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Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

What Jesus says about the poor

We are Called to Serve, Not Solve

September 27, 2013 By Michelle

I heard the crying as soon as the engine died. It was hard to ignore, our respective vehicles only feet apart, our windows rolled down to let in the hot wind. Her SUV was pulled to the curb across the street outside the school, my mini-van on the opposite side. As soon as she turned the key, the quiet of the neighborhood settled around us. Glancing up from the book in my lap, I lowered my glasses. She was crying all right, sobs muffled as she held her head in her hands.

I read the same paragraph four times straight, all the while praying the woman would get control of herself.

I didn’t want to approach her. I didn’t want to ask if she was okay. I didn’t want to deal with the awkwardness, the discomfort. I didn’t want to walk straight into a stranger’s pain. I wanted to sit in my car with my book in my lap and ignore the sounds of distress. I wanted to push the button on the side of my door and roll up the automatic window so I didn’t have to hear or see or acknowledge.

She didn’t stop crying.

I put my book face-down on the passenger seat, clicked open the lock, swung open the door. I walked five steps across the street, my eyes on the pavement as I approached her window. “I don’t want to intrude on your privacy,” I said to the woman in the car, lifting my eyes to meet hers. “But you seem upset, and, well, can I do anything to help?”

Mascara was smudged like charcoal on both of her cheeks. Her eyes were red-rimmed, bloodshot and raw. “No, no, I’m okay, I’m okay,” she gulped, staring down at her lap. “I’m okay,” she said again, glancing up at me standing outside her window.

“Okay,” I said. I lifted my hand to touch her arm, but I stopped just short, resting it on the door frame of her car instead. “Okay,” I repeated. “I just wanted to make sure. Let me know if I can do anything though.” I stood there for a half-second, my hand on her car, grappling for something, anything else to say. But there was nothing.

I walked back to my car and slid into the front seat. I picked up my book again, but I didn’t read another word.

I didn’t do anything to help the woman in the car. I didn’t ease or pain or assuage her suffering. I didn’t solve her problems. The only thing I’d done was heed the nudge I’d felt deep inside me, the nudge I’d wanted to ignore.

I think sometimes we forget that poverty – whether poverty of spirit or poverty of circumstances — isn’t our problem to solve. Jesus didn’t command us to go out and solve the world’s problems. He didn’t instruct us to go out and singlehandedly obliterate suffering. He simply commanded we go out.

Go out and show compassion.

Go out and offer help to one person in need.

Go out and love our neighbor.

It’s easy to succumb to apathy in the face of the world’s problems. Pain is everywhere. Poverty is rampant. Everyone is suffering, everyone is carrying a burden. It’s easy to conclude, Why bother? What’s the point? What can I do, one person amid millions of suffering and burdened, millions of hopeless and sick. 

But the point isn’t really what one person can or can’t do. It’s whether one person will or won’t serve.  Jesus asks us, commands us, to serve. Not to solve, but simply to serve. We won’t always make a noticeable difference. The story won’t always have a happy ending. But he asks us to hear the call and to heed it nonetheless.

“Poverty is not necessarily an issue to solve; it is an opportunity to serve. As we go through each day, our heart’s cry should be, Lord, where would you have me give, serve, and invest myself to bring hope to the poor?” — Orphan Justice author, Johnny Carr

 

If you’re hesitating to answer the call to sponsor a child in need because you’re discouraged by the enormity of global poverty, remember this: sponsoring a child isn’t an opportunity to solve a problem necessarily, it’s an opportunity to serve. If you are hearing the call to do something today, even just one little tiny something, listen and heed.

 

Filed Under: Compassion, poverty, serving Tagged With: Compassion International, serving, What Jesus says about the poor

Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: Radical

January 21, 2013 By Michelle

Two weeks ago, while vacationing in the Florida Keys, I read Kisses from Katie, a memoir written by a woman who, when she graduated from high school, moved to Uganda, launched an education and hunger mission and adopted 14 orphan girls – all before she turned twenty.

That’s right, I read Kisses from Katie while lolling on the beach, eating Key Lime Pie and sipping margaritas. The gross irony was not lost on me.

Anyway, Katie made a number of hugely compelling statements in that book, including this:

“I believe that God totally, absolutely intentionally gives us more than we can handle. Because this is how we surrender to Him and He takes over, proving Himself by doing the impossible in our lives.”

Truthfully, I’ve always bought into the adage, “God never gives you more than you can handle.” But now, I’m beginning to wonder if Katie Davis is right.

With only a single cover-to-cover read-through of the Bible under my belt, I can tell you this with certainty: the Bible is radical. Jesus is super radical. And he expects us to be radical, too. Not necessarily move-to-Uganda-and-adopt-14-orphans radical. But radical nonetheless. There’s simply no getting around it. You can’t read the Bible without feeling compelled to do something for the least of these. And if you can, I say you need to go back and read it again.

I’ve been feeling something lately, a movement underfoot, a sense that God wants me to do something big. As Brad said, when I mentioned I’d been feeling a Holy Spirit push, “That’s a little scary.” I agree. It is scary. Because frankly, I don’t want the Holy Spirit to ask me to do something that makes me uncomfortable. I don’t want the Holy Spirit to give me more than I can handle. Sometimes just getting my people off to school with their backpacks and lunch bags and their shoes tied feels like more than I can handle. But I suspect the Holy Spirit has something bigger in mind.

