The Midas Touch

 

We find the longer we are here, the more we see things we have ruined.  Of course, there are even more times Jesus has used us to mend people back together.  But the longer we are here, the more things we make a mess of.

I invited a young, bright, fresh, excited teenager to come and help with my literacy class.  I told him he could come and learn how to teach and one day God might call him to be a teacher himself.  The next week, his father came with all of his elder brothers asking for more information about when and how I was taking their son to America with me and paying for his college education...oops

I began praying months ago for a discipleship program to start in Maasailand.  We have begun meeting now in a team to pray together.  One pastor in kiserian has become a close friend.  We have talked often about discipleship for the Maasai and so recently I asked him to begin praying this through with us.  A week later, he called my boss and asked where he should write down the names of all of the people that have agreed to enter this school...uh oh

A Maasai woman, a close friend of Heidi's, was at a boma i was visiting.  She asked when mama Hannah was coming to visit.  I told her i would ask her that day when I returned when she might come.  The next morning the woman came to ask why I had lied to her.  She waited up until late into the night with already cooked tea for Heidi to come.  She never showed...fail!

The poor young girl, orphan, single mother of twins we wrote about in the post titled, The Victory, is supporting herself and her children.  We came a couple of times to visit the children and help with a little money for good milk and porridge every month and told her we could help with her education.  She went for a month to school, then her family told her that she was no longer theirs, but one of those white people.  If the white people want their children taken care of so Lightness can go to school, then the white people can pay for us to watch them.  If the white people want the babies to live in the uncle's house, then the white people can pay for the room, and the bed, and the cooking utensils...now what?

You know the Midas touch, even though it is gold, it is a curse.  What about when the things you touch ruin? What kind of a curse is it when whatever you touch is broken?  For me today, I call it a blessing.  For me, I call it revelation, enlightenment, an awakening.  If what I touch turns to gold, I am tempted to think my awesomeness is fixing Africa!  Pretty soon I start eating golden hotdogs and those neither go down nor come out easy.  The blessing for us today is to see and know that we are wandering in the dark making messes as we go, but His word, His fresh, new, living and personal Words "are a lamp to our feet and a light to our path."  When my eyes are open, I can see all the good that we are God is doing here in Tanzania AND all the things that we are ruining God is still working to restore.  I have told myself and testified to others many times about the good work WE have done for those twins and their mother.  WE have changed their lives and then WE close that book and look for something else to open up. But surely, the work JESUS is doing is certainly not finished in that family He has created.    He has restored and He will continue restoring.  How dare I give in to the pride of applying to the work of God in the hearts of men and women my need for finality so I can have feelings of productivity. 

As I read this week in Isaiah, I see myself in the lives of the Israelites.  Jesus says, through the voice of Jehovah, passing through the mind, arms, hand, down to the pen and out in the ink and soaked into the parchment paper,

 

 "Why should you be beaten anymore? Why do you persist in rebellion? Your whole head is injured, your whole heart afflicted.  From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there is no soundness — only wounds and welts and open sores, not cleansed or bandaged or soothed with olive oil."

 

In the darkness, I knock everything over, I bump my knees, I run into the wall and I get all bloodied up.  Jesus asks, "why do you keep beating yourself in the dark? Turn on the stinking light!"

Stuff gets ruined! Toes get stubbed!  Why on earth would I leave my sores uncovered and continue blundering in the dark? Cover yourself with oil, cleanse your welts and wounds, and turn the lights on so you can see! 

This week, I am reminded that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, but I can do nothing except for the grace of the Lord.   The awesome stuff I see God doing in my life I give him praise.  The awful things that happen in this fallen earth, and the blunders I see myself creating, I give Him worship because He is not finished.  And as far as today is concerned, it is enough for me.