I had a wake up call this morning as I drove to work this morning. I am confident today is the coldest day yet in what is shaping up to be a very cold winter in Joplin. It is currently 11 degrees outside with a windchill of zero. Our heat went out I am guessing New Year's eve because that was when we noticed it wasn't quite as warm as we were accustomed to in our house. We weren't home much yesterday until late evening when we realized it was really getting quite cold in our home. We checked the thermostat and it was falling below 65. We went to bed with it nearing 60 and when I woke up this morning it was below that mark. When I think of 57 degree weather I really dont think of it as being that cold but when you put that in a very drafty old house with 11 degree weather outside it is suddenly very very cold. I got ready and as I was heading to work I remembered a couple I met at the emergency shelter last January during last year's snow storm. They had come in to stay the night after sleeping in a field the night before. Temperatures had to have been in the teens that night and they were freezing and wet. Suddenly having a home, no matter, how cold it was became a lot rosier picture. I know that God is with those who are stuck out in this cold, but I pray that the area shelters have abundance to take these people in as the weather continues to stay so cold. I pray that these people would be on the minds of everyone in Joplin, Christian or not, and that the homeless would be clothed, fed, and sheltered.
This has been a particularly hard week for me and humanity. Maybe it was because over the break I had more access to CNN and the local news than usual, but continually report after report jsut cried out how mcuh the world needs our love. Not a distant love, but a love that penetrates homes. A love that pulls us into people's lives because we have no other desire but to be there with the weeping, with the hungry, with the joyful. I think sometimes it is hard to just be there for people in need, whatever that need may be. Often I don't feel like I know how to fix (because I don't) and therefore if I have nothing to offer them to ease their burden I should just pray someone who can ease it will come along. How foolish my heart can be! In the greatest empathy for someone's pain and in fear of not fixing it, I turn away? I don't think it is hard to imagine that even had Jesus not had the power to heal, He would have been there. It is precisely in those moments when we give up and just resolve to be with that person that we allow Christ to move in the situation and His glory really be known.
As the New Year starts, I wanted to make a resolution. I have never been one for resolutions, but as Megan also described in her post earlier, I have reached one of those breaking points where I either choose to follow the cross or I depart down a road that only leads me further from Him. I went through highschool and half of college very disenchanted with the church and have since been very cautious of becoming that way again, but sometimes there is a very real and godly reason. When you get so enchanted by the church that you forget to be enchanted by the Church and its Father, there is a very real reason to become disenchanted. The standard set by Christ far supercedes any standard held by a church and I have set my standards to the church's standards rather than Christ. Therefore my resolve is to spend this year consciously racing towards His standards. Learning as best I can to live of this world but not in it. I want to be radically different and not in a cheap, commercially radical sense, but in a way that shows a genuine concern for Christ's concerns above the worlds. I know this is not a one year process but if I could have even on foot out of the world by the end of the year it would be one foot closer to Christ than where I am now and that is entirely worth the struggle. Please pray for me that I will find accountability and discipleship in this, but more importantly that I would dive into the word to discover what this means for myself from His words and His life. Happy New Year!