"God Saw That."

With today's lesson focused on servant hood, I'll leave you with a true story (loosely based) that one of the authors of Mission Maker was involved in.

Down in the slums of India was an old, wiry, homeless man with his prized possession being that of an aging donkey and a rickety cart. He was amidst a 20 foot hill of garbage, looking for the days meal as well as some treasure. Atop of the mound of filth he noticed a shiny can. (Garbage for you and me, but to him, this was treasure.)

Now comes the dilemma. If the grandpa of a homeless man leaves his donkey and cart at the bottom of the hill, he risks them being stolen. He also doesn't know if his wire-haired friend is able to scale the mountain of stink. His potential treasure, he decides, is worth the effort of pulling his faithful companion up with him.

This skinny grandpa and his donkey attempting to climb the garbage hill catches the attention of a short-term missionary. At first the missionary found the site amusing. But as he watched the old man struggle up the hill, he knew should help. He didn't want to help. After all, why should he climb the garbage mountain and risk injury. He couldn't talk to the man since he wasn't comfortable with the language. Besides it was really hot out and he had already put in a hard day's work. The missionary continued his argument with God but ultimately lost. Fine.

The young missionary carefully and tentatively started to scale the filth and got behind the donkey. "This is fun." he thought sarcastically. "Scaling a mountain of smelly garbage, stepping in who-knows-what, pushing a donkey's butt up an hill."

As the missionary pushed with great effort he looked up and realized the old man didn't even know he was back there. "That's just great," the young American thought. But he persisted as they were almost to the top. Stumbling, sometimes knee deep in waste, the grandpa and his donkey reached their goal: a dented shiny tin can.

The old man let out a cry of victory and relief when he reached his latest prized possession. Seeing what was the point of American's unnecessary exercise, he frustratingly thought, "That was it! That's what this whole event was for? A tin can not even worthy of recycling?"

Coming back down and very discouraged he thought he learned his lesson. He was tired, his clothes now looking and smelling like the garbage heap, and the old man never even knew he had helped. "Waste of time," the American grumbled.

Upon passing a small shack of a home near the heap, a man, whom the missionary thought was a drunk sleeping, looked up at him and quietly stated, "God saw that."

The moral of the story:
When we do "nice" things, why are we doing them? To feel good? To be noticed and thanked? Or maybe because God is watching and our true "thank you" or "good job" comes from Him.

—b


Tuesday, March 28th, 2006/Matthew chapters 20 and 21

GOD'S MESSAGE FOR ME TODAY
But Jesus called them to Himself and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many." —Matthew 20:25-28

HOW DOES THIS APPLY TO MY LIFE?
Again, Christ contradicts the worldly logic and He also leads by example. As for being a servant, can you imagine if Bill Gates took some time out of his day to help out in one of his mass-producing Microsoft factories? And I'm not talking about P.R. either.

Even though we don't have a status of "Bill Gates", we can still humble ourselves by helping the UPS guy carry up some boxes if he has several to deliver at work, or be patient and let someone merge in ahead of you in rush-hour traffic, or maybe even watch what your wife wants to watch with her no matter how stupid her T.V. shows are. (Just kidding honey, I love you.)

The point is, there are numerous of ways we can serve one another.