaine.

Thanks Luke & Dr. Di!

Saturday, June 9, 2012

A Free Man

I am not a free man, but I wish to be.  Free of myself.  Truly free.

     Free to live as a stranger in this world.

     Free to be poor.

     Free to be content.

     Free to be self-forgetful.

     Free to acknowledge my failures.

     Free to return a blessing for a curse.

     Free to be angry at injustice others experience.

     Free to love those who do not love.

     Free to believe that prayer works.

     Free to love my fellow man, not fear him.

     Free to learn from those who oppose.

     Free to be unknown.

     Free to be unoffendable.

     Free to walk in the opposite direction.  Meekly.

     Free to rejoice at the blessings others receive.

     Free to have courage that fears God.

     Free to weep with the pain others experience.

     Free to work in obscurity.

     Free to believe that God really can do the impossible.

Free to tell others about this Jesus...the One setting me free.