No time for playing it safe

A quick glance at the news reminds us that these are challenging days in which we live. Unemployment is still north of 9% in the US with little hope of recovery just yet. Syrian forces continue to gun down street protesters. Libya sits on a knife edge, millimeters from complete anarchy. As we dig deeper into the statistics and stories of lives and communities we see and hear things that trouble us much more deeply. Nearly a quarter of the people in the world today have never heard of Jesus once. Many of them are also suffering unimaginable pain brought on by poverty and its impact. I have been sharing about the communities where rape and STD's are the norm; that nearly a million people, mostly women and children, will be trafficked into slavery this year. Today 27,000 people, mostly women and children, will die from hunger-related diseases. At least three times that will die today and, as far as we know, go into a lost eternity.

God has brought the Parable of the Talents to my mind many times in the last year. I am not going to comment much on it because I think the words below from The Message speak for themselves. Just remember that Jesus put this in the context of "This is what the Kingdom heaven is like". There is an expected urgency from the Master, a wise use of what we have been given, regardless of the quantity. There is no room for, "But you only gave me one." There was a serious consequence for "playing it safe", holding on to what we have now and not seeking to take risks and invest for the sake of the master. These are not days to play it safe -- there is too much at stake for the people mentioned above and we have been called by the Master to be involved in taking the transformational message of the gospel in word and deed.

Here is how Jesus puts it in Matthew 14-30 (The Message):

"It's also like a man going off on an extended trip. He called his servants together and delegated responsibilities. To one he gave five thousand dollars, to another two thousand, to a third one thousand, depending on their abilities. Then he left. Right off, the first servant went to work and doubled his master's investment. The second did the same. But the man with the single thousand dug a hole and carefully buried his master's money. 

"After a long absence, the master of those three servants came back and settled up with them. The one given five thousand dollars showed him how he had doubled his investment. His master commended him: 'Good work! You did your job well. From now on be my partner.'

"The servant with the two thousand showed how he also had doubled his master's investment. His master commended him: 'Good work! You did your job well. From now on be my partner.'


"The servant given one thousand said, 'Master, I know you have high standards and hate careless ways, that you demand the best and make no allowances for error. I was afraid I might disappoint you, so I found a good hiding place and secured your money. Here it is, safe and sound down to the last cent.'

"The master was furious. 'That's a terrible way to live! It's criminal to live cautiously like that! If you knew I was after the best, why did you do less than the least? The least you could have done would have been to invest the sum with the bankers, where at least I would have gotten a little interest.


"'Take the thousand and give it to the one who risked the most. And get rid of this "play-it-safe" who won't go out on a limb. Throw him out into utter darkness.'"

What ever it takes..... are we ready?

It was like stepping back in time or onto the set of an old western movie. Dry season ensured that everything had a layer of fine dust covering it. Small half-clothed children sat playing by the side of the road, their cheeks and eyes a little darker as the tears they had been crying washed the dust away, at least for now.

A number of men are slouched in plastic chairs, their glazed eyes giving away the truth of their alcohol addiction.

Colorfully clothed women sat at the side of the road behind their stalls with piles of ripe tomatoes, hoping to sell enough to buy corn meal for the family. Others carried heavy loads on their heads as they make their way from one task to the next. Most women had a baby cleverly strapped to their back with only the head peeking out.

I was taking it all in. I had seen scenes like this before so there was no novelty factor or overwhelming feeling.  Then my driver said, "Andrew, every girl in this village will be raped at some point in their life."

How do you cope with that statement? You are not reading it in a book or hearing a report from a returning missionary. You are watching the faces of the young girls who will suffer this horrendous act, seeing the eyes of the women who have already experienced it many times and now suffer both emotionally and physically from STD's and even HIV/AID's. You are now glaring into the faces of the drunkards who most likely are the perpetrators, as they often exercise what they see as their right as a man.

The sad reality is that this is just a small snapshot of the situation our world is in. Whether it is the risk that women and children face from multiple issues linked to impoverished communities, or the plight of the unreached who have yet to hear of Jesus for the first time, we have still so much to do if we are to complete what Jesus asked us to do.

How did this experience impact me? One big way was that I realized that tomorrow for so many is too late. Too late because they will not be alive tomorrow. Too late because they will be sold today. Too late because their dignity and future will be ripped from them today. Now I was feeling overwhelmed. We needed to stop this now. But we will need more people, more prayer, more money. Our recent totals have shown me that we can't provide more of any of them. If we are to provide for them we will need to change how we do what we do, and do it soon because one or two extra people or a few thousand more dollars will not suffice. I was filled with the fear that we will not be able to change quickly enough.

Then I shone the light on my own life and realized how I allow my preferences, my comfort, the way I want to do things, to drive what gets done rather than, "What is it going to take to see these lives and communities transformed today?" I was rebuked inside. How much have I held back progress by my lack of willingness to change? 

I want to challenge us as a team -- we need to be very careful that we are not doing anything that causes the advancement of the hope of the gospel to be hindered. There is just too much at stake. It could be a lack of urgency, a process or system we have become comfortable with and don't want to change, or a rut we have gotten into that has caused us to lose focus or momentum.

Paul said, "I consider my life worth nothing to me if only I may finish the race and complete the task the master has given me of testifying to the gospel of God's grace."

We entered into a strategic planning process to ask the question, "What will it take to see more people, prayer and money raised up?" Although we are still working this through and do not know what those changes will be, I can assure you that there will be changes. These changes are not to satisfy some crazy desire to do things differently but are driven from a deep desire of the leadership team, and many others on the team, to find a way to meet the incredible need for resources, in order to see lives and communities, like the one I just experienced, transformed by the love of Christ.

So let's be prepared to change. To change whatever it takes. Let's do it for the sake of the gospel. Let's be ready to see our personal preferences as worth nothing if only the gospel can go out.