Comfortably Numb???????

 

My friend Heather has been in Haiti on a mission trip for about a month now.

She is an amazing woman with 4 kids and she is on a “mission” ….in more ways than one.

She lived in Texas her whole life …until she moved to Haiti.

As I  read her blog I can’t help but be “taken back” to our days in Costa Rica.

For us there were THOSE days also.

Days when we  had to  re-adjust our lives.

Washing clothes by hand, figuring out HOW to wash dishes, how to EAT, and simply STAY ALIVE.

Days when REAL LIFE stared me in the face.

When poverty lived just around the corner, and struggle was a DAILY.

As I read her blog there is something that swells inside me….

I can’t figure it out.

As I read her blog today I said to Jay , “Is it weird that I MISS the 3rd world struggle?”

I sat there staring at the computer screen pondering WHAT this feeling is…searching my heart for the rhyme or reason.

I am blessed to be BACK here and am BLESSED to KNOW where our next meal will come from….

BUT

I feel ODDLY unsettled by how “comfortable “ I am here.

I feel like we(as Americans) can lose sight of what REAL LIFE is like for some people.

I feel like sometimes we complain about about things sooooo UNWORTHY of complaints.

We didn’t walk to a well today.

Our  families  are not starving.

We live in a homes…not  tent cities.

We  have NOTHING to complain about.

Yet…

We do.

And as Americans I think we tuck those uncomfortable  things safely away in the BACK of our minds…..

only thinking about them when CONVENIENT.

I don’t want to be  DISOBEDIENT to God.

He says :

Deut. 15:7. If there is a poor man among you, one of your brothers, in any of the towns of the land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand to your poor brother; but you shall freely open your hand to him, and generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks.

I want to live like THAT!!!!!!

I want to BURN the veil the COVERS my eyes!

I want to be obedient and AWARE of the REAL LIFE situations around me.

I want to be part of Jah’s soldiers.

The ones who defend the WEAK and the POOR.

The ones who STAND UP for what is right BECAUSE it is right.

In Proverbs it says this:

Prov. 31:8 Open your mouth for the dumb, for the rights of all the unfortunate. Open your mouth, judge righteously, and defend the rights of the afflicted and needy.

I think THAT  what I miss about 3rd world living is …..

the fact that EVERYONE in a 3rd world country is at least AWARE of   REAL LIFE STRUGGLE….

they may not LIVE it …but they SEE it.

It isn’t tucked away in the BACK of their minds ….

I want to keep those things FIRMLY PLANTED in my life and the lives of my family.

I want to live a KINGDOM LIFE.

A life that is DICTATED by the LOVE of GOD.

A life that is MOVED by the LOVE of GOD.

A life that is BLESSED by the LOVE of GOD.

Jer. 7:5-7. "For, if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly practice justice between a man and his neighbor, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place, nor walk after other gods to your own ruin, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever and ever."