Month: April 2018

My family recently had the opportunity to spend an afternoon packaging meals to be distributed to malnourished children in 70 countries. The meals are provided to schools, orphanages, clinics and feeding programs. During the training session, we learned more about the organization and the kids that might eat the meals we would prepare.

The eyes of a hungry child are dull and weary. They’re alive, but without life. And that’s not how it’s supposed to be. Childhood is supposed to be carefree. It’s supposed to be bubbles and sidewalk chalk, grubby fingers and tangled hair. It’s supposed to be unconditional love and an open heart. Hunger has stolen all that from them. Hunger has told them that joy is not for them.

While we might not know physical hunger, I bet most of us have heard that message before. This is not for you. You aren’t invited. You’re not included. You aren’t wanted. This message of rejection makes our souls cry out – “This is not the way it’s supposed to be!” Too often the world replies, “This is how it’s always going to be. It’s never going to be any different. There’s no hope.”

Why spend a couple hours on a Saturday wearing hairnets and gloves and closed-toe shoes? Because I want to push back. Because I want to say that on my watch, that is not true. There is hope. It is possible for things to be different. It isn’t always going to be this way. I want to have a part in making God’s promises true for those sweet little children and their families.

I know their circumstances say,  “God doesn’t love you, because He doesn’t care about this bad thing that’s happening to you. He isn’t providing for you.” I want to take every opportunity to counter that message with the truth – “God cares so very much for you. He will provide for you because He loves you.”

The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.  John 10:10

God is always in the business of ransoming what’s been stolen, rescuing what’s been snatched. There is no lack in the love of God. There’s no shortfall or inadequacy. Nothing is overlooked or forgotten about. He makes extraordinary promises of fullness and abundance to people who are starving in the desert. And then He sets about delivering on them.

When my family packaged meals that day, we made a payment towards a deficit. Love’s currency was grains of rice. We bought back childhood as it’s meant to be for hundreds of kids. We got to be part of God’s rescue mission.

Just think of all the Scriptures that will come true in what we do!  Romans 15:13 MSG

I plucked a tiny shell from the shoreline and turned it over in my hand. It’s probably the grit that polished it to such luster. Wearing it down, wearing it away. A ceaseless tumbling that left it smooth and beautiful. I would have passed it by if it looked like the countless other shells washed up on the shore. But its tiny, glistening pearlescence drew me to pluck it from the countless, gritty grains of sand that crowded around it.

What story could it tell of all that it had been through? I’m sure it started off bigger and far more impressive. Ridged and bumpy. Purposeful and proud. And somewhere along the way, it was cast-off into the ocean’s tumble, where it was broken to pieces. Chewed up and spit onto the shore, where it wound up half-hidden in the dirt.

And there it glowed in defiance of all it had been through.

There’s grit that wears us down, that tries to break us and bury us. And there’s grit that keeps us from being worn completely away. It’s the part in us that won’t quit, that refuses to give in, that doesn’t know the meaning of giving up. It’s that bit in us that refuses to be defined by circumstances, appearances, or history.

Part of it is endurance, but sand has endured the ocean’s careless handling and been left rough, dull, lifeless. Endurance alone only gets us so far.

The difference is hope. Hope that holds on tenaciously, relentlessly, that will not let go. Hope is what sets the broken apart from the rubble.  Hope is what makes a fragment shine with incandescent beauty. Because hope says all is not lost. More is coming.

There’s a Savior, a Rescuer, who “lifts the poor from the dust and the needy from the garbage dump” (Psalm 113:7). Hope refuses to lose sight of Him. No matter how rough the ocean, no matter how many grains of sand try to bury us, hope is the grit that pushes back and uses it all to polish its shine even brighter.