Samuel and Everett have settled right back into life in Dallas enjoying their old toys, bikes and bunk beds. They weren't home for 24 hours before they asked if they could go to McDonalds!
Going from here to there and there to here is an experience that I hope I won't soon forget. It is difficult to boil it all down to one last blog post, but I will just say this...
Over and over again as we drove through the streets, one thing came to mind. It was C S Lewis's quote describing a "child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea." Lewis uses this statement to describe people who are so taken with the things of this world that they find their satisfaction and joy in them instead of heavenly things.
This statement echoed over and over and over again in my head as every day for 6 months I watched children literally squatting in the street playing with dirt as content as they could be. It still resonates in my head as I look back on our experience and I am convicted.
Am I convicted because I didn't love these people enough? Yes.
Am I convicted because I didn't do enough or give enough to help them? Yes.
But those reasons are not what truly convict me. What truly cuts to my heart is that when I remember the sights and smells and sounds of driving through those streets, seeing the slums and children, I realize that I look at that life in the slum and believe that I came home to a holiday at the sea.
I would ride through the streets and be saddened by the idols built all over the city. Men, women and children worshiping the "creature rather than the Creator," but then I would go home and throw a hissy fit over not having hot water. We may not line our streets with temples but we might as well. Living without made me realize how much I worship cleanliness, comfort, and companionship.
In Jesus Christ and through His blood we have the greatest hope. And do not get me wrong, every single citizen of the United States of America is graced with the ability to live here but our hope of heaven is just as great as a naked little child sitting in the mud. We may dress better and have clean water but we are all just as poor, just as needful of a Savior and have just as much reason to hope in so much more than what we have in this world.
"Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
"The Weight of Glory"
Thanks for reading.
