where do i even start?
i serve a God who is gentle and patient with his children. just as he patiently answered a distrusting gideon’s impertinent demand for confirmation, and how he patiently encouraged a disheartened elijah & a fearful moses, he will prove faithful to be patient with me. he knows the manifold fears intrusively clamoring in his children’s hearts, and his presence remains stalwart in the fluctuating levels of conviction and uncertainty, of fearlessness and of overwhelming terror. he is entirely unafraid and capable of meeting me in the messiness of my humanness — after all, was this not the sentiment in jesus’ life and mission? he who knew no sin came down to earth, took on human form, and walked about on this earth. everything he did oozed “i love you, i’m for you, i’m with you. follow me.”
it is in the character of this very real and literally down to earth God that i can draw my sense of well being from. i would be lying if i said i was fearless, or that i feel completely sane making the decision to live in tenderloin for twelve weeks, or that it’s easy for me to ignore the warnings of friends. i ask myself if i somehow lost my brain whenever i see in my mind’s eye the red quadrilateral of thriving crime on the sf map. i have the street smarts of a manic deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming race car (& although this is an exaggeration, i can’t be too sure). my brief exposures to inner city environments are insubstantial: a timid exploration of a small block in santa ana during homeless ministry, a onetime foray along the downtown sd streets filled with sleeping homeless on my way to a jazz concert, an uneventful encounter with a crazy man in fancy downtown la jolla after 7pm, a fleeting & horrified glance at an armless man kissing the ground for measly NT coins in taipei’s bustling & otherwise apathetic shilin night market. i wonder if he’s still there. in short, i got nothing.
i suppose that’s the nature of faith: it is thoroughly counter intuitive. i don’t go into this ill-informed & i still am painfully aware that worrying about my physical well being in the public sphere is a novel and unwelcome experience for me. i feel crazy, but there is something in my gut (rather, Someone in my heart) that tells me He will be faithful to my meager attempts to obey. He multiplies bread & fish, He moves mountains, & i get to be there to see it. my world is going to be flipped unceremoniously upside down & i will be uncomfortable and terrified. but i do know that i serve a really, really big God. and i know that He loves me. that’s what i got. it’s everything.
i serve a God who is gentle and patient with his children. just as he patiently answered a distrusting gideon’s impertinent demand for confirmation, and how he patiently encouraged a disheartened elijah & a fearful moses, he will prove faithful to be patient with me. he knows the manifold fears intrusively clamoring in his children’s hearts, and his presence remains stalwart in the fluctuating levels of conviction and uncertainty, of fearlessness and of overwhelming terror. he is entirely unafraid and capable of meeting me in the messiness of my humanness — after all, was this not the sentiment in jesus’ life and mission? he who knew no sin came down to earth, took on human form, and walked about on this earth. everything he did oozed “i love you, i’m for you, i’m with you. follow me.”
it is in the character of this very real and literally down to earth God that i can draw my sense of well being from. i would be lying if i said i was fearless, or that i feel completely sane making the decision to live in tenderloin for twelve weeks, or that it’s easy for me to ignore the warnings of friends. i ask myself if i somehow lost my brain whenever i see in my mind’s eye the red quadrilateral of thriving crime on the sf map. i have the street smarts of a manic deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming race car (& although this is an exaggeration, i can’t be too sure). my brief exposures to inner city environments are insubstantial: a timid exploration of a small block in santa ana during homeless ministry, a onetime foray along the downtown sd streets filled with sleeping homeless on my way to a jazz concert, an uneventful encounter with a crazy man in fancy downtown la jolla after 7pm, a fleeting & horrified glance at an armless man kissing the ground for measly NT coins in taipei’s bustling & otherwise apathetic shilin night market. i wonder if he’s still there. in short, i got nothing.
i suppose that’s the nature of faith: it is thoroughly counter intuitive. i don’t go into this ill-informed & i still am painfully aware that worrying about my physical well being in the public sphere is a novel and unwelcome experience for me. i feel crazy, but there is something in my gut (rather, Someone in my heart) that tells me He will be faithful to my meager attempts to obey. He multiplies bread & fish, He moves mountains, & i get to be there to see it. my world is going to be flipped unceremoniously upside down & i will be uncomfortable and terrified. but i do know that i serve a really, really big God. and i know that He loves me. that’s what i got. it’s everything.
sidenotes;
i'm tiredddd
