Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

Hole in Our Gospel

The Hole in Our Gospel: Hunger is Not a Luxury

By

I’ve never tried a fast as a spiritual discipline. I think part of me is afraid I’ll fail. As a “grazer,” I can’t imagine not eating every couple of hours or so.

Nonetheless, what strikes me about the spiritual discipline of fasting is that we in America have the luxury to try it if we so wish. We can choose to go without food in order to strengthen our faith or deepen our relationship with God.

But for 854 million people across the globe, “fasting” isn’t a choice at all but a brutal daily existence. For these people who cannot choose whether to eat or not, “fasting” is simply starvation – and it’s not a luxury, or a spiritual discipline, but a matter of life and death.

If I were to fast, I suspect I’d feel pretty good about myself. I suspect I’d consider my one-day fast a significant sacrifice. I might even pat myself on the back when my fast was done and thank God for the opportunity to grow closer to him. What I might not realize, though, is that my self-imposed hunger is barely a glimpse of what millions of people endure every day, week after week, month after month.

How terribly ironic: what I might choose to impose temporarily on myself is an unavoidable fact for so many.

Lord, help me broaden my approach to the spiritual discipline of fasting. Help me focus my gaze away from my own sacrifice and toward the millions who suffer from hunger, not by their own choice but because of unavoidable circumstances. Help me understand that for many, hunger is not a luxury.

Have you ever fasted? What was the experience like for you?

::

This post is part of the ongoing series on The Hole in Our Gospel, by Richard Stearns. Six other writers and I are writing a post a day for six weeks as part of my church’s small group study. Want to read other reflections? Click here. I post my reflections here on Tuesdays.

Would you kindly consider “liking” my Writer Facebook page by clicking here? Thank you, thank you for helping me build this platform brick by brick! [or should I say click by click?]

Or if you would prefer, you can get a dollop of “Graceful” in your email in-box every day (or however many days a week I post) or via the reader of your choice, by clicking here. Easy-peasy!

The Hole in Our Gospel: Cross Walkers

By

My friend Deidra once mentioned to me that when she arrives at her office each morning, she takes a moment to walk around the cubicles, placing her hands on each of her coworkers’ chairs as she prays for each of them. Deidra takes a “cross walk” each morning to pray peace and love onto her coworkers before they arrive to begin their workday.

I admit, I’m not apt to pray for my coworkers. But Deidra’s “cross walk” got me thinking. I do pray for people – I keep a list of names in a notebook, and I pray for these individuals each morning after my Bible study. While some are people you’d expect to find on a prayer list: loved ones and friends – people I love and know well who are ill, grieving or suffering – others on my prayer list are people I’ve never actually met in person, bloggers I’ve gotten to know online or friends of friends who I know are suffering. I don’t know them, but I pray for them every day.

This comforts me, because I know that others do the same for me. I’m guessing that every day, someone I don’t expect is praying for me. I may not be aware of it, but they are praying just the same.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” (Psalm 23:4)

Who are these strangers and acquaintances who pray for us? Who are these “cross walkers,” walking with us as we navigate the peaks and valleys of life? They are God in each of us – His rod, His staff, His love, His Spirit, embodied in each of us so that we may shine His light onto others.

Dear God, help me discern who in my life – friend, loved one, acquaintance, stranger – needs me to “cross walk” with them through the valley. Shine Your light through me so that I may offer Your comfort, love and peace.

Question for you: Tell me about a time a “cross walker” made a difference in your life.

::

This post is part of the ongoing series on The Hole in Our Gospel. Six other writers and I are writing a post a day for six weeks as part of my church’s small group study. Want to read other reflections? Click here. I post my reflections here on Tuesdays.

Would you kindly consider “liking” my Writer Facebook page by clicking here? Thank you, thank you for helping me build this platform brick by brick! [or should I say click by click?]

Or if you would prefer, you can get a dollop of “Graceful” in your email in-box every day (or however many days a week I post) or via the reader of your choice, by clicking here. Easy-peasy!

The Hole in Our Gospel: It’s My Problem, Too

By

I admit, there have been times when I’ve blamed poor people for being poor. Part of me has secretly believed that if someone is poor, they must have done something – or not done something – to get there. Maybe they didn’t try hard enough to find work. Perhaps they are simply unmotivated. Maybe they aren’t smart enough or aren’t using their intelligence well. Whatever the reason, I tell myself that the poor are at least partially to blame for their own dire circumstances.

What I often forget, and what Richard Stearns points out, is that poverty actually results from a lack of real choices. While I am often able to see a direct correlation between how hard I work and the results that hard work produces, most of the world’s population reap no such reward for their labor.

“Think about your own life,” Stearns suggests. “How successful would you or your family have been if you had lived in a place where there was no clean water and one-quarter of all children died before their fifth birthday?”

Honestly, I hadn’t really thought about the big picture of poverty before. It’s been easier for me to blame the individual, because when I look at the big picture, I am confronted by this fact:

I play a big role in the existence of global poverty.

When God says this in Isaiah 10:1-2, “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people,” he’s talking directly to me. My narrow-mindedness toward the poor is a form of oppression. In making generalized assumptions about the poor, I am, in fact, withholding justice from them.

And God won’t let me get away with that; he holds me accountable. He tells me that I, too, am responsible for global poverty, because I allow it to exist.

God, please open my eyes and my mind to my role in global poverty. Help me understand that it’s not simply “someone else’s problem.” Give me the tools and the courage to make it my problem, too, and the will to do something about it.

Question for you: Have you ever blamed an individual for his or her circumstances?

::

This post is part of the ongoing series on The Hole in Our Gospel. Six other writers and I are writing a post a day for six weeks as part of my church’s small group study. Want to read other reflections? Click here. I post my reflections here on Tuesdays.

Might you be interested in getting Graceful posts in your e-mail in-box or the reader of your choice for free? Subscribe here!

The Hole in Our Gospel: The Spirit of the Lord is on Me

By

The first time I read the Gospel of Luke a few years ago, it scared me. Up to that point I had a vague understanding of Jesus’ desire that we care for the poor, but poverty had always been a problem I kept at arm’s length. Luke forced me to see that if I am going to proclaim belief in Jesus, then I’d better be prepared to act on that belief.

Luke convicted me: I wasn’t doing my job.

Jesus clarifies this responsibility in Luke 4:16-21 when he unrolls the scroll from Isaiah and reads: “The spirit of the Lord is on me to preach good news to the poor…to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and the recovery of sight for the blind…to release the oppressed.”

Jesus doesn’t simply refer to his own role; he refers to our responsibility, too. The spirit of the Lord is on me to preach the good news to the poor. It’s on me to proclaim freedom for prisoners, to recover sight for the blind and to release the oppressed.

I love the way Richard Stearns defines this responsibility in his introduction to The Hole in Our Gospel: “…being a Christian, or follower of Jesus Christ, requires much more than just having a personal and transforming relationship with God,” says Stearns. “It also entails a public and transforming relationship with the world.”

Really? So it’s not all about me?

No, Luke tells me, it’s most certainly not all about me and my personal relationship with God. As Stearns notes, “The good news is meant to change the world. Belief is not enough. Worship is not enough. Personal morality is not enough. And Christian community is not enough. God has always demanded more…Living out our faith privately was never meant to be an option.”

I’m convicted.

What about you?

Lord, as I begin to understand Jesus’ mission for me, please guide me in the best ways that I might be able to serve the poor. Please use the Spirit of the Lord in me to preach your good news and act in your name. Amen.

This post is part of the ongoing series on The Hole in Our Gospel. Six other writers and I are writing a post a day for six weeks as part of my church’s small group study. Want to read other reflections? Click here. I post my reflections here on Tuesdays.

The Hole in Our Gospel: Why Do You Worry about Clothes?

By

I’ve always been a shopper – it’s simply something I love to do. And it doesn’t even have to be extravagant shopping – a $5 pair of jeans at the thrift store is enough to produce that “shopping high.”

After a year of not shopping, though, I have a new perspective on stuff. The first few months of my Shop-Not Project were tough as I constantly battled the urge to buy. During that time I realized that I use shopping to fulfill my psychological needs: as a mood improver, a solution for boredom and a confidence booster. I also realized that I view my stuff as a status symbol – wearing a new dress to work or sporting a new pair of earrings makes me feel more confident, and, oddly, smarter and more capable.

In reality, though, outward appearance doesn’t matter one bit to God. He’s less concerned with the brand of my jeans or the color of my hair or how many flat-screen TVs I own, and much more concerned with the state of my heart and how I’m using my God-given gifts to impact others.

“Why do you worry about clothes?” He asks me. And when I read those statistics about poverty – how half the world’s population lives on less than $2 a day – and see those pictures of families with their entire life’s possessions laid on the street, I have to ask myself, “Why do I worry about clothes?”

It’s all about context, and I realize as I study The Hole in Our Gospel that I need to broaden my perspective. When I frame that question – Why do I worry about clothes? – within the context of global poverty, my worries about material possessions seem downright silly.

God, please help me keep a global perspective when it comes to stuff. When my heart turns toward material possessions, please remind me of how much I have and how little I truly need. Please help me focus my heart, my time and my energy not on acquiring more, but on giving more.

::

I am honored and excited to be one of six writers blogging along with The Hole in Our Gospel as part of my church’s small group study. Every Tuesday for the next six weeks I’ll post my piece here. And if you want to read the perspectives of other bloggers, head over to Southwood’s blog.

Want to read and study along with me? Buy The Hole in Our Gospel here. And check out this companion website for quick, insightful actions items you can do every day for six weeks to deepen your understanding of global poverty.

{Oh, and by the way, that’s not my closet!}

** Swing by here tomorrow…I am doing a giveaway! Yippee!