Friday, September 23, 2011

Beautiful feet

"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.  When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me" 1 Corinthians 13:11

There's something captivating about studying the word and singing songs proclaiming Christ as the 'worthy lamb' alongside those that society has proclaimed worthless. Today we headed downtown to see if there were any opportunities for us to serve at the 'beautiful feet ministry' for homeless people.  Straight away the Lord forced me to step up, I went to shake a mans hand (which is bizarre for me to initiate anyway, being an uptight Brit and all) and it wasn't until mid handshake that I realised he had a stump where he had lost one of his fingers, and just as I'm about to start freaking out in my head I'm ushered into the store room to start organizing donations and my attention is demanded elsewhere.  It may sound simple but that's when I realised that as a child of God I am called to be different: different to my shallow instincts and different to the world. At Glorrietta Collegiate week, the speaker spoke a lot about how in order for righteousness to become our true nature we must UPROOT our sin nature to allow good fruit to grow.  I can definitely feel the Lord digging up the roots of my flesh and beginning to slowly replace them with a heart after his that I might "put my childish ways behind me."  Chelsea White quoted this the other day and it stuck with me, 
'The woman who is busy helping the woman below her is too busy to envy the woman above her'
and I think there is great truth in that... we can read books and go to seminars on creating our personal theology but it is not until we go out of our way to "preach good news to the poor..bind up the broken hearted... and proclaim freedom for the captives" that the Lord can fully instill his truth in our thinking and his compassion in our hearts.  For example I've been thinking a lot lately about the value I put on my own life and weather I really would be willing to die for the kingdom, it took a lot of surrender to answer that yes, but its a whole other reality when you are in a situation where you wouldn't be able to protect yourself.  And when Christ whispers 'you are safe' you realise that HAS to be enough...whatever 'safe' might mean to a man crucified at 33 haha.  I'm not really worried that any of these homeless men or women will kill me but I AM realising that for our feet to be beautiful we must go, and that true theology lies in the serving of the Lord.

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