Pizza and Choices

Its a treat not a meal.  This is what I almost daily say to my kids when they want a second piece of cake, extra snacks, or more juice.  I did not listen to this wise advice the other night.  I ate a lot of pizza and cookies. Not like, "Oh a little bit of pizza would be great with a small cookie"  But more like "If I don't eat this pizza and dish of cookie bars the whole world could implode" ate pizza and cookies.   I had generally avoid these foods as a healthy living choice but I decided to have a treat.  It was delicious.  Treats are not bad but when we get out of control with our treats and turn them into meals we have a problem.  The next day for lunch there wasn't much to eat aside from leftovers so again...I dove in.  After pizza and cookies I fell into a sort of sugar coma.  I slept for about an hour.  It was not my finest moments. 
As I lay on my bed and slowly started to come out of my sugar coma I realized a decision needed to be made.  I needed to choose to take new direction in my actions or continue to wallow in my poor eating choices.  So, I got up, laced up my sneakers and went for a run.  Sometimes we need to acknowledge where we are and make a conscious change. 

This story can apply to so many avenues of our lives.  We say something constructive and then figure if we already started we might as well truly say what's on our mind.  We can't help it.  Its just how we are.  Or maybe its a bad attitude.  We try to hold in our frustrations and instead of talking about whats truly going on we rattle off the entire laundry list of annoyances of the week.  It's not like it is our fault that everyone gets on our nerves.  Or maybe its laziness.  We sit down to watch one episode of our favorite TV show for a short rest and end up several hours later still in front of the TV with no excuse for why nothing on our "to-do" list got done. 

God created humans with a free will.  We get to make choices.  And we can make good ones or bad ones.  When we recognize that we have made a poor choice we can either keep going or make some new decisions to get on a better track.  Some times it is a slow recovery.  Sometimes there are irreparable consequences for our actions but we can always choose to turn a corner and make better choices so that we don't rack up a bigger and bigger pile of consequences. 

This is the Christian life.  The opportunity to choose good.   It's what shows the world what changes Jesus can bring in a person.  We make the hard but good choices.  We choose grace when it seems there is no room.  We choose love when others hate.  We choose to help when others only watch.  We choose.  And when we do choose poorly we own up to it.  Sometimes it is the choices we make after choosing poorly that shows the world that Jesus makes a difference.  Being a follower of Jesus gives us the power to make those hard but good decisions.  It also gives us the wisdom and strength to make amends for poor decisions of our past.  And when those times come and we make bad decisions, we can quickly turn away from the bad and turn back to God.  We can let it be a short set back  not a meal. 

Kitchen Brooms and Last Words

I saw a woman today trying to clean up a landslide with a kitchen broom.  I laughed and my team member Jennifer took a photo to document the ridiculous event.  Have you even seen a problem but not had the right tools to deal with it properly?  

Jennifer and I drove into Chaguarpamba today to have some discipleship time with our small groups.  It was as normal a day as could be expected. Once we drove into town we knew all of our plans had gone out the window.  Sadly, as we drove into town we saw that there was a large procession of townspeople walking together towards the local catholic church.  There was a tent set up with many chairs stacked up in front of our friends home.  We quickly figured out that it was a funeral procession and after a quick question to a nearby neighbor we found out that the brother of our dear friend Samuel had died.

It was another reminder of why we are trying to move to Chaguarpamba.  We want to be a part of the lives of our friends and not just a weekly meeting.  I am so grateful that we arrived in town when we did today.  I am thankful we were able to offer a warm embrace and a word of hope.  

As we sat in the church and listened to the priest i felt a heaviness in the room.  The priest told of how Freddy (Samuel's brother) had died from alcohol poisoning.  He then began to preach to his audience of how they should not be like Freddy. Learn to control yourself.  Behave.  Work harder to control yourself.  He then asked for all the mourners to begin to pray that Freddy's sins would be forgiven.  Everything in me wanted to shout out "ITS TOO LATE!!!"  An entire room of people sitting their believing they could pray him into heaven was so heart breaking for me.  Such a lost group of people being led by a man who didn't understand scripture himself.  It was suffocating.  

As I sat and listened I wondered what Freddy would have thought if he knew that the only thing spoken about him at his funeral was "Don't be like him".  I had met Freddy several times.  He was a rough character who was generally drunk when I saw him.  He once gifted me a couple of mangoes and made googly eyes at me as if to say "come hither".  I politely accepted the mangoes and declined the come hither.  

That was all i ever really knew about Freddy.  A few encounters and only one thing stood out; his drinking problem.  He had the wrong tools to remedy his situation.  His brother Samuel, and Samuel's family have been in discipleship with us for about 8 months.  They are seeking after God and sharing what they have learned with others; with people like Samuel's brother Freddy.  He was offered the correct tools (salvation through the gift of Jesus Christ) but he chose to keep chipping away at the landslide of his life with a kitchen broom (alcohol).  

It got me thinking about my own mortality.  When the day comes that I arrive in heaven before my God and Savior what will those left behind say of me?  Will they talk about my faults?  My shortcomings?  I really hope not.  I hope that they talk about my love for God and honestly if all they talked about was God and not me a snip i would be elated.  After all its not about me.  And its ALL about God.  

I sat in the church looking at the sea of people dressed in black.  I saw so many people needing to know that there was hope.  They see pain and suffering on a regular basis.  They live hard lives.  But if they only knew that there was hope.  If they could only see that rather than trying to work for their salvation that they could receive the free gift of eternal life, that hard life might not seem so hard.  They could find joy and peace.  They need the right tools.  

 I pray that we can continually encourage this family and many others to discover the correct supplies that God provides through scripture to handle what life throws at them.   I pray that tonight as Samuel and his family rest their heads on their pillows to sleep that they rest in the assurance that they have found in Christ.  I pray that God would be their comforter.  And I pray that when it is their time to enter heaven, that those left behind would speak of the God they served and the Jesus they knew and shared.