Jesus is worth everything. He is so good, satisfying, and rewarding that He is worth leaving all we have and all we own to follow Him. As we pack our bags in preparation for 2 weeks in Uganda I know God is unpacking that truth from His Word in my heart. He is worth everything. He cares for the orphans, the poor, the destitute and especially for the lost and He commands us to care for them too if we bear His name.
"Today more than a billion people in the world live and die in desperate poverty. They attempt to survive on less than a dollar per day. Close to two billion others live on less than two dollars per day. That's nearly half of the world struggling today to find food, water, and shelter with the same amount of money I spend on french fries for lunch. More than twenty six thousand children today will breathe their last breath due to starvation or preventable disease." David Platt - Radical
It is hard for me to even comprehend that 26,000 children die every day from hunger and preventable disease. 26,000. I don't even know 26,000 children... so I think in terms of the children I do know... mine, my friends' kids, my neighbors' kids, the ones at my church, the ones we see each week at sports practices, the kids in my homeschool support group.... all of those would be gone in one day and thousands more. It is an overwhelming thought.
I am taking my 12 year old son to Uganda on Saturday. He loves the Lord. This will be his first mission trip out of the country. He is excited but I know he will be broken by much that he sees. He is tender hearted and I know his heart will hurt when confronted with the number of orphans, the children with bloated bellies, the reality of the AIDS epidemic and the great poverty. I know something else too. I know that even though it will hurt him, he needs to see it. If he learns everything in every text book perfectly but does not learn to care for the lost enough to go tell them they can be found... or the sick that they can be made well... or the orphans that they can have a Father... or the impoverished that they can be rich... then Kevin and I have failed him as his educators. If he knows a zillion facts but doesn't care about the things God cares about.... then what? My prayer is that God will minister to his young heart as it sees the reality of what we often would rather pretend does not exist.
I am trusting my faithful God to care for Michael and I as we go and to care for my other children and my hubby as they stay at home. Prayerfully anticipating ....
This is Michael in Boston almost 2 years ago.
from Proverbs 3
