Changing my Pace

I was sitting here trying to figure out what to write, where to go with this blog entry and what the passion was inside of me today. Well, I started multiple blogs and ended up deleting them all and just decided to start reading some of the sites and short articles that I enjoy and ya know I found something. Something actually convicting to who I am and who I have been over the years as I have grown in my relationship with Christ. There is a devotional in a book called Extreme Devotion that says "Instinct is interested in self-preservation. Conviction is above our own interests." My world I think is filled with a lot of Instinct and I need to challenge myself to live with conviction.
Please take some time to read this article and see if it moves and challenges you as I know if did me.
http://www.neueministry.com/2008/10/the-simplicity-of-justice/

See in my opinion I think this guy gets it. I read this article and I wonder who I am. What would I do in these situations? Would I really care enough to turn right and continue to turn right? I have talked about missions overseas before but they just as real here in the US amongst us. It could be helping with hurricane Katrina or Ike or even just helping a neighbor for the Joy of it. Not because I want something in return but that I really care about them as a person. There is a song by Seven Day Slumber that I am listening to called Matt. 25. The words are amazing and go directly with this article.
“I call myself a man of God
While laughing at my brother
I crossed the heart of a hungry man
Instead of giving him some bread
And what I say
And what I do
Are not the same anymore
And who I slay, who I betray
Lord have mercy on my soul
And you were hungry
And you were thirsty
You were lonely you were cold
And you were hurting, you were dying
I just left you all alone

I watched a mother who had her children
They all three crying out for help
But know one heard them
And I just passed them and
I screamed "Lady get a job!"
She took her own life
Under the bridge that day
While her children sat and cried
I could have told her about my loving father
Instead I spit in Jesus face, when I heard her voice
What you do unto the least of them
You do unto me
And when you see one of my hurting children
I want you to snee
Cause I was hungry
And I was thirsty
I was lonely I was cold
And that was me hurting, that was me dying
And you just left me all alone
I call myself a man of God
While laughing at my brother”

A side track from BWCA

This weekend at church we sang the song “Jesus paid it All” an old hymn and a very good hymn. We also sang this song a while back and there is one line in this hymn that has struck me more lately than maybe any other hymn in my life. “He changed the leper’s spots” Now these are the first two times that this line has ever caught my attention and really I guess I never knew or ever paid attention to it. I really didn’t know what the complete meaning or understanding of that line. I didn’t know what leper’s spots really were and never really cared to look into it as I thought it was something from the past and didn’t really exist anymore. Well, while in Ethiopia we were able to visit a Leper Siam. This is a village or area within the capital city Addis Ababa where lepers can live and work. Now I still fully don’t know or understand the spots and everything leprosy can do to a human being but what I do know is that these spots on this Ethiopian man are unmistakable. To think that when I look at myself as a sinner, I am also unmistakable without His saving Grace to wash away my sins. That He came to pay that price to take away those sins and to wash them away and make me whole and complete again. I guess the visual here makes this song oh so much more real now that I have a better grasp on the realness of the possible thoughts of the artist.

Now the impact this man had on my life didn’t stop there. I saw him two years in a row sitting there on the cement making rugs like shown in the picture with his hands that don’t really have fingers but the leprosy spots and missing fingers. I am assuming from leprosy is not what caught my attention. What caught my attention was more about his joy his happiness in life. So I think about how I sit at my desk at work in my cushioned chair with a back rest non-the-less, behind a computer, in an air-conditioned building and yet I still find a way on some days to complain. Yet this man has greeted me both years I have seen him with a smile from ear to ear in shear happiness and joy. Makes me evaluate my perspective on life as he is such an incredible man and I don’t even know his name. I hope to see him again some day in the future and bring him this picture and hopefully talk to him about how his joy and happiness has affected my life in this past year and thank him for that. I wonder if he is a Christian? What his story is? Where he has come and just information about him?