I finished up my latest book this past weekend, "Speaking to teenagers" and in all honesty, I think I have a better understanding of how to say things or approach those certain things but I still have no idea what to say. This past Sunday teaching in the student ministry - really had me down yesterday. The students were set back and not engaged and just seemed like they were not interested in anything I had to say or for that matter - what Christ would have to say. I guess I will get those times where my words from my heart go on deaf ears and bounce off hearts but last night at Rock Group I think God really spoke to some of us there. I had some things that God had placed on my heart to share with them about prayer and our plans for our Jamaica trip this summer. I wont talk about prayer and owning your prayers not through others but by you praying your own words and sharing your own heart with Christ. I talked about that earlier last week but I do want to say a few things today about compassion.
See until you get in touch with your own brokeness, we are all broken in some way, you wont be able to relate to someone elses brokeness. I spoke last night about the relationship between Paul and Timothy and we all agreed that we all dont feel called to be a Paul and lead others around us and we all dont have the right bible verse or the right words to say - but LIFE gives us those words. Christ and Christianity is not about a religion - its a relationship. You build relationships as you do life. You build your faith and trust in Christ as you do life. Life gives us our words, shapes our hearts and when we have come to terms in our own pain and struggles - only then can we relate to someone elses.
Until you are able to express yourself through your pain, the cries and hurts of those we need and want to help and do life with will only sound like mumbles.
Honest loved ones, compassion is seeing your own downfalls and reaching through them to help others. Carol is a fantastic cook and she loves nothing more than to extend a meal to others in our church and in Kyles school, in our friends and through the PTA that Carol serves on when people are hurting, when they struggle through a loss or when times are really difficult. We only know this because we have been on the receiving end of those meals. After my mom passed in 2006, we had meals being dropped off for weeks. After Walt had passed we had meals dropped off to our house for a month. Not one meal cooked in our kitchen because people relate and step through their own pain and through compassion - they are too blessed to be a blessing.
When we focus only on ourselves during our season of pain or some difficult thing we are going through -you will miss out on the compassion that is all around you because chances are you wont let it in. You think you are the only one with this problem or struggle. You think nobody cares or maybe - you dont even want to hear about it or what anyone has to say.

Through our brokeness Christ came to serve us and even as we celebrate communion from time to time at church - its a celebration of brokeness, Celebrate my body, broken for you. Celebrate my blood, spilled for you. We must identify our brokeness so we can do something for others.
If you have survived cancer, why not serve someone who is struggling with cancer?
If you have lived through divorce, why not serve someone going through it?
If you have been married a long time, why not share that marriage struggle with others who are struggling or just starting out in their marriage?

God has to do something IN you before he can do something THROUGH you. I can remember back when my dad was in the hospital with his heart surgery. There was a young man that had been in a bad auto accident and surgery after surgery he kept pulling through them. Faced with all kinds of issues and a long road to recovery ahead of him, his family pulled together. The once fighting divorced mom and dad, came full circle and put their sons needs ahead of their own. Family rallied and prayed and because I was there, broken down and open to the suffering of that young man, that family and my own brokeness - we served each other. We came to know each other. We prayed together holding hands right there in the hallway, right there in the waiting room. We thanked God for both their son and my dad to be living and making progress while all along, none of us knew what was around the corner.
You will never see or serve others if you cant see past yourself. Because of that experience and the place that God brought me through then, it enabled me to go through a tough season with eyes and heart wide open for the things of God and the people around me through the passing of my mom, my father n law, the hospital visits that I have been on, serving a meal to the Center of Hope and in my rock group families. Its the compassion for them that I keep plugging away and living my life as an example for Christ even though I may not have the words.
Jamaica will be an experience and a life changing one at that but in order to do so - we all have to see our own struggles and brokeness and need for Jesus in our life before we can go and share with them and have our hearts on our sleeve.
Its in those moments, real stuff happens. Real life takes place. Real change is experienced. Passion becomes alive and the hope of NEVER GIVING UP.
We all have something significant to do in our lives. Christ has given us that seed and I think the compassion seed is in all of us. It takes life experience and knowing Christ to start the growth process and for it to become alive in us.
I can't pass the channels on tv with the children hungry in Africa or the people who so need water and to see what they are drinking now to survive. A student walks away from their faith because the crowd they are in is pulling them away or the boyfriend who has such a hold on that girl that she is pushing everyone away because she doesnt feel complete or worth anything without him.
Compassion grows in our hearts so that our hands will do something about it. When Christ is in your heart and grows there - we can't help but to do something about it.
John 14:12 - Most assurdly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also and greater works than these he will do, because I go to my Father.

You were created to do something great! No one has done more good in and for this world that Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 2:10 - For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Think for just a moment, where you are right now, is this the place where God can use you? In your struggles can you put down those things long enough to see through them? Because of them, can God use you to do something for someone around you?
I bet he is preparing you if you let him and focus on the things of him instead of your problems.

Happy Valentines day to everyone. No matter if you are married, dating someone or not - someone loves you and has given everything for you - in Christ Jesus.

Praise God for that love, mercy and grace. Amen

Lonnie~