Speak­ing
Novem­ber 8, 2010
Let me start by say­ing I’m not a big fan of stand­ing in front of the church and speak­ing. It ter­ri­fies me more than just about any­thing I’ve ever done in my life. I’ve spo­ken in front of peo­ple before so it’s not com­pletely a fear of speak­ing. I’ve stood in front of 60–70 guys in the shop and it didn’t bother me. I know my job. I know I’m com­pe­tent and con­fi­dent. You aren’t going to ask me a ques­tion about my job or what I’m speak­ing on that I won’t know the answers to. I’ve stood in front of some pretty large Bass tour­na­ments and Bass Clubs and was fine. I could hold my own. I could stack up against any­one stand­ing there.
But…. Church… Man that’s a whole other story. It ter­ri­fies me! I’m scared to death! I feel like as I stand there every­one in that church can see every sin I’ve ever com­mit­ted, thought of com­mit­ting or even heard of. Its like there is a sports ticker going over my head read­ing out the time, date and offense.
Well a few months ago Mike was preach­ing on Advent Con­spir­acy. I thought it was kinda silly for him to be doing that in Octo­ber. The last thing I was think­ing of was Christ­mas. That’s months away. Well then to top it off he starts list­ing off the things North Point spent money on last year and he says “Goats and Chick­ens”. Really? Goats and Chick­ens? So after laugh­ing about him say­ing that it kinda stuck with me. It com­pelled me to follow-up on it and see exactly what in the world we would spend money on that for.
So I found out the orga­ni­za­tion that we worked with on this, World Vision is who North Point used. It took me all of about 20 sec­onds on their site to fig­ure out there isn’t the least bit of humor in these “Goats and Chick­ens”. There is noth­ing funny or cute about them.
Every 15 sec­onds a per­son dies in this world from hunger! So in the time it took me to snicker at the thought of “Goats and Chick­ens” Some­one DIED!
Every 7 sec­onds some­one dies from lack of clean drink­ing water! 7 sec­onds! We take longer than that to take a swig of the clean water we have from our sinks in our house. It takes you longer than that to pour out the water from your bot­tled water that you no longer want because its warm.
So as I looked at pic­ture after pic­ture of peo­ple who are suf­fer­ing and DYING from lack of some­thing so sim­ple and expected from us. I can’t wrap my hands around it. I can’t fig­ure it out. I don’t under­stand how a God that can bless me with so many bless­ings. Bless me with so much food that I couldn’t begin to need it all. I don’t under­stand how He can let that kind of suf­fer­ing exist in the same world that I’m so blessed in.
I don’t have the answers. I don’t know why. I don’t know how. But just like I felt com­pelled to see how God could use “Goats and Chick­ens” to effect a change in oth­ers lives. I want to explore how my bless­ings and their suf­fer­ings can co-exist in the King­dom.
I’m ask­ing you to help fund Advent Con­spir­acy. Help fund some­thing big­ger than your­self and your needs. God is big­ger than our igno­rance. He is big­ger than our doubts. He is big­ger than our fears. He is so much big­ger than our lit­tle world that we like to think we con­trol. Make the sac­ri­fice. Not out of guilt but out of under­stand­ing that it is how we show a love like no other love this world knew until it was lived on the cross.