Fast Debrief...

Fast Debrief...

So this week I gave God my appetites. I gave him my appetite for food, for music, for the internet, for relationships and other things. I didn't fast to really have some special word from God that would make everything all clear. Mostly, I wanted to give him these things this week as offerings and sacrifices. It was a week of worship. Though I saw pretty much every emotion known to man and really wondered about my own sanity, it was a good week. There were no huge epiphanies or "ah ha!" moments. But there was a steady desire for God and for right decisions. Two passages of scripture that I learned from this week are...

"The Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it." Genesis 4:6-7

Sin is pictured as an animal here that is sitting at your door. It is waiting for you to open the door so it can devour you. There's this idea that whatever it is that is sitting at your door doesn't desire the best for you. We see what it does with Cain in the next verse, "Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him."

Passage number two is Isaiah 1:16b-17. "cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause." This passage gives examples of what doing good looks like. These are all relational. It's how we deal with the people around us. My time here should be a time of doing good. My time for as long as I live should be a time of doing good. We must think about what Justice would look like in our relationships. Are we doing evil in our relationships? Or are we seeking justice? Are we pleading the cause of the widow? Are we bringing justice to the fatherless? Are we correcting oppression?

I feel like part of oppression is ignorance. We send teenagers in the states on mission trips all the time and there are always stories of how those short term missionaries had their eyes opened. God changes people when they see with their eyes how the world is and how he sees the people in the world. The moment we see past someone's exterior image and status and our eyes are opened to see into someone's heart--our lives are changed forever. God connects hearts.

My desire, to work toward correcting oppression in Poland among the Roma (notice I say "working toward"), is to see people's hearts be connected. I have this vision to see Poles and Americans have their eyes opened to God's people regardless of their status here in Poland. I'm working toward putting together bike tours through Poland in which we'll have the opportunity to meet new Roma people who live off the beaten paths in Poland.

So thank you for praying with me during this past week and for continuing to pray for me. Thanks also, if you're reading this last paragraph, for reading this lengthy debrief. I hope to be keeping up with my updates more regularly.

"making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it [the mystery of the gospel] boldly, as I ought to speak." Ephesians 6:19