Suckered out of a crisp Lincoln

As a staff we get together every Monday way earlier than should be legal to make sure all our dominoes are lined up for the week and to pray together. To help us stay connected with campus, a few weeks ago we started taking an hour or two every other week to do something as a staff to reach out to our campus. Today was one of those days. I was not in a good mood or interested in talking with anyone on my staff, let alone anyone on campus.

We broke into three groups and took off with five envelopes each. Open one. Do what it says. Open another. Do what it says. And so on. Be back in an hour. My crew’s first assignment was to prayer walk campus for ten minutes, which means spend the time on campus praying for campus. We went to the Rendezvous building, got some coffee and prayed while watching students go about their day. Needless to say none of the three of us were feeling especially inspired to be proactive and speedy about things. Coffee is good. Company is good. It took longer than ten minutes to pray for ten minutes. Slow happens, especially if I’m involved and it’s not yet noon.

Our second envelope had a crisp Lincoln inside with instructions to pray about how to use it. After a few minutes of praying, two of us had no ideas at all and our third wheel thought we needed to go to the Fine Arts Department on the other side of campus. So much for sitting comfortably sipping my coffee. The breadth of campus and an epic puddle later, we arrived in the Fine Arts lobby where we proceeded to wait. And wait. And wait. And wait. Nothing. We started wondering if we’d heard wrong. It’s not a big place and there’s nothing to spend five bucks on so we scattered a bit wandering around looking for someone to give it to. Right about the point it was becoming awkward to mill around anymore She walked in.

Of our trio, I was the only one who happened to be in a spot to hear what She yelled down the stairs to Her friends. “I just suckered some Christians out of five bucks for breakfast!”

I laughed and wandered back to tell my cohorts the funny. They laughed too. And we all concluded She was the one we were waiting for.

Taking the five bucks we went down and asked if She had just had breakfast purchased for Her. When She said yes, we told Her we are Christians praying about what to do with this five bucks we have and that we thought Jesus wanted Her to know He is alive, well and that He wanted to buy Her lunch too. At first She balked at the money, so we told Her to give it away if She didn’t want it. Obviously touched deeply, She burst into tears in front of Her friends and ran off to the bathroom leaving breakfast behind. Not wanting to embarrass Her, we told Her to have a great day and made our way back to meet up with the rest of our staff.

I have no idea what Jesus was doing in all this but He obviously wanted her attention when He sent two of our groups to give her some cash. I think a lot of people, including Her, don’t want to accept gifts like this not because it’s cash but because of Who the cash is really coming from - Jesus. We never even got Her name but Jesus knows and our prayer is that He would continue to surprise Her with more opportunities to sucker some Christians out of tangible expressions of Jesus’ love for Her.

When’s the last time you got “suckered” into tangibly sharing the love of Jesus with someone?

Living in hell because Jesus asked him to

So I'm at this conference over new years called the World Missions Summit. Piles of people from around the world all in one place. You know, a conference. Well, one of the keynote speakers was a surprise for us. His turn comes around and he's introduced and I'd never heard of him. It's sad too because I read the news a lot and the people we hear about all the time should actually be listening to and deferring to guys like this. And I don't even remember his name. He'd probably like it that way too.

He's a pastor in Baghdad.

Under Saddam he led a Christian church in his house and hoped to stay under the radar of the secret police. He didn't. They arrested him and with a death sentence on his life he was thrown into a 7x8 foot isolation cell with six or eight other tribal leaders from around Iraq with similar sentences. They were there for months. No windows. Not enough food. No toilet. No light.

He didn't say much about it, lets just say he and his suite mates weren't treated so well.

While sitting in a room so dark he couldn't see his own hand he began meeting the men with him. After much prayer (and hearing them pray to Allah) he began talking to them about God and faith and Jesus and being where they were. Over the months the prayers of the other men shifted from 'Allahu Akbar!' to 'Jesus...' This guy wasn't trying to convert people, he was just doing his best to love the guys sitting with him in their collection of finely aged feces. And in the darkness and the stink Jesus became real to these guys.

The day before the US invaded Iraq, Saddam opened the doors to the prisons and everyone just walked out. No directions, no showers, no nothing. Just go. So they did. And he wouldn't go home for fear of forever scarring his children with the sight of him. Somehow he found a bath and some cleaner clothes and made his way to his house where his family didn't believe it was him standing at the door; they thought he was still in prison or dead.

And I'm sitting there listening to this humble nobody who still pastors a church in Baghdad, who refuses to leave because even if it means living in hell itself he will only go where Jesus has asked him to go. Sometimes I think Baghdad might just be hell. And he refuses to leave because he loves the people too much. One of the 20 year old women in his church, one of his leaders, so loved her people she chose not to marry so she could better serve other Iraqis. Then she was killed in an attack on one of the markets. But he loves the people too much. The sacrifice is worth it.

I can't help but wonder what might happen in places like Baghdad if the people who are in charge took the time to listen to guys like this who bear the literal scars of love and faithfulness, who aren't in it for the political power but for their love for the people.