Beautiful Strangers

won’t you tell me now
when did i see you in need of water?
oh, and tell me now
when did i see you hungry on the street?

God, i hear you calling out to me
in the voices of the least of these
calling me to reach beyond my world
to the beautiful stranger...

"beautiful stranger"
rebecca st. james

Sometimes we are so caught up in our own world that we tend to forget that there is a world outside our own.

Sometimes we think that the world our own private world is perfect on its own that we dont seem to care about the imperfect world around us.

About people who think differently from our way of thinking. Who live differently from the way we live our lives. Whose manners might not seem to be as refined as ours. Or who might not seem to be as logical and rational as we are. Whose culture seem to be a bit off track, laid back or even outdated. Who worship a diety who is in no way comparable to the God we worship...

And this is my point, really. Most culture are shaped by the kind of faith they have. culture and religion are most of the time so intertwined that we cannot sometimes tell one from the other. A certain people can be so laid back but that's because they have been taught to walk the middle path. To not go to both extremes of apathy and arrogance. Then there are those who appear to be so culturally militant and that's because they have been raised to be radical for their faith to the point of going to extremes.

And then there's us. A people who know who they believe and follow. We have been taught to be wise like a serpent and meek like a dove. We have been taught to be passionate about our faith then also share it in humility and meekness. To walk the extra mile if asked. To turn the other cheek if needed to. To feed the hungry. And clothe the naked. And comfort those who mourn. To show kindness and compassion and sacrificial love to those who think such virtues don’t exist. To be compelled by the love of the Almighty. Cause only by then can they know the difference. Between the lotus and the cross. Or the crescent and the cross.

There's us. wonderfully and fearfully made. Chosen. And there's them. Lost. Careless. But still beautiful in God's eyes.

There's us. Set apart… Yet being sent to them... Yes, to them. Beautiful strangers.

Are we gonna heed the call?

Yeah, Seriously...What If?

give me your eyes for just one second
give me your eyes so i can see
everything that I keep missing
give me your love for humanity…

give me your hands for the broken-hearted
the ones that are far beyond my reach
give me your heart for the ones forgotten
give me your eyes so i can see

“give me your eyes"
brandon heath

Seriously. What if God would indeed lend us his eyes for just a second? What do you think would he show us? What would each one of us expect God to show us?

His glory? His glorious presence? It would indeed be more than awesome to even just have a glimpse of his radiant glory. To experience what Paul himself experienced when he was taken up to the third heaven. After all, it is God’s utmost desire to reveal his holy presence, the fullness of his glory, to all his creation. That everyone would bow down to his Majesty. Ah, the glory of God. It is everyone’s desire to have even just a glimpse of it…

Or how about a true picture of hell? How it’s like down there. Would it make us more zealous and passionate to be a witness of his salvation once we have a brief experience of the pit? If I remember it right, the founder of the Salvation Army once said that he wished that everyone in his congregation would have a vision of what hell is, so that they would be more radical for their Lord and be more passionate to witness for him…

Or maybe the end times. You know, the End of Days and the Armageddon… those kind of stuff. What it’s like when the so-called end of the world comes. What would happen during the so-called seven-year Tribulation. And the judgment day. Who really is the anti-christ? (Ouch, it hurts my teeth even just to say that.) To have a clearer picture of what John has vaguely(?) described in the book of Revelations. Doomsday preachers would so love to see all these…

Or would God give us a tour to the unfinished task? To the unreached peoples of the world… The tribes, and tongues, and peoples, and nations, who are yet to hear the message of God’s redemptive plan. People offering food and incense to a monk or some form of deity to make merit and receive blessing. People making pilgrimage to so-called sacred places, to attain some form holiness, purification, enlightenment, or even salvation.

But really… Does God really have to lend us his eyes for us to see the hungry, the hurting, the heart-broken, and the hell-bound? We see them everyday… We pass by them. Or they pass us by. We interact with them. We see them on the morning papers. We see them on the evening news. We see them… with our own naked eyes.

So then, if God would give us his eyes for just one second… or a minute, what do you think would he show us?

Change

put away all i know for tonight
and maybe i just might
learn to let it go…

take my security from me
and maybe finally
i wont have to know everything…

i am falling into grace
to the unknown to where you are
and faith makes everybody scared
it’s the unknown, the don’t-know
that keeps me hanging on and on to you

"unknown"
lifehouse


Change is inevitable. It’s the only thing that’s constant. Change happens in life all the time. And too many times, we are afraid of change. Because what if the change would be unpleasant? So we avoid it. We like the familiar. We like how things are. Change scares us. We are afraid of the unfamiliar.

We can learn from the experience of Elijah and how he faced a major change in his life. After declaring a drought as a prophecy against Ahab (or something like that), God sent him to this place called Kerith. There he was fed by ravens and drew water from a brook. He was Jehovah’s VIP (very important prophet). Life was good for Elijah. Talk about being fed by ravens with bread and steak. Talk about abundant provision of water to drink from a brook while everyone else was experiencing drought and famine. That’s pretty awesome! Until one day, something happened… The brook dried up. Just like that… his VIP life was over. He had to move out and move on. And he was even sent by God to a widow and her son whose food supply was just a handful of flour and a matching little oil. What kind of God would let his provision run out then send this prophet to a poor widow whose food supply wouldn’t even last a day? Isnt it ironic, don’t you think?

Change. It happens all the time. Sometimes when you least expect it. And it blows right in front of you uprepared. Unsuspecting. No warning shot or whatever. We don’t see it coming. So we panic. And we hide. We get scared to venture out to the unfamiliar. We cant possibly go to a poor widow whose food is running out anyway. Talk about recession…

What is your Kerith? What is that brook that you are clinging on to and almost impossible to let go? Sometimes God would require us to let go of the things that we dearly hold on to. To remind us that HE is our real and only security. That he is the source of everything we ever have and we ever desire for. To remind us that we also need to share the grace and goodness we received from him to others.

Thing is, Elijah has become reclusive in his little perfect world. With his brook and ravens. He might have forgotten for a moment that there’s a dying world outside his own recluse. Sometimes we get too attached with our own world, our own brook, that we forget there is a world outside our own. A world of hungry, hurting people. People in dry, dead places waiting for somebody to help them find the River of Life. That just as God has let us experience his love and miracles we also need to let others know of how great Jehovah is. We don’t hoard to ourselves the brook that he has provided for us. We share it. Or help others find their own brook.

Don’t get upset and alarmed over your drying brook. God gives. God takes away. We thank him just the same. Our brooks, whatever they are, are so temporal. Soon they will change. Soon they will dry up... There’s only one permanent... Eternal... Jehovah himself. Soon he will lead us to new brooks, better than the first one…

Change. We fear it. We avoid it. But sometimes, change is all we need. Sometimes change is a good thing. Sometimes, change is everything...