In one of my most recent classes a student responded to one of my posts and said something to the effect of
"I think it is paramount that everyone has a chance to gain an understanding of what God has in store for them and the plan that he has in mind for their life."
And you know me, I agree, but I don't. So once again I send classmates into a tizzy and professors trying to figure out what to do with me and I have resigned myself to being ok with that. I have had the blessing this last semester with a professor who has a past broken enough to get it, so she is atleast not punishing me for being honest. My response to my classmate was this.... I absolutely agree with you that people need to gain an understanding that God has a plan and purpose for their life. However, what I know that most Christians don't seem to understand is that if basic needs are not met, that plan and purpose is irrelevant to the unbeliever. Even Jesus demonstrated the importance of meeting basic needs when He fed the 5000 in Matthew 14:13-21 (New International Version). If God’s Word were enough, why would Jesus stop and feed people? Why would He interrupt His teaching to make sure that people were not hungry? I, as one who has been hungry, will tell you, He did it because He knew that until their basic needs were met they could think of nothing else. There is this really life changing episode of South Park, which is a particularly crass and terrible adult cartoon show, that I am honestly embarrassed to say I watch, but in this one episode that I saw, my God I wish that every single Christian had to watch it! In the episode the Christians were handing out bibles to the children in this African village and the children were EATING them. Wow. So very life changing, if you actually stop and think about it. We are trying to share God’s word and people are hungry, lonely, angry, sad, tired, without the most basic of needs…they can’t see our God if they are worried about the basics. We hand them a bible and they will eat it out of hunger. That is why Jesus stopped, why He chose to feed the 5000. That is why we must stop. Why we must meet the needs of the 5000. They need us. That is why we must stop trying to share Jesus while denying humans basic rights…they will NEVER hear us.FHL,Jessica
I'm so glad that I get to call you my friend!
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