Rubbish

Have you ever stopped and wondered why we are as blessed as we are compared to so much of the rest of this world? Lately that has been my question. Why me? Why am I the lucky one who was born in America, into a Christian family. Born into the middle class. I have never that I can remember missed a meal in my life because it was unavoidable. I have never done without shoes or clothes. Without a warm bed or a hot shower. I may not always have the best or biggest of anything. But I am rich. And there is a good chance that if you are reading this you are too. RICH. I am not talking about in the spiritual sense, although that may hold true in your life as well. I am talking about the fact that you and I are literally wealthy in comparison to close to half of the world. The thought overwhelms me.

In many other countries it is not uncommon for families to be trying to make it on less than a couple dollars a day. What you and I throw away on fast food. I can not even begin to comprehend this enormous, gut wrenching thought.

I am itching to go. To see this and touch this. To have my life, my faith, myself stretched, pulled, disfigured by this reality. To touch poverty. To bring light to the hopeless. To get out of this comfortable life that I have held onto way too tightly for far too many years.

Daily I see the struggle within myself. Daily. The struggle between my desire to lay it all at the foot of the cross and the things of this world. Everything is so temporary, yet it seems so easy to forget this fact in the day to day. While the Lord has brought me a long way from where I was in this battle I still have so, so far to go.

Why me?

This year as the holiday season is rapidly approaching I am viewing things in an entirely different light.

Praying He will continue to change my heart to the idea of Philippians 3:7-8
"But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, this I may gain Christ."