How Do You Read It?

I excitedly flipped through the pages of the new Church Cookbook. Being a specialty Chef by trade, I was eager to see my favorite creations in print. Much to my dismay, I found that both recipes I submitted were transcribed incorrectly. They each had typos that now rendered them as awkward, perhaps inedible dishes, if the recipes were followed. I was mortified. A while later, however, I began to laugh. “Holy Spirit, You did it again!”

Lately, it seems, my inside joke with God is Him wreaking havoc on my little melancholy world that I strive to keep neat, controlled, and compartmentalized with articulate, easy to follow recipes and plans. Ha! God laughs at my plans...

I recently received an e-mail from a young woman who ministers in Les Cayes. Talking about her experiences in Haiti, she said this:

“The way the Haitians live is extremely different than what we are used to in the States, and if you aren't already, you will learn to be extremely patient and extremely flexible.  These are two things that are essential in order to "successfully" live in Haiti.”

Patience & Flexibility. Definitely not my stronger character traits. So I prayed,  “Father, please make me more patient and flexible.” Big mistake! Within 2 hours, I was already drowning in a new trial, yet another error out of my control that made me seem more fallible than I was comfortable with. I could hear God chuckling...

God loves to expose the condition of our hearts. In Luke 10, a rabbi who had it all together - an expert in the Law - asked Jesus how to get into Heaven. “What is written in the Law,” Jesus replied. “How do YOU read it?” But the rabbi, who wanted to make himself look good, quoted the appropriate scripture and then asked, “Who is our neighbor?” 

Knowing that Jewish law’s definition of “neighbor” did not include Samaritans or Gentiles, Jesus told the rabbi the story of the Good Samaritan. By doing so, Jesus answered this rabbi’s question with another question: Where is your heart? The issue is not who your neighbor is. The issue is your own heart. Are YOU a good neighbor?

And that’s what Jesus does to us sometimes. He puts situations, trials and people - especially people - into our lives that BEG the question: “Are you a good neighbor?” God puts these ‘neighbors’ into our life so we can examine our own hearts. It’s not about who or what drives us crazy, but the crazy that resides in us. In most cases, our neighbor seems to be anyone - or anything - that takes us out of our comfort zone. If you are willing, He will certainly bring you to the end of yourself in order to reveal it to you.

The Samaritan was traveling when he found a man lying on the side of the road, left for dead. This naked, beaten man was not part of the plan, not penciled into the schedule, not budgeted for. But when will people in need ever be convenient? When will the sick and naked and orphaned and diseased and beaten and hungry and poor ever be convenient for us? But the Samaritan stopped what he was doing. He saw him, he took pity on him and he went to him. 

Jesus tells us to “Go and do likewise.”

Jesus has asked me to do this in Haiti. He has asked me to stop what I am doing, take pity on the children of this nation and go to them. This has not and will not be convenient for me. Haiti does not fit into my organized compartments of how a culture should be, of how a nation should be. I will need to be OK when plans go awry, when schedules are interrupted, when organization unravels and structure crumbles. I will have to expect misunderstanding, miscommunication and malfunction. I will need to be OK with mosquitoes, misery, meanness and mud. I will learn to live outside my comfort zone. 

It will be revealed that I am completely fallible. My 'recipes' will most likely be altered, and I will have to be OK with that.  Maybe I will have to follow recipes that make absolutely no sense and produce horrible results and have my name attached to them. Perhaps I will have to go back to cooking without recipes. One thing is for certain: my new kitchen consists of a large pot and some sticks. I will have to be patient and flexible. It's all about my heart. Do I love my neighbor?

How do I read this? 


In the end, God will not care how my recipes turned out. He will care how my  heart  turned out. When I am in Heaven, He will simply look to see if I have brought my neighbors with me.