Scrap on the Streets

One night Moses K. shared with us the despondency of street children.  “They will scour the land for scrap and then try to sell it to get money.  With the little money they earn, they will buy food or water for themselves.”  Scrap, as Moses K. talked about was the leftover, unwanted, broