The Place You Will Always Find God (Not Where You Think)

I ache to go to the poor.  People ask why.  Why when our house is still in remodel-mode, our bank account isn’t overflowing, and we have four kids who we are committed to doting on….

“Why the poor?  Why the needy?  Why do the most neglected draw your heart, enough for you to get on a plane and travel, continually seeking the least of these?”

I wish I had some big, long, deep explanation…but I don’t.  All I know is I see Jesus most among the poor, the needy.

• Her scared face, eyes depraved, teeth jagged, about eight.  Found wandering the streets of China. Now her eyes dart back and forth inside an orphanage, her body retracts when we try to reach for her. Her countenance fearful, questionable, balancing between running to and away from us. 
• The armless, legless toddler sits on a chair behind iron bars.  The other orphans stand and dance, him frozen in one spot, tears silently streaming.  Wanting to join, but forgotten, unable to experience life as they know it.   
• The ten-year-old girl literally thrown off a work truck by a bunch of men, on the dirt, in front of an orphanage in Guatemala one day. She still hasn’t spoke since then, who knows what she has seen and experienced the first two decades of her life.  Eyes yearning, but mind stopping her from laughing carelessly with the other children.  She follows me, is drawn to me.  And I to her.  Who knew she would look like the daughter I adopted a a few years later?
• A hundred orphans in Peru, scammering around.  Just waiting to hear their first words in English from my twenty-something mouth.  A hundred child line then begins to form in front of us.  The boy I am drawn to, scours, looks down as we hand him bread and the nun has to force him to say an ungrateful, “thank you”.  Oh the love of God that poured out for the calloused heart then.  A rough exterior, needing the tenderizing of the Lord and all of His abundant goodness.
• The teen boy walking the dirt streets in a village of Dominican Republic.  Drawn to us, but without any earthly parents.  Caught between power struggles in his village.  Trying to stay alive, though the guns he face are real, tangible….capable of taking life.

And who will tell them if we do not go?  Who will reach to them if we just stay comfortable, here in our homes made with human hands? Scanning Facebook, obsessing about our newest purchases, or drawn away by silly arguments, gossip, or criticisms that have no weight in His lasting, eternal Kingdom?

Oh friends, were we not called to be “fishers of men”, planting seed, giving our lives away, investing boldly, un-apologetically, sacrificially in the lives of other people? 

So many.  Broken.  Needy.  So many desperate for a touch of Jesus. 

The fostering e-mails from the state looking for homes is getting longer.  Twins, infants flooding the system this April, May, and June.  Older children, many of them never experiencing what stability really means.  Never having the hugs from a mom or a dad who will teach them to play baseball….

And yet, too many times, I miss Him in strange pews, walk right by Jesus as He waits in the very same room…me running busily, not seeing or even needing Him here…yet, in the faces of these hurting…His love consumes me, until I cannot breathe.

Where has my desperation been? Where is my longing, and poverty, and meekness that might cry out for a God, like the God of the poor, to come near, daily…moment by moment, hour by hour?

And doesn’t scripture remind us…“Blessed are the poor?”  The meek?  The lost?  The broken?”

And at the end of this life, He won’t ask for a list.  A list of good works.  A payment for entering those pearly gates, holding every peace, all the love we could ever think or imagine….

All He’ll ask is, “Did you know me?”

For truly, the measure we know Him, the measure we have tasted and seen, the measure we have passed the pearly gates into His presence where the veil is torn and the fullness of His love transforms a life unseen….

It is here, His presence is a fountain overflowing, and every good works is birthed from knowing Him…not duty.

And still, a lie exists, that we must be dysfunctional, if we are to excessively care-give, Some personal lack must be prompting us to want to go to the poorest of poor and hug and love on them there in their lack.

At least that is what all my knowledge, and education, and college level Psychology classes taught…

And maybe, there a an ounce of truth to that….For without a God who rescues, where would any of us be?

But, trust is….I see God most alive in those kids.  My reaching them, is the healing balm for all my selfishness…in ways books, and learning, and a great education never taught or fulfilled.  Yes, love multiplies in their faces, grace abounds in their presence, faith rises when I look on a God who is no respecter of persons….

And I drown in that love, all consuming, every single time I look upon an orphan.

And maybe maturity, wisdom, and understanding comes through suffering and difficulties…more than rules and regulations and trying hard to fill ourselves with the comforts and conveniences of this world…

Yes, maybe sometimes the greatest growth is found in giving away who we are, like Zacheus offering half of all his possessions when Jesus came to His house….or the fisherman that lain the best catch of their lives down, walked away…

To catch eternal fish that do not perish, that cannot be taken from eternal Kingdoms.

But yet, as I look upon this smiling girl, standing, walking, staring at me as she hijacks the remote, again….I see Jesus sparkle in her orphan eyes.  I find a hope that wasn’t there all those times she pushed, and screamed, and hit, and bit to keep those who might seek to help her….so far away….

Because though I can’t live in the orphanages in China.  I can’t be the savior of the girl thrown off of a truck in Guatemala….

I can reach to that one around me.  I can find God in the eyes of whoever is hurting that God places in front of me….

And the secret?  The secret we never hear about in media coverage, the one we fail to understand through adds and convincing solicitations, trying to take our funds to help the poor?

God’s Spirit is most tangible, most alive, most vibrant and accessible among the poor.  When we call upon Him, when we serve others, He will show up in a way our human mind’s could never comprehend or even acknowledge with human words…

Yes, God is still alive.  He is still working, still moving in ways that we might never even dream or imagine…

But, I wonder if it’s our lack of need, our failure to step out of our comfortable homes to greet the fullness of a God who still redeems and restores like He did in the Bible that blinds our eyes from witnessing the fullness of a God who holds eternity in His hands.

Yes, I ache to go to the poor.  I always will.

And though my home is my mission field, this foster child reaching for me is everything I was meant to give my life for….

I still see Jesus is the dumps, in the lice infected tarped homes along the railroad tracks, in the orphanages where hundreds of children look at me as if saying, “Who will feed me? Where do I belong?”.

How is God calling you today friends, outside the comfort of your own life, your own home, your well-worn church benches?  How is He burdening you to go seek Him in practical, tangible ways, giving feet to your faith like you’ve never experienced before?

For we all say we want to know Jesus….

But could it be we are looking in the wrong places in hopes to find God?

This post was written as part of a blog tour, announcing Emily Wierenga‘s new book, “Atlas Girl”, found HERE.

When I first “met” Emily, she was discussing her overcoming an eating disorder and the difficulty of finding authentic faith, though she grew up with her parents as pastors.  Emily had the most amazing dreads then (or dread-locks, for those who don’t know what dreads are).  In fact, when referring to her to my husband I still say “you know…the blogger with dreads” because that’s the vision I have of the fullness of Emily, the person I will always appreciate and love;  Authentic, genuine, uncharted, a woman with a deep, faith-filled God pursose, and one of the most truth-seeking bloggers I know. 

Emily is not “just another blogger”, she is a girl who follows her heart, is unafraid to speak boldly, a mom who is drawn to the nations, yet cares for foster kids in her very own home.   

Yep…have I mentioned I absolutely LOVE Emily’s heart!?

Emily got back from Uganda about the same time my husband and I were headed to Dominican Republic.  I will never forget her heart burdened for a little girl there.  And how her aching didn’t stop with empathetic feeling or compassionate words, but actually drew her to start a non-profit to help the people there in Uganda.  

Emily’s ministry is called, “Lulu Tree”…a non-profit, helping mom’s and preventing tomorrow’s orphans. (Yep, right up my alley! 🙂

Emily is more than a writer of many, many books.  She is more than a well-traveled speaker.  She is more than a mom who cares for foster children.  More than a preacher’s daughter, who travels across the world to write from Uganda….

Emily is an over-comer.  She is a powerhouse of the faith, calling God’s people to come, not only to the throne-room of grace, but to a full, redemptive, power-laden gospel that transforms lives like hers, that leads people to more active faith and a more holy way of living…

Emily is the sweetest, most humbly seeking child of God who walks in His ways and His purposes….

So, I promise you…reading Emily’s memoir, found HERE will not only fill you…but will radically change you in a way fluff, route flattery, and empty words never will.

Want to know more about Emily’s blog tour, pop on over HERE.  Thanks for being a part of spreading God’s love to the nations through reading and supporting writers, like Emily.