Just Please….Make Sure You Matter
I recently visited a facility in an unmarked and undisclosed location on the outskirts of a Central American country’s capital city. There, a bold Believer from Venezuela has pioneered a program that houses scores of children rescued from sex trafficking and from cartels of evil men who engage in the sick yet lucrative trade of organ harvesting from infants and children. His work is astounding and beautiful but only made necessary because of the grave depravity of man. I looked into the eyes of a 3-year-old little girl who had to undergo vaginal repair surgery and saw boys who, though not yet ready for first grade, have already endured unimaginable pain and humiliation. Their physical scars will heal faster than the deep emotional cuts. Yet, judging from the laughter and the play I witnessed, they are in an environment of healing and hope.
I have traveled to Siem Reap, Cambodia, and there I met Gideon, a Christ-follower who is also a self-taught healer and bush doctor. Originally from South Africa, he initially came to Cambodia with YWAM but stayed for the people. In this desperately poor nation where life is cheap and poverty is rampant with no government social programs, the sick who do not have money are left to die without care. Those suffering do so without medication and families mourn the loss of loved ones who would have easily been treated in our Western civilization. Gideon takes advantage of the ease in acquiring needed medicines and has taught himself first aid, general dentistry and minor surgery. Only eternity will hold the record of lives saved as he has mounted his filthy moto and dared his way through jungles and mud-clogged rivers to reach isolated province villages for years. He prays over and loves the poor and the sick with no earthly reward in sight.
My buddy Rick was born dirt poor in Opelika, Alabama and when he heard the Gospel as a young boy he ran away from home to preach to the lost. He still leaves home on jaunts and excursions to reach the lost and to raise money for the hurting. I’ve lost count of how many states he has walked across, raising money for shoes for orphans in the garbage dumps of Mexico. Rick has never seen a scroungy derelict he won’t take home or a sketchy hitchhiker he won’t pick up and drive to the next town. His ministry takes in men and women who have burned every bridge and have already failed at all the other programs. They find something new there: a fresh hope and a culture of grace.
My friend Robert is a successful businessman. He once built up a company that was founded on his own ego, his own prowess, and his own knowledge. It was very successful, until one day when it wasn’t and it all came crashing down. It was at that time that he asked forgiveness for his hubris, and committed the work of his hands, the ownership of the company and the way the finances would be handled to the Lord. In no time, the new business began to flourish. With the Lord at the helm and Robert following biblical precepts in everything, including when God led him to begin hiring men fresh out of prison, the business has continued to scale up. He shares that he’s leading a church first, and a company second. Robert is quick to give all of the honor to the Lord for the culture of the company, where employees find joy and pride in their work and where being a part of the team is exciting.
Too many people are just working to work.
Too many people are chasing the lie of The American Dream, without realizing it’s a mirage that has never really been captured. For so many this is The Plan: Get good grades so you can get into a good college, get good grades in college so you can get a good job, get a good job, get married, buy a house, buy cars, have kids, work hard and save for your kids’ college so that they can do the same thing you’re doing, go on vacations, buy more cars, retire, have grandkids, die.
But did you matter?
Besides procreating and assuring that our species goes on for at least one more generational cycle, what did you accomplish? Did you do anything that lessened human suffering? Did you do anything that altered eternity? Will there be people in Heaven because of choices that you made? If all you did was spend your life caring for you and yours (the least you can do, as our base natural instincts are to do that) then you are not much more than a hedonist. You were provided with the immeasurable gift of a human lifetime, and you sought survival, pleasure, and prosperity….then you died. While others were given this very same precious gift, and they invested it in others; in bringing life, hope, justice, grace, healing and dignity, and poured themselves out and into others.
I bet you can guess which group reports happier and more fulfilled lives. That’s right, it’s the ones who do the least to serve their own needs and the most to fulfill the needs of others.
There is something inherent in our spiritual DNA; something coded deep within us by our Creator that is triggered when we invest in others. When we share the hope of Christ in a coffee shop to a new friend, or when we decide to lead that group of miscreant boys at our church that everyone else just complains about, joy is triggered. When we step out to feed a hungry family or we pay off a medical bill for a friend in need, joy is triggered. When we travel to a place where true poverty abounds, and we get dirty and mosquito-bitten and come to know by name those who are hurting to the point we grasp their pain, joy is triggered.
Too many in our culture are consumed with what our forefathers aptly called the “pursuit of happiness” yet they never told us that happiness is a lying little emotion that is elusive and will betray us the moment we feel we have it in our grasp. Yet joy….Oh yes joy….It is nothing like happiness. It is not an emotion. It is a throbbing presence that is linked to significance, depth, and investment. Joy is the result of decisions made playing the long game, not like happiness that can be obtained by smoking a joint or after three or four beers.
Joy never betrays, as true joy is linked to God and listed by Him in the Fruit of His Spirit. It is only available to those who pursue it with a pure heart.
My prayer is for my children to live lives that matter. That whatever they do and whatever they pursue in their lives, they will matter. And in so doing….joy will be triggered. I pray that also for you.
