I’ve been learning about living in community, one pack of Oreos at a time. One huge aspect of the World Race is learning what it looks like to live in a God centered community! There are few times in my life where I have gotten the privilege to live life alongside people so directly. The people on my squad, and more specifically on my team, I literally work, eat, and spend all day with.
One thing the Lord has been stripping away and revealing in me since I’ve been on the race is the magnitude of my selfishness. The more acquainted I become with the Lords love for me, the more the Lord has been making me aware of my selfishness.
Taking a hard left in this blog, but I LOVE snacks, people. I like to have snacks on hand at all times if possible. In places on the race where they are not easily acquired, snacks are a commodity. Here, living in the mountains of Honduras, there are few times that we are able to go into town to get snacks and so I have been realizing how much having snacks is a luxury.
I have a natural tendancy to want to hide my snacks and save them for myself. I have a natural tendency to not want to share. The same thing goes for my solar charger. Up on the mountain, we have no electricity and so the only possibility of charging your devices is via a solar charger. Now my solar charger doesn’t work very well, but it does work. If it sits in the sun all day it gets about enough charge to charge one phone, maybe.
My tendency is to want to use the charge for myself, I use my phone for photos and for music and I use my tablet for pre-downloaded movies with my friends and for writing. For all intents and purposes, I have good enough reason to want to keep the charger to myself. But what if I took my eyes off of myself? What if a better myself steward my belongings is to share them with the people around me instead of keeping it for myself.
What if in general I just lived my life with my eyes off myself and on other people? How would that change things?
People ask me to use my charger all the time. Every time I leave my tent with a snack, it’s almost a guarantee someone will want a bite. All I need is to leave my tent for God to give me an opportunity to love and bless people. Will I take it?
Y’all it is largely countercultural to view your things as not your own. It is countercultural for your first instinct to be to share instead of keep, whether it be time, a good idea, or even your Oreos.
“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of all he created.” -James 1:17-18
The Lord has really been convicting my heart to view things as His and not mine. It’s been harder than you think but it’s been good.
Now when I go to the grocery store (I’ve only gotten the privilege one time this month), I buy big packs of snacks, knowing that for every snack I eat I want to offer one.
The other morning I grabbed my last poptart (the cookies and cream kind!!!!) and I ripped the package open all ready to enjoy it in secret in my tent. I felt convicted to eat it on my short walk down to where the tables are and offer a piece to my friend who I know loves them. Welp, I ended up giving 7 different people a bite of that Poptart lol. When the Lord convicts He really convicts!
The snack thing is just a silly example, but it really has me thinking about the depth of my self centeredness. I don’t think that the Lord doesn’t want us to enjoy things for ourselves, but if I have such a tendency to view a pack of Oreos as hard to share, what do you think my heart posture towards sharing my time, my money, even my talents will be?
Everything I have is from the Lord. Everything you have is from the Lord. Your ability to make someone laugh, your ability to understand complicated math problems, your ability to give speeches, or to sew a button on a shirt, do you realize that your Creator gave you that ability?
“Now, our God, we give you thanks, and praise your glorious name. But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand.” -1 Chronicles 29: 13-14
Who are we to claim anything as our own?
