Obedience

So I've been reading a lot of blogs about Haiti lately.  A lot of people now are able to go in and out of the country of Haiti a lot easier, and it seems like everyone is now making trips there.  The one thing I'm noticing about people going to Haiti is not only the fact that everyone is taking pictures there, but that everyone is going to find stories of the people there.  Everyone is not only taking a camera, but a video camera to shoot interviews and stuff.  I find it fascinating that when tragedy occurs... that's when we want to find out the stories of the people in Haiti.  I mean... 2 months ago... did it matter?  Did a person's life in Haiti matter to someone in the US?

Not really.  And that's perfectly understandable.  It's perfectly normal.

But God doesn't call us to be normal.  He calls us to radical obedience.  While the world is "rebelling" against our parents, God calls us to "Honor your father and mother, so that you may live long in the land that the LORD our God is giving you." (Exodus 20, Ephesians 6).  And as difficult as that is on a day to day basis... there's a promise to that.  God will bless us through honoring them.  God will provide for us through our parents in some way.  And there's hope in that.  God isn't asking us to do something just for the sake of doing it, God is asking us to obey him, and honor our parents because it's for our benefit.  And I love that part of God's heart... that he wants the best for us.

Now going back to Haiti and learning about people's stories... what will it take for you to care about the people around you?  Many of you guys talk about how scary it would be if an earthquake of that magnitude were to hit SoCal... is that what it would take for you to wake up and notice the people around you that don't know the gospel story?  Is that what it would take for you to begin wondering what stories are going on around us?  It shouldn't take an earthquake for us to realize how fragile life is.  It shouldn't take an earthquake to realize that there are lost people all around us at all times.  It shouldn't take an earthquake for us to start caring about each other.  Life is too short to hate each other... life is too short to take things so personally that we let things just sit in our hearts for weeks or months at a time.

The world was changed by the few men and women in the Bible who were willing to submit and become obedient to their heavenly Father.  The choice is yours.

"The entire law is summed up in a single command: Love your neighbor as yourself." - Galatians 5:14

-P. Kev