I do believe...

that giving yourself away, completely, to the Lord is a lot like when you are so passionately compelled, so fully engaged in life that you have spoken an entire Christ-minded monologue without even so much as stopping to take a breath. When leave marriage counseling and dinner out with your pastor feeling more alive than you've felt all week. As we sat with our pastor and his wife at dinner we discussed their trip to Africa. She spoke on how her heart broke for the little boy in his tattered clothes completely content with nothing more than a stick to entertain himself. She said she was worried that he was not happy, her husband however assured her that he was. After all, he did not know the difference. He did not WANT anything more than a simple stick to stimulate his imagination.

This lead me on a completely revolutionary thought process. It all makes sense. Jason has a friend at work who moved from Nigeria last year because God had called him to minister to the young people in America...Yes, God had called this humble Nigerian to minister to our young...Mindblowing if you really think about it. He told us stories of waking up early in the morning back home and just getting up, walking outside to streets of his neighborhood, and vehemently praising and preaching God's word, out loud. Not quietly on his front porch or meditating in his front yard, no. Loudly proclaiming the Love of God up and down his streets every morning.

Our pastors' wife reaffirmed this nature with the story of her son's experience with a young boy he befriended while they were their. He awoke one morning to find his friend leaving earlier than usual for school. The young boy explained that he and his friends met early every morning to pray on the hillside. Not because they are made to but because they understand. They are and continue to dive ever deeper in a continuously living, breathing, pulsing, DAILY LIVING with God.

And I came to the realization that we are the ones who are truly hungry. They are being filled with the joy, grace, faithfulness, and mercy of the Lord; starved as they are physically. While we spend our days stuffing boxes and bags, sugars and salts into our empty shells...hoping if we eat, drink, or stimulate ourselves enough with all our worldly concoctions then maybe one day we can escape from the hell of our depression-filled holes. We are so empty in comparison to these starving believers. We are fat, lazy slobs in the eyes of these prayerful angels. And yet we feel a since of pride, of accomplishment when we are able to send one shoe box of random odds and ends to a child. We should feel so content to just do the bare minimum, if even that.

And so now as I ramble I look at myself, and I shutter. Where am I and where, especially, are our capabilities to give ourselves away, to give our stuffs away, to fill to mouths of those who physical hunger is gnawing away so that maybe....maybe....they could save our souls.

And this is no small task that can just be written away to the government, no. It is a personal decision to take hold of the reigns and BE. WORK. ACT. LIVE as if you actually want to save a life, as if someone else's life is just as much worth living as your own.