Musings from Graceland

CAN YOU DIE HAPPY?

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God is obviously trying to tell me something. Last night I posted about our pastor's recent sermons. And then this a.m., I visit one of my new favorite blogs and found that Seth Barnes , of Adventures in Missions, spoke on the same subject yesterday morning. Two different men in two different states who don't even know each other, but definitely know the same God. I believe that God takes His church through different lessons. For the last 10 years or so, it seemed like every where I turned I was hearing the message of God's radical grace. Christians from all sorts of the faith spectrum were getting turned on to God's undeserved love and acceptance and it was setting them free.

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Now it seems like He's doing a new waking up...this time I believe that He's telling us to get radical with our walk and do what is needed to help the least of these. "Safe" Christianity is not going to provide the answers to today's generation and today's problems. We're going to have to get our hands dirty and be willing to get out of our comfort zone if we're going to do the job we as a church are called to do...visit the sick and imprisoned, feed the hungry, clothe the poor, satisfy the thirsty....you know, doing pure religion which is described in the Bible as caring for the orphans and widows.

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Seeing all the pain and poverty in the world can be overwhelming. The HUGE problems can make us feel so inadequate that we just give up too often before even starting. But God doesn't want us to rescue the whole world. He's got a special plan using our special gifts, skills, resources, and passions in a special way. He has dreams for us.

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Here's what Seth Barnes has to say on the subject:

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"[Yesterday] I spoke on the subject, "Can You Die Happy?" And it leads me to ask you, my blog readers, what is your dream? In other words, what will it take for you to die happy? Maybe you have a dream of helping orphans somewhere in the world. Maybe you want to help your church address the AIDS crisis in Africa. Maybe you have a dream of living in a community in the city and touching the homeless. We have to do our dreams or at least give them our best shot to fulfill our purpose. Doing so ties into God's ultimate global end-game."

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To read the rest of his blog post, go to What is God's Dream for the World?

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And then ask yourself as I'm asking myself, am I really living for something bigger than myself? Am I really living, not the "American dream" of financial prosperity and security, but the dream of God's heart...bringing spiritual prosperity and the security of God's grace and unconditional love to those God's calling me to live for...and even to die for.