Africa

So why, you ask, am I keeping a whole section of my computer journal on AFRICA? Am I planning to go there? Well, no. Is GOD planning for me to go there? Well, probably yes.

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I couldn't go with the group we commissioned today because I knew it was God's will for me to go to the worship institute, and I couldn't go off and leave Joe twice in one month. So I was safe this summer.

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But I'm really tired of fighting this thing. It was ok when Robert or someone would make some stirring appeal. I could respond to it initially but later rationalize that perhaps I had been just caught up in the emotion of it.

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But now I feel a pull toward it ALL of the time. I don't know how YOU know when God is speaking to YOU, bloggerbuddies, but in MY case I usually know because it comes as a totally foreign idea and it's often somewhat of a shock.

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Here is what I've got in my computer journal about it so far--

“There they were, overwhelmed with dread when there was nothing to dread.” Psa. 53:5a (I've been dreading this a loooong time!)

Richard Foster, Simplicity—

“If you do travel, give it purpose. Go beyond the splashy travel brochures with their sights of tinseled affluence, and get to anguish and pain and human need.”

Identification with the poor---“We will tutor little ones deprived of basic skills.”

“If the concern involves the well-being of our children, it is often right and good.”

“We need to learn to distinguish a genuine psychological need, such as cheerful surroundings, from an obsession.”

“The life of Christian simplicity is necessarily tied to a concern for the poor and defenseless…for Christ, love of God and love of neighbor were two sides to the same door…our path often leads to the bleeding and broken of humanity.”

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I have no idea WHEN I'll go. It's even POSSIBLE that God will let me send someone else in my place! But I've got to be willing to go.

Today we sang "Surrender" and I sang:

I count it all as loss

For the sake of knowing You

The glory of Your name

To know the lasting joy

Even sharing in Your pain

Well, that's where I've stopped short. I know God is pained by the plight of the little children in Africa, and I haven't been willing to share his pain until today.

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I'm willing now. We'll see what happens.