Through Foreign Eyes

Can you imagine what it would be like to wake up tomorrow and in a different country? For some of us if we had input on which country-we would do it in a heart beat. A different language, different cultural things, different food (still remember eating cow stomach in Africa), different customs, etc. Things would not be the same as it is here in the good 'ol USA. What if you didn't have a say in where you would wake up? What if it wasn't a place you would ever want to go, or even knew where it existed on a map? No time to prep and learn the new language, the sites to go see, etc. Just BAM one day you are in a different world.

I think that some people who live here right next to us experience that exact same thing. They don't have to hop on a plane and travel to the other side of the world-they simply wake up and wonder "how in the world did I end up here", or "where am I?"

I was taking groceries to my truck and the wind was so bitter cold, below zero wind chill, and I thought of the homeless person and prayed wondering if any of them were left out in the cold. I wanted to run and jump in the truck and then finish the prayer, but I thought I would walk slowly to the truck feeling the sting on my face just for a few minutes trying to feel even a little what someone spending the night would be feeling like. I am surely not the only one who is thinking about them, but those of us that are..we are thinking that someone else will do something about it. Tomorrow it will be just as cold, and so will the next day. If they are able to wake up in the morning, they will have to face it all over again. But someone else will step up-right?

I wonder as I prayed at dinner, thanking God for always providing food on the table and asking Him to be with those without food tonight. I wondered like standing in the cold air, should I not eat for a day, two days or three? Just so I can feel, truly feel what it is like to go without food. When I was at Culinary school I learned that the average restaurant wastes 12-18% of it's food that it takes in. The average home, over 30% is wasted. From scraps as we prepare food to uneaten leftovers still in the fridge. How many starving people could we save from just our waste? Who knows but someone else will step up-right?

Who will step up? Who will be the next one to help someone in need? I know I am not doing my part, this is so much I can do. But dream with me for just a moment. How would this world, this country, this state or this town look differently if we did step up? If we just did more than we did yesterday? If just the Christians alone did what Jesus asked us to do? Who would be hungry? thirsty? need to be clothed? who would need to be visited or invited in? Is Matthew 25 just something we do once a year in the Fall, to make us feel like we have "done our part". Our feel good weekend? Great things happen that weekend, don't get me wrong, but how would needs be met if that happened twice a year? 6 times a year? monthly? daily? if this happened we would need to have to focus on the spiritual needs of those around us, because their physical needs would have been met. And many of them would be knocking down the church door wondering who this Jesus guy really is, because this time..people didn't just walk by looking the other way.


I watch this young man light up in just a few hours. For years darkness has hovered over him. He is looking at things from a very different perspective. The smallest smile or the most simple question allows him to know that he is alive and you notice. That's all it took. I am sure it wont be that easy in the days to come, but for now I rest knowing that sometimes it is the smallest things that make the biggest difference when your heart is in the right place.

We wont do it, living the same life we lived yesterday. We will not impact those around us if we continue to focus inwardly on our own lives or competing with the Jone's to get what they have.

You want to do something, die to yourself today and ask what God what would he have you do. Be careful for what you ask for, because what He might ask might change your world forever.....and change THE world forever.