Some things I'm wrestling with...and not Thomas for once!

Ok, so when I started this blog page I definitly intended for it to be more than just pictures of the kids...but since that is what most of my life revolves around I think I need to work harder at being more intentional to share some of the stuff I am learning and wrestling with.
This past year my eyes and heart are being opened to realities that most of the world face each day. I have been struggling through issues of hope and despair, compassion and guilt, faith and action.
I have been thankful for people that God is bringing into my life to challenge and encourage me. It's amazing really how when you start to ask God to grow you in an area how he really does answer and open my eyes. It's been things like realizing that my neighbor is passionate about these issues and can teach me a lot about being creative in addressing these issues. The book club that I have been able to meet with this past year that has been purposeful in asking the hard questions and wanting to actually be active in their responses. The IJM global prayer gathering that I was able to atend with a dear friend, which has awakened something deep with in me to see slavery abolished. Watching Movies that are addressing these issues like Hotel Rwanda, and Slum Dog Millionare and Reading books like Hope Lives, Just Courage, Boy Soldier, and now The Poor Will Be Glad.
Here is a couple of quotes from the latest The Poor Will Be Glad...chew on them!

"However, the vast majority of poverty in America is "defined poverty" or "relative poverty." If "poor" is defined as the 10 percent of the peopl in a nation earning the lowest income, then 10 percent of that nation will always be "poor" no matter how many resources they have."...would you rather be born into a poor family in the United states or a wealthly family in the Congo?"

"The acts of meeting spiritual needs and physical needs are so often seperated that many Christians no longer seem to notice"

Read Luke 4:16-30 "He met the physical needs of people and preaches the good news to the poor."

"There were times when Jesus taught and other times he simply met peoples physical needs, In each situation, he did what best demonstrated the dual nature of the kingdom of God- that it will last for eternity and is already here changing lives. Rather than viewing the actions and teaching of Jesus as a rainbow spectrum of loving and necessary interactions, we often separate the colors with a distorted prism becasues we want to emphasize on thing or another. Perhaps we have a personal preference for spoken evangelism or for fighting physical hunger, but our preferences should not place filters before our eyes and cause us to ignore the balance that's so evident in the life of Christ."

It was also interesting to see how the church has begun to seperate the gospel message from reaching the poor this past century, and some of the reasons attached to that.

Hopefully next time it will be more my thoughts and less quotes....but they say it so well!

Thanks for listening to my immediate thoughts...
Missy


http://www.thepoorwillbeglad.com/