You may have missed it, but this morning the exact time was 02:03:04 05/06/07. This sequence won’t happen again until three minutes and four seconds after 2 AM on May 6th, 2107. That’s a hundred years from now. That means I’ll either be dead or 147 years old.
If you’re like me, you are slightly mused over “02:03:04 05/06/07,” but it’s nothing more than a “That’s unusual!” before moving on to whatever else I have or want to do. Fact is, the greatest majority of people alive will not notice or care for the time oddity. For them it is just another day… no matter how unique it is.
So now read something that IS important. This is from Dr. John Thweatt who is on a mission trip to Madagascar. For most of us, Madagascar was a kids animated movie. But that was far from the truth of what it is really like in that nation. As you read what Dr. Thweatt wrote about his trip, consider what significance really should be.
“I witnessed to hundreds and visited in the homes of many… and over and over again people who sat in their churches couldn’t tell you the story of Jesus or the story of faith. The catholics and other demoniations are over here leading the people to the wolves. One elder lady said she had never heard the story of Jesus because she didn’t get to go to school when she was younger. I asked her about the church she said she attended and she said, ‘They talk, but it doesn’t help.’ Another lady said, ‘I have been working very hard to find this Jesus.’ And one other–a man asked us about building a school. He said the storm destroyed the other one and pointed to 10 or more children looking in the door of his hut. We asked him when the storm destroyed the school and he said, ’20 years ago!’ He pointed to a man in this 20’s and said he was the last student of that school. We have much to do and much to be thankful for.”
There are people who have never heard the story of Jesus (Can you fathom living your whole life and never hearing about Jesus?). There are people who want to know more about Jesus, but it is difficult to learn more (Can you imagine that?). To the right is a picture of what things are really like in Madagascar… which is a far cry from the cartoon depiction. Those would be greater tragedies were it not for people like John who do go to tell them about Christ.
In Matthew 28:19-20 Jesus told us that as we live our daily lives, we are to make disciples of Christ with everyone we come in contact with. But we’re more consumed with our kids getting into the right schools so they’ll make a good living so that we can be proud of them and seen as good parents by other carbon based life forms. We’re more wrapped up in whether a Democrat or Republican will be in the White House. We’re more concerned who’ll win the Auburn/Alabama football game. More people in Muscle Shoals will talk this week about Paris Hilton going to jail or what they’ll get to do on their vacation to Florida than the need there is for The Gospel to be proclaimed to people who’ve never heard it.
THAT is a tragedy! What is wrong with us? Which is the greater tragedy… people not hearing about Jesus until they are elderly or how we live in Muscle Shoals, Alabama?
Let’s reason together! Which is more important to us… people hearing about Jesus or stupid times on clocks… Paris Hilton… and what we’ll do on our vacation? Be honest… which will you talk more about in conversation this week? What will dominate our conversations… our thoughts… our hearts… and our checkbooks?
Maybe… just maybe… we need to consider Missions as something we DO rather than something supported financially two times a year. Maybe a mission trip ought to actually involved sharing the Gospel with those who have never heard about Jesus rather than an excursion to comfortable places we’ve never seen but would like to visit. What do you think Paul would describe as “a mission trip?”
This is something I must deal with in my life beginning today because of some realizations I’m coming to. One is in my blog categories I didn’t even have one for missions. God forgive me! I’ll change that as soon as this post is completed… along with several other things too.