The Greatest Joy

I just experienced one of the greatest joys I have ever experienced. I just mailed a check to World Vision for over $10,000. It was not even all my money. It was money from my church; but I got the distinct privilege of mailing this check! I could have allowed our finance people to handle it, but no way! I was taking care of this baby all by myself!! I could not write or sign the check, but I could sure write the cover letter, insert the check and letter into the envelope and lick it sealed. The glue on that envelope was one the sweetest tastes I have ever experienced.

Let me back track.

Last fall, I undertook something that I have never done. I led my church in an extended study of The Beatitudes of Jesus. You know what they are. Those poignant little snippets that all begin with the phrase, “Blessed are . . .”

Although I was very familiar with the phrases, and knew their context, in over 25 years of ministry, I had never taught or preached on them. There is a good reason. Well, it is good in my mind anyway. I am more of a paragraph speaker. I like to take one or several paragraphs in a passage and let them craft themselves into a message that I get to deliver as I seek to expose the text. That means that to preach the Beatitudes would be for me a unique approach. I would not be speaking on a paragraph, instead over the course of eight weeks I would take these pregnant phrases and expound on what I learned of them from other passages of Scripture.

It was eye opening for me and the church to say the least. But one phrase really cleaned my clock. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

Now I have always known that the fact that Jesus mourns over personal grief was a reality. Jesus hurts when we hurt. I was likewise aware that Jesus mourns over the presence of sin and its affects on humanity. But what I was not as aware of, that absolutely killed me in my study was the fact that Jesus mourns over human suffering.

In the course of that message I looked at flood victims in the Pittsburgh area. I looked the starving children around the world with swollen stomachs. I watched the Sarah McLaughlin video and tried to find a way to get it to show to my congregation. But what really cleaned my clock was the suffering on the continent of Africa due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Consider:

• 26.6 million people are infected – more than the population of every state in the union with the exception of California
• 4 African countries have over 30% adult infection rate
• 2.3 million died in 2003
• 3 million children under the age of 3 are infected
• 1 million children have been orphaned
• In some countries there is the very real danger of an entire generation being lost.
  

I was totally taken back. My heart was broken. I had read all of this before, but for some reason it got my attention like it never has before. I remember sitting at my keyboard writing my message with tears flowing down my face at the intense suffering of my fellow humans in Africa.

About the same time a brochure from World Vision came across my desk. In it I saw that for only $4,000 we could build a home for widow and orphans of HIV/AIDS. I saw that for $1,300 we could send a metric ton of food to widows and orphans from HIV/AIDS that would be matched by government grants up to fourteen times.

The Spirit of God hit me so clearly. “Terry, why not get Fountain Park Church to raise that $5,300 over Christmas. You are in this affluent white suburb, challenge your people.”

So, I did. I challenged them to give to this effort above any other giving they planned to do over the Christmas holidays. I challenged them to consider giving up a Christmas gift to get this accomplished. My wife and I decided to not give one another a Christmas gift so we could give to this. My children were asked to give to this and not give us a Christmas gift. I told my church what we were doing and asked them to pray about what they should do.

As I said, I just mailed a check for $10,963 to World Vision. God so spoke to our people that we gave enough to World Vision to build not one but two houses, and send not one but two metric tons of food. Plus there was an additional $363 to send to the general HIV/AIDS effort. That may not seem like much to some; but to a new church development, it was and is huge.

But, it is more than just money. It was the awareness that these are fellow human beings who are suffering in ways that you and I cannot even imagine. Now I realize that there is education to be done, to help the sufferers and limit the disease. World Vision does that too. But this was a gift that we think will make a difference in the lives of some.

Will this gift cure AIDS? No. Will it help an entire continent? No. But it will help some! And that is what God expects. Do what I can, where I can, while I can.

I just mailed over $10,000 of my young church’s money to ease the suffering of some. Did it make me feel good? You bet your sweet bippy it did. Does it end there? No way. We have committed to pray regularly for these folks, for the children, for protection, and for a cure for this terrible disease.

What did you do today?