Thanksgiving? (2006)

Culture Shock
Lately, I’ve been busy with various projects and support-raising during my time visiting the U.S. Recently, I spoke to a large group of middle-schoolers. I knew I was not there to raise financial support, but rather to raise awareness. Awareness of how the rest of the world lives. I spent time researching some statistical data from the Philippines and the 3rd world. Statistics say that half of the world lives on less than 2 dollars a day. 2... dollars... a... day... 20% of the world uses 80% of the world’s resources... TB is the 6th top killer of Filipinos -- and the statistics continue to tell us how unjust the world is. I arrived in the U.S. before Thanksgiving. During this time, it seems, the news was filled with stories about the new XBOX and how people were lined up outside every retail electronic store across the country to pay $400 dollars for a gaming system (while the other half of the world struggles to feed their children nutritious meals). What is even more ironic is that the day after "Thanksgiving" is "Black Friday"... meaning the biggest shopping day of the year. It's not like it grocery shopping or alms giving... it’s buying overpriced toys (on "sale") for children and adults. Our nation's children are growing up with increasingly more stuff. We have bought into the idea that we need things.

Back to the middle schoolers... As I read in the Gospels, I find that Jesus called his disciples and they LEFT EVERYTHING. I asked this group of (mostly) churched students if God asks them to "give up everything." They said "no" (hoping that I would confirm their answer). And I don't think He does. From what I read in the Bible, God tells us (commands us) to give to the poor... be openhanded to anyone who asks... to trust Him. The bottom line is that God wants ALL of us. All of us. We cannot serve God AND stuff. We either serve God with all we are and all we have... or we don't. When we serve God with all we are, we present our bodies, lifestyles, speech, etc... as a "living sacrifice" (meaning we lay down those things as gifts to God). When we serve God with all we have, we don’t hold on to stuff. We are willing to give away anything God asks of us. Further still... we are willing to give up anything that another person asks of us.

It All Goes Back to LOVE
"If we don’t love our brother we can see, how can we love a God we can’t see?" This question is presented to us in the Word of God. When you dig deeper into this line of thought, you wonder, how can I love God then? The key, I believe goes back to God’s love. "For God so love the world that he gave his only Son..." I don’t believe we can love our brothers until we understand God's love for us. Ephesians 1 gives a prayer for "THE SPIRIT OF WISDOM AND UNDERSTANDING so we might KNOW HIM BETTER." We really do need to continually ask God to reveal His Son to us so we can KNOW Him. To KNOW Him is to know love. Once we know and understand God's love for us, we, in return, can love others. God gave me a pretty vivid picture of this a couple months ago...

What’s That Smell?
Staying in Pakak (one of the Butbut villages), I have many small followers. The children of the village would congregate wherever I would be. When I would be walking across the village, they would push and shove to hold my hands. So there I was, surrounded by 5-10 children like the Pied Piper on a small scale (not that the children are equated to rats... nor do I wear green tights...). Later that night, I attended a Bible study with the youth. I began to smell something horrid. I thought I might have stepped in animal's waste or someone had gas or... I couldn’t figure it out. As I began to sniff around (still during the Bible study) I found the smell was in front of me... no, to the right side of me... wait... it’s my hands!!! Man, I wanted to leave right then -- it was my hands! I thought back, "Why do my hands smell like this?" Then I remembered the kids that day. Those disgusting little...

Something Needs to Change
As I walked back from the study, I went straight to the pump and washed my hands. When the kids came up to hold my hands I pulled my hands away and would just put them on the top of their heads in order not to have to smell that on me again. Suddenly, God showed me my heart toward Him. I pictured myself as a child with filthy hands. As I reached out to take God's hand, he pulled them away, not wanting to touch my sinful self. But this was a backward picture. Later that day, I sat and with my guitar and sang these lines, "and so I reach with filthy hands, wanting to touch Yours again... but You don’t refuse me, no you love me anyway." God takes us even in our weakness, and holds us. When we begin to get a revelation of the love of God for us, we can love others in their weakness. We become less cynical, sarcastic, and critical. All this to say, in order to change the world, we must change how we view God. When we have a view of a loving God that loves humanity and hates sin so much he would send his Son to redeem us from our filth, we can love all those who are the unlovely, rejects of society. In fact, we are those filthy, unloved, rejects... who have been redeemed by the God of the Universe.