I just got a facebook message from one of my Camp Joy kids. I've spent only 5 days a year with him for 4 summers, and it's been over a year since I've last seen him. Yet, out of the blue, he sends me this message saying how I'm like a brother to him. That he remembers when we prayed together, just us two. That when his guardians yell at him, he remembers all the love he felt at camp. That no one's ever led him to You God like I have.... What the hell is that, God!?!?!
He says those things about me? It's been over a year, and I was only with him for 5 days a year before that. Where are the parents he deserves? Where's the environment and the neighborhood he deserves? Where's the school and the opportunities he deserves? Where's the security and the family and the constant love he deserves? Where's your church, God? Answer me! I'm so angry at you God! You mean you've put no one else in his life to love him and lead him to You, except the crazy white college kids he sees 5 days a year, college kids he's too old to see at Camp now? I don't understand God, but I will love these kids until it kills me, even if their maker won't.
I don't trust you, God. I trust you with Keith. You've done nothing but lavish blessings on me--education, family, opportunities, love. What I don't trust you with are all these kids I see all around me. Kids labeled high risk because they aren't first in anyone's lives. Because You aren't loving them like you're loving me. I see you bring Heaven to me, beneath my feet, here in this world everyday; but I don't trust you to bring about Heaven here for all these kids. Heaven here. Heaven now. I don't trust that one day You'll make all this okay, but that won't stop me from giving and working and hurting and dying and trying until every youth I meet knows and feels they're loved, and then lives in that love so completely that their lives become dedicated to the same suicidal purpose of persisting in love.
I don't trust you. I'm having too hard a time seeing past what I see right now. I see too many without any love, without any homes, without any hope. Too many with only the negative as influences. Too many that know despair and abandon more than joy and affection. Too many surrounded by only hatred and selfishness. Too many orphaned. Too many never hearing the words,
"I love you. I believe in you."No God. I don't trust you. Not with that. They're too valuable, too priceless for flippant and reckless trust.
I don't trust you, God.
But I want to.
I read in one of Your scriptures today, Luke 9, that popular Sunday School story about Jesus feeding the 5,000 with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. I don't believe you, I don't trust you for miracles like that anymore. But I want to. I want to believe in a God that preaches healing and hope to hurting people, and a God that when others say it's time to send the people home so they can eat, says, "No. We feed them," and a God that then takes a meager meal and turns it into a feast, physically feeding and showing people what Heaven here looks like. A God that is verb-loving the people here, now. I wan't to believe in that kind of God. And how wasteful you were! There were 12 basketfuls of food left over!
God. Take the 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish that I am, and feed 5,000. Prove to me that I'm not wrong in wanting to trust You. Prove to me that you're still a wasteful God. Be wasteful in your use of my life. Show me what Grace and Provision and Love in waste look like.
No comments:
Post a Comment