Day #3--In Tuned

As I continue to fast, and Meredith and I continue to discuss money and how we can better use our money for the Kingdom, I have been blown away by how fasting really brings you better in tuned with God and his creation.

Honestly, the hardest part of the fast is over in terms of the hunger. Usually the first 2 days in a long fas are where the "hunger pains" really get intense. However, since the point of fasting is to do away with those "pains" by talking to God (praying, reading His word, etc.) I have had an overwhelming awareness of the needy in our community. I know that there is an end to this fast. I know that on Thanksgiving day I am going to commit the sin of gluttony! (perhaps I should pray for that temptation to go away too). :) Anyway, the point is I know there is an end, I know that I will eat again, and I know where my next meal is coming from.

But have you ever stopped to think about hunger from the perspective of the beggar outside the grocery store who hits you up for money, or the homeless woman who is sleeping under a bridge with her 3 children? I can't imagine the fear of not knowing, the feeling of wondering what am I going to do for my next meal, or what am I going to do to provide for my kids. I can't imagine the humiliation of having to beg for money and the shame I would feel when someone quickly dismissed me because of what I look like or how bad I smell. I have been thinking a lot about this through my first few days of fasting.

This issue of trying to see things from the perspective of the disadvantaged has really been challenged by a couple of recent things. The first being our book club just got done reading and discussing Same Kind of Different as Me. (If you haven't read it, stop reading this and go read that...it will be more interesting and more beneficial!). I won't tell the whole story but I was blown away by relationship and perspective of Denver (the homeless man). The second thing is that I am studying to preach on the parable of the Good Samaritan. The entire parable is about seeing thing from the perspective of the down beat and trodden man left for dead on the side of the road.

So I have been trying to see things from the perspective of the outcast, the oppressed, and down trodden. I have been meditating on Ephesians 5:1-2 (being imitators of God). God did this very thing. He entered into our story through Jesus Christ and took on our humanity, our perspective and made a way for us to be reconciled to God and to each other.

The reality is this: I will not be able to fully "cross over" and understand what it is like to go hungry and not know where my next meal will come from. I will never understand fully, no matter how much I sympathize with those struggling what it feels like to be completely rejected by someone based on what I look like or feel. However, this cannot be my excuse for not attempting to better understand the perspective of the outcast of society. It cannot serve as an excuse not to engage and serve the homeless. And most of all it cannot serve asn excuse not to love and build relationships with those society has deemed unworthy.

I believe the last is the most important. Relationships. It is only in relationships that I can better understand what they feel and what they are going through. It is only in relationship that I will best know how to serve them. AND it is only in relationship that I will be taught by them things about myself and prejudices I hold (consciously or unconsiously). In relationship there is mutual learning, and this is necessary if we are to truly be converted into Christ's image.