promise

You walk down the street and you see it everywhere. You are surrounded by it here. There is no escaping it. You can choose to ignore it or become callous to it, but that doesn't change the reality of it. You stare it in the face everyday. The poverty. The brokenness. The beggars. The orphans. The widows. The precious people that have been given up on, left as nothing, passed by. The hundreds of thousands trying to find hope and certainty in things other then Jesus. People at the temples slowly giving themselves away day after day as they're trying to find life. Being led by things other then the truth that sets us free. You can almost feel the brokenness around you.

We live in a cruel and unjust world. That's just a fact of life. Life is hard. Life is not fair. And the way some people live is unimaginable. There are so many people lost, broken, empty, that we pass by and interact with everyday. I'm reminded of how broken and lost our world is a lot more here. I know it shouldn't necessarily be that way, but it's true. I'm surrounded by it. I know that I am surrounded by it at home too, but it just feels different. You see it more tangibly. All the time.

But amidst the poverty and brokenness God keeps speaking to my heart about hope, healing, and His promise of redemption. I've been learning that His promises are like the stars; the darker the night, the brighter they shine. Someday HE will make ALL things new. He has this world so tightly in His grasp. I read this passage a few weeks ago in Psalm 22, and it's really stuck with me.

"The poor will eat and be satisfied; they who seek the Lord will praise Him-may your hearts live forever! All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will bow down before Him, for domination belongs to the Lord and He rules over the nations. All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before Him-those that cannot keep themselves alive. Posterity will serve Him; future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim His righteousness to a people yet unborn-for He has done it."

If that isn't promise I don't know what is!
There is so much darkness in this world-it's all around us, but in the dark, He just shines brighter. He, as well as His promises, remain the same no matter the circumstances. No matter how we feel at the moment, His promises and truth stay the same. I'm learning that though there is destruction, poverty, and hurting in some way or another almost everywhere you look, God is here. He is here. He is faithful. He is at work. He is in the midst of it all. Though the hurting seems so strong, His love is stronger. He tells us that He will bear our burdens. He knows the needs of each and every person on this planet and whether we choose to believe it or not, He's intricately involved in each of our lives. His name alone shines through the darkness. Man, I can't wait for the day when everyone learns to recognize it.

This song has encouraged my heart lately. This is my favorite verse-

This is my Fathers world. O let me not forget. That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet. This is my Fathers world: the battle is not done. Jesus who died shall be satisfied, and earth and heaven be one.

Love that. We have so much to hold onto.

Jesus, thank you that death is defeated. Thank you for your absolute, boundless, immeasurable hope. Thank you that it is stronger than this afflicted world. Thank you that your promises penetrate the darkness. Thank you that your love exceeds all and that you offer it in abundance. Lord, I pray that we would emanate your hope wherever we go. That we would speak of your promises boldly and eagerly. I pray that we would look past circumstances and into the heart. Thank you that we all, in some small way, get to be apart of your redemption plan. You have strategically placed each of your children where you want us to be and I pray that we would take advantage of the opportunities you place before us everyday. Whether it's convenient or not. I pray that we would not lose sight of the big picture, but continue to pour out our lives as you have called us to do. Thank you Jesus, that as we pour out, you are continually filling us up. I pray that you would give us your eyes, and that we would allow ourselves to be broken. To be hurt-to feel the pain of those around us. I pray that we would get personal. Because only then can we truly see-and only when we truly see, can we truly love.

Spike.

We have a puppy! A few weeks ago Mel, Micah, Levi, Sirjen and I were driving into Dehradun to run a couple of errands. The boys were getting kind of restless in the car and so Mel made up a game. She told them to count all the animals that we passed. So, because of this, we were all looking for animals. A couple minutes later she and I saw a cute little black puppy on the side of the road. No words were exchanged, but somehow we just both kind of knew what the other was thinking. And we were thinking the same thing. She pulled over and I jumped out, asked the monks (we found Spike in front of the monastery :)) if it was ok if we took him or if he already had a home (he clearly didn’t), grabbed the dog and jumped back in. After about two minutes had gone by and the realization that we just picked up a puppy that is now a responsibility to take care of forever set in, there were a few "why did we just do that??"('s) voiced. But we all knew we wanted to keep him. Micah called Dave to get the final ok and the conversation went like this. "Hey papa, guess what? We caught a puppy! Can we keep him?" Dave said yes, so after our errand we grabbed some puppy food and headed home. Micah affectionately named him Spike.

Upon returning home we discovered that the mystery bugs crawling ALL over him the entire time I held him on my lap in the car, were lice. Literally hundreds and hundreds of them. The poor little guy was covered in them. Lovely. So needless to say, we very quickly put him in a bucket and bathed him. Then treated him for his nasty lice, which I'm so thankful I didn’t get. I think one of the only things worse then getting lice, would be getting lice from a dog :) Gross.

For the 1st 6 or 7 hours we thought maybe he was the perfect puppy. He didn’t poop or pee inside at all, didn't whine, didn't chew stuff up etc. He was great and pretty stinkin' cute.

Then came night. A howling, whimpering puppy in your bathroom (that’s full of poop and pee) at 2am when you're trying to sleep isn't quite as cute all of a sudden. He is now an outside dog. Both during the day, AND at night. He got himself kicked out to the front porch pretty quick. All in all he's a good little puppy though, and he entertains Micah and Levi for hours during the day. They love playing with him.

So anyway, Spike the puppy now has a safe, warm home full of lots of rough little boy love. I’d say he’s pretty content here with us.


isn't he cute?