Trying... Learning... Changing...

Some things experienced in life fundamentally change who you are as a person. As difficult as it is sometimes, by God's grace, those experiences move you from the person you were to the person you will become. Although I have only been here for a couple of months, I know that my time in Cebu is doing just that - changing me. Each day, God is breaking me, teaching me, challenging me, and shaping me. I am being forced to truly wrestle with truths that I just took for granted my entire Christian life. Truths like "love your neighbor as yourself" and "care for the poor and the needy." I'm learning that it is one thing to sit in a comfortable chair in an air conditioned room and talk about hypothetically loving the poor that you don't know and don't see and an entirely different thing to actually physically and literally care for the poor - to clothe the naked, to feed the hungry. I am constantly asking myself, why does the latter seems so much harder than the former. It not because my heart isn't there... my heart breaks when I see children practically naked sleeping on cardboard in the alleys (and yes, I see it everyday). But actually doing something about it forces me to go beyond what I am comfortable with. Its easier for me to donate money to a church and let them actually go about the work of caring for the poor than to do it myself. But that's not what we are called to... When I think about actually acting in some way, I find that I am paralyzed by not knowing the right thing to do or the right way to go about giving help. How is what I'm doing sustainable? How do you manage expectations when you are already viewed as a "rich American" just because you are white? How do you show selective mercy by caring for the needs of one and not the needs of another? And then, I find myself doing nothing because I don't have the answers to all these questions. But what God has been teaching me is that He is just calling me to be faithful and to take small daily steps of obedience. God promises to give wisdom to whoever asks in faith. Jesus doesn't over complicate things... In fact, He puts it very simply - Feed the hungry, care for the sick, clothe the naked. He doesn't say "figure out a sustainable program and have every possible question answered before you do anything." No, He just says love your neighbor as yourself. I love the simplicity of verses like Isaiah 58:6-7 and 10.

"Is this not the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and provide the poor wanderer with shelter - when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood? ... If you spend yourself on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in darkness and your night will be like the noonday."

Throughout scripture, we see that caring for the needy is at the center of the very heart of God.

Jeremiah 22:16 - "He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me?" declares the Lord"

Psalms 140:12 - "I know that the Lord secures justice for the poor and upholds the cause of the needy."

1 John 3:17-18 - "If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love in word or tongue, but in actions and in truth."

While these were all verses I'd heard before, they suddenly took on a completely different meaning here in the Philippines, surrounded by actual needy and poor people. I definitely do not have it all figured out... quite the contrary. But I am trying. Trying to learn. Trying to love. Trying to live in obedience to God's word in the little and big things. Often failing, but trying to figure it out nonetheless.