Last week I met with a few people who will be part of the team traveling with me to Uganda in July. A couple of them had been to Uganda once before and I asked them to help me gain an initial understanding of what I would experience. They shared about the amazing contrasts they experienced when they were there.

First, on a sensory level they couldn’t get over the sights and smells of poverty to a degree they had never seen in the USA. The way they described it was as if their senses were physically attacked the moment they stepped off the plane. But, they also described the extreme contrast when it came to looking into the faces of the Ugandan people and seeing a happiness that couldn’t be based on their circumstances.  How could there be such happiness, gratitude, contentment, and celebration in the midst of such great need?

The second contrast was on a spiritual level. The people I was meeting with have walked with God for awhile and I believe have developed an additional spiritual “sense” of God’s Presence and activity. They described for me a feeling of great spiritual darkness that surrounded them from the moment they got off the plane. But again, they added that they also experienced an extreme contrast because while they were ministering in that place they saw miraculous things happen that they weren’t used to seeing in the USA. Why would such a place of spiritual darkness also be a place with such potential for the miraculous?

This got me thinking about an event in the life of Jesus recorded in two of the Gospels. In Mark’s account it goes like this:

Jesus left there and went to his hometown, accompanied by his disciples. When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. “Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that has been given him, that he even does miracles! Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown, among his relatives and in his own house is a prophet without honor.” He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their lack of faith. (Mark 6:1-6)

There is a group of people who like to refer to the USA as a “Christian nation.” I have some differences with many in that camp, and I am not going to raise those differences here. But, what I do think is helpful about that label in this case is it supports the idea that the place where we live is a lot like Jesus’ hometown.

I am a person constantly looking for God’s Presence and activity around me. And, I find many subtle things that I would credit as God’s miraculous work. For example, each week when I get a chance to teach people about God and it “just so happens” that something I said spoke directly to something someone was experiencing, even though I didn’t know it until they told me after the fact. Some say it is just a coincidence, but I see something more.

Yet, in our culture and country, if we are honest, with the rare exception of the healing of some sickness, we don’t really think we see the miraculous happening. Why?

I think it is because our response to Jesus is very similar to the response He received from those in His hometown. Most the people of the USA don’t really know Jesus, but they think they do because He is familiar to them. They know enough of His story to discount Him. They may at times find Him to be an amazing teacher, but more often than not, they respond to His teaching with offense, not faith. And, as a result the miraculous doesn’t really happen or get noticed.

Think about it. Does your normal, everyday life really need the miraculous? If someone gets off a plane in Georgia, their senses aren’t attacked by the sites and smells of poverty. In the USA, families that make a total income of $48,000 a year think they are in poverty. Yet, compared to the rest of the world, those families make 100 times more than 51% of the world’s population.

In addition, we think we have figured almost everything out. Even those people who attend church most weeks and listen to the teachings of Jesus, spend most of their time deconstructing what He said and determining what He must have meant instead of banking their entire lives on Him as their solution and satisfaction. There is much analysis, little faith. We are people who claim to believe that Jesus is God, but with the possible exception of the whole heaven/hell question, we live as if we don’t need Him at all.

We live in a world of false spiritual light. Our lives are so rich and so clean and so smart and so religious that we are able to hide the fact that our spiritual darkness is probably even darker than that of Uganda. And, since our physical senses aren’t attacked, our situation may even be more hopeless.

Do you think I have gone a bit overboard here? Possibly. But then help me understand how we could have so much and be able to do so much and have what we describe as such great faith, yet we have little to no happiness, gratitude, contentment, or celebration?

I can’t wait to get off that plane and have every physical and spiritual sense attacked. I can’t wait to experience that “Ugandan Alarm Clock.” I am praying that it will wake me up to my own darkness and faithlessness that could be standing in the way of seeing the miraculous happen now, in this day, in my hometown, in my life.

I am also praying that I don’t have to wait that long. I am praying that all of us would have a powerful desire now to replace the substitutes for light in our own lives with Jesus, the light of the world.

What are your thoughts?

When I go to Uganda, I anticipate experiencing times of hunger. I just know that my normal eating habits will not fit in this very different place, especially with a very packed schedule. But, as I prepare for my trip, the idea of “hunger” is taking on multiple meanings for me.

As I mentioned on Day #1, Jesus experienced a 40 day period of preparation before He began His time of public ministry. Central to His preparation was a thing called “fasting.” Jesus purposefully didn’t eat, so His hunger would drive Him toward intimacy with God. In the book of Proverbs it says:

The laborer’s appetite works for him; his hunger drives him on. (Prov. 16:26)

We find an account of Jesus’ 40 Days of Preparation in the book of Matthew. The first few verses of chapter 4 put it this way:

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Matt. 4:1-4)

This morning as I read those verses, a few things stuck out for me. First, was that Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit of God into this time of preparation. I hope you join me in believing that if you have felt led to take on this 40 day challenge, God is at work leading you toward Himself for your good. This is not just a good activity, it is a divine calling on your life from the God who loves you and what’s you to know Him intimately.

Second, central to both Jesus’ preparation and the temptation He faced was the idea of hunger. Jesus voluntarily went without food as a tool to drive Him toward further dependence on God. And, the devil attacked that tool in order to sever the intimacy between Jesus and His Heavenly Father. If you take on this 40 Days of Preparation, I am sure you will experience the same challenge. Whether your commitment involves something as difficult as fasting or simply committing to read this blog each day, or something else, you will be tempted to put it aside and sever the intimacy that is being built between you and your Heavenly Father. I have only been writing for 3 days so far, and each day my children in one way or another have had their most distracting behavior happen while I am writing. When faced with that challenge, don’t quit! Fight harder! Be driven by your hunger toward God!

Third, when Jesus is tempted by the devil to satisfy His very real physical hunger, He quotes a profound Old Testament verse that explains more clearly that Jesus wasn’t fasting to lose weight or prove He was really disciplined, He was connecting with His Heavenly Father in preparation for what He was entering into next.

The verse Jesus quotes is from the book of Deuteronomy. The words of this passage are for the people of Israel after they have spent 40 years of preparation in the desert and are now about to enter the Promised Land and a new way of life. Look at how this verse connects food and intimacy with God and the fundamental truth they will need for life as they move forward with God:

He (God) humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. (Deut. 8:3)

It is amazing  for me to think that God, with a desire to have me see myself as I really am, would cause me to experience hunger (and not just physical hunger, but hunger of many kinds) so He could feed me with something I don’t even understand, in order that I might learn that really living (not just physically existing) is dependent on being in relationship with Him.

Then, I think about these 40 Days of Preparation and how God hasn’t forced me or you to be hungry, but instead led us (really invited us) to choose  to humble ourselves and make ourselves available to be fed by Him that we would be prepared for what is next in our lives.  The Apostle Peter wrote this strong encouragement to followers of Jesus:

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:6-7)

So as I look ahead to the rest of these 40 days, I am asking God to help me take all the ways I hunger and offer them to Him to fill with Himself. I am asking Him to take everything I can be anxious about and replace it with the knowledge that He cares for me, more and better than I can care for myself. I am asking Him to use my hunger to drive me to Him and not to finding my own ways to satisfaction. I am asking Him to use my hunger to drive me on, that I would quit or get distracted along the way. I am asking Him to lift me up at the right time, to a new level of living. And, I am asking  Him to help me believe and live the promise Jesus made when He said:

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. (Matthew 5:6)

I pray you will join me. and, I would love to hear what happens as you do!

This morning I am thinking about family. A few days ago I got to spend time with my father, mother, and my sister and her family. Together with my wife Sheri and our three kids we have a family of five, all still living under one roof. But who is my family?

Is my family simply the group of people I have been related to by birth or marriage or adoption? What about the human family? Am I really related to everyone? If so, how should that shape my life, my decisions, my actions?

I have found that often when I am in a public setting and I can let someone else go first, or help them clean up a spill, or hold a door, the other person usually expresses a word of gratitude, and I respond with “Don’t worry about it, we are all family.” Most of the time the other person doesn’t respond with anything more than a polite smile, and it makes me wonder whether or not they would agree.

This question of “Who is our family?” often sits just below the surface of the discussions that are had about trips like the one I am preparing to make. Well-meaning people ask how or why someone would leave their “family” and their community where there are plenty of needs and opportunities to do good, at great personal cost,  in order to travel to another country and serve another people. The question behind the questions really is “Who is our family?”

In the Bible I find a ”family” that falls somewhere inbetween the personal family of birth, marriage and adoption on one end, and the family of all human beings on the other. This word, “family”, is used to describe all the people who are followers of Jesus. In the book of Hebrews it reads:

Both the One (Jesus) who makes men holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. (Hebrews 2:11)

And, that would be my heart as I go into this day and as I prepare to go to Uganda. I am asking God to continue to shape my heart until every person I see in Locust Grove, Georgia or in Uganda, or anywhere else, I would see as a member of my family, a person deserving of my respect and love. In the book of Galatians I found this command:

Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers. (Gal. 6:10)

I have found myself in the midst of a great opportunity to do good in Uganda to people who are part of the “family of believers” and to those who are a part of the “family” of all people. And, I can’t wait to go. But in the mean time for both me and you, the challenge  is, are we making the most of every opportunity to do good to all people in front of us today?

Living as family and loving one another as family does not begin after a long flight to another country. It is wrapped in every breath we take.

Who is your family? How do you decide? And, how does that shape how you live?

Today I begin a commitment to 40 Days of Preparation that will culminate in my trip to Uganda to minister to people in villages, to children in orphanages, and to pastors whom I will have the chance to help equip for the work they do everyday. Although necessary elements of such a trip, like the m0ney and the time and the travel can seem like big hurdles, they haven’t intimidated me. What has is the task itself. I don’t know what I will face when I get there. I don’t know what I will really need to be prepared to say or do. I don’t know how I will connect across the barriers of language and culture. And, one thing I do know is once I am there and realize what is needed, I won’t have the resources or the time to get prepared, I will only be able to offer what I already have. For me, that is the intimidating part. But also the unbelievably exciting part!

What about you? As I thought about these elements of my trip to Uganda, I realized that, more often than not, this is my life everyday. When I get a phone call from someone needing spiritual direction, when I find myself in a hospital with a family that has just heard bad news, or when I walk the hall of a local school and someone pulls me to the side in tears, all I have to offer is what I already have in that moment. The same is true for you.

So, if we are a people who desire to live out the life of love, compassion, forgiveness, hope and healing that was modeled by Jesus, then we are in a constant need for preparation too. Because of that, I want to invite you to not just read this blog, but join in and participate in your own 40 Days!

Why 40 Days? The Bible shares the stories of several people who experienced a 40 Day period of preparation before God did something significant in their lives. In the book of Exodus, Moses spent 40 days with God being prepared to lead the people of Israel. In 1Kings 19, Elijah is prepared to hear God speak. In Matthew 4, we read about the 40 days of preparation that preceded Jesus public ministry, and in Acts 1, we learn about the 40 days after Jesus rises from the dead that prepares the disciples for the birth of the Church.

These are only a few of the examples of God using 40 days to prepare a person or group of people, but they are examples with results I would love to experience during these next 40 days. I want to hear God speak directly to me. I want to be as effective as possible in ministering to others. I want to see people become followers of Jesus and join together with others as the Body of Christ (the Church). And, I want to become a better leader for those I get to influence.

These results sound good to me, and I believe they are honoring to God. But, I have already learned that God’s ways and thoughts are different and beyond my own. So, I begin today by taking off my own expectations of how these 40 days will turn out. Instead, I am going to embrace a simple prayer and invite you to join me. Here is my prayer:

Heavenly Father, Please use these 40 days to prepare me to be whoever You want me to be, and to do whatever You would have me do, to Your glory. Amen.

I hope you will join me for 40 Days of Preparation and I can’t wait to read your stories of what God does in your life as you make yourself especially available to Him.

Welcome to the new SouthEdge website! Along with a new look, here are a few new features worth mentioning:

• Interactive blog with a comments section for open discussion on blog posts
• RSS feed, for subscribing to the blog with your favorite RSS feed reader (Not sure what RSS is all about? Check out this informative article.)
• Online audio player–now you can listen to the most recent or previous messages within the website
• Upcoming Events list

If you have any trouble with the website or notice an error, or if you simply wish to leave a comment or suggestion, please direct your feedback to our contact form. We hope the new website will serve to connect and inform our SouthEdge family and visitors. Thanks for stopping by!