Who Else Will?

02.15.14

Psalm 25.4-5 4 Lord, tell me your ways. Show me how to live. 5 Guide me in your truth, and teach me, my God, my Savior. (NCV)

Today, is the first of my two days off. Yesterday was a whirlwind of: off to the gym early (I get up around 4:20 a.m. to do so), in to work early (earlier than my norm) making for a longish work day, going to a missions fundraiser (heavy on the ‘fun’ part of fundraiser: we babysat nineteen children (ages 1-ish to 10-ish) so their respective parents could have some parental Valentinian relief), and then sat up talking with my wife for an hour or so when I got home, and dragged my sorry self off to bed around 11 p.m. – I’m just not used to that kind of schedule so it goes w/o saying I slept like a little lamb – but woke up to this: Lord, am I missing something here?

The missions trip I’m taking is to Africa (specifically to Nairobi, Kenya) and, at one brief juncture in the p.m. fun-fest last night, I happened upon some pictures that were posted in the building where we (a team of about seven of us) looked after the kids. The pictures were of where we’re going in June – a place called Madoya where nearly 80,000 people live in a slum just over a quarter mile (squared) of land in size. One of the pictures shows a sunny “street” where there are some people milling about. One needn’t look too carefully to see that down the middle of that “street” is a gutter of sorts filled with who knows what. It doesn’t look sanitary at all, and it doesn’t seem to be bother those standing near it.

And then this morning I read: Lord, tell me your ways. Show me how to live. Guide me in your truth, and teach me, my God, my Savior. I need to learn how to live, and really live as Jesus promised: "...I came to give life—life in all its fullness!"  (Even in full sewers.)

There are things in my life that resemble open sewage: wrong attitudes, selfish motives, stupid actions, impure thoughts, etc., etc., etc. I ought to assess how comfortable my life is to those who visit – am I concerned about the obvious cesspool that I am, or am I content to just let be what is, and will be? Lord, tell me your ways. Show me how to live. Guide me in your truth, and teach me, my God, my Savior. God isn’t the Lord of the Cesspool although He seems to be comfortable dwelling in the human versions of such and be our Change Agent.

My adventures in Madoya, I’m sure, will include being around cesspools: the human, and the other kinds. I will have to look for God in those places and share Jesus in those places. But I will have to look to God to help me remember it is only by Him that I am taught and only by Him that I am shown how to live. If He doesn’t, who else will? If I don’t ask, will He?

Father: tell me your ways. Show me how to live. Guide me in your truth, and teach me, my God, my Savior. Amen.