I already wrote about the story in Luke 5 a couple of weeks ago, and it just so happens that we read that very story yesterday in church, which meant I had to write about it again for this post. I wasn’t sure I’d have anything else to say. But I was wrong. It seems that story – especially the part about Simon Peter, James and John dropping their nets, pulling their boats onto the beach and following Jesus – reminds me of Katie Davis, which reminds me that Holy Spirit has something big for me to do.

Leaving their entire livelihood to follow Jesus seems beyond what an ordinary person could handle. But that’s exactly what the ordinary disciples did. And it’s what ordinary Katie Davis did, too. I’m sure they were afraid. I’m sure they wondered if they were making the right decision. I’m sure they felt like the whole thing was a bit much. But they did it anyway.

I don’t know what my “something big” is yet. Honestly, I’ve been avoiding asking God about it. But I have a feeling he’s going to tell me anyway. And along with it, he has this to say:

“There is nothing to fear.” (Luke 5:10) So for now, I’m clinging to that.

Do you believe, like Katie Davis states, that God intentionally gives us more than we can handle? How does that make you feel?

Joining with Ann Voskamp for Her Walk with Him Wednesday series. She’s writing about Radical: Right Where You Are (and she wrote about Katie Davis and Kisses for Katie, too — how ’bout that?!)

 

Welcome to the “Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday” community, a place where we share what we are hearing from God and his Word.

If you’re here for the first time, click here for more information. Please include the Hear It, Use It button (grab the code below) or a link in your post, so your readers know where to find the community if they want to join in — thank you!

Please also try to visit and leave some friendly encouragement in the comment box of at least one other Hear It, Use It participant. And if you want to tweet about the community, please use the #HearItUseIt hashtag.

Thank you — I am so grateful that you are here!

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Click here to get posts in your email in-box. Click here to “like” my Facebook Writer page. Thank you!

 



Filed Under: New Testament, serving, social justice, Use It on Monday Tagged With: Gospel of Luke, Hear It on Sunday Use It on Monday, Katie Davis, Kisses from Katie, Simon fishing, What Jesus says about the poor

Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: Cutting Straight to the Chase

January 7, 2013 By Michelle

I’ll tell you the truth. The first time I read the Gospel of Luke from the opening verse to the last I panicked. In fact, every time I read the Gospel of Luke I panic.

I panic because it’s always so clear that I am falling far short of Jesus’ expectations.

The problem, of course, is that Luke tells it straight. He cuts right to the chase, to the heart of the Gospel, which is simply this: love God; love your neighbor. And he tells us exactly how to do that, in verses like these:

“If you have two shirts, give one to the poor.” (Luke 3:11)

“If you have food, share it with those who are hungry.” (Luke 3:11)

He also tells us what will happen if we don’t heed his instructions. We’ll pay the price, that’s what. We’ll be like chaff, separated from the wheat with a winnowing fork and burned. (Luke 3:17) We’ll be like the tree that doesn’t produce good fruit: chopped down and thrown in the fire. (Luke 3:9)

I think sometimes I try to sugarcoat the Gospels – to gloss over the scary, intimidating parts, the verses about chaff and chopped wood and never-ending fire. I pretend I don’t see the tough-love parts, the parts where Jesus tells me he means business.

But the truth is, I can’t come away from the Gospel of Luke making any ifs, ands or buts for myself. If I read the words, all the words, there’s no space in that text for excuses.  Luke doesn’t offer any wiggle room. He states the case, Jesus’ case, without any frills or fanfare, and he puts the burden on one person: me.

So here’s the question I’m asking myself these days – the same one the crowds asked John the Baptist when they came to the edge of the river.

What should I do?

The question feels complicated. Or perhaps I try to make it complicated.

But the answer is simple, right there in black and white:

If you have two shirts, give one to the poor.

If you have food, share it with those who are hungry.

What’s been your experience in reading the Gospel of Luke? Have you found his emphasis on serving the poor to be convicting in any way? What’s one small way you can give to the poor or share with the hungry this week? 

: :

Welcome to the “Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday” community, a place where we share what we are hearing from God and his Word.

If you’re here for the first time, click here for more information. Please include the Hear It, Use It button (grab the code below) or a link in your post, so your readers know where to find the community if they want to join in — thank you!

Please also try to visit and leave some friendly encouragement in the comment box of at least one other Hear It, Use It participant. And if you want to tweet about the community, please use the #HearItUseIt hashtag.

Thank you — I am so grateful that you are here!

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Click here to get posts in your email in-box. Click here to “like” my Facebook Writer page. Thank you!



Filed Under: Gospels, serving, social justice, Use It on Monday Tagged With: What Jesus says about the poor

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For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a Triple Type A, “make it happen” (my dad’s favorite mantra) striver and achiever (I’m a 3 on the Enneagram, which tells you everything you need to know), but these days my striving looks more like sitting in silence on a park bench, my dog at my feet, as I slowly learn to let go of the false selves that have formed my identity for decades and lean toward uncovering who God created me to be.

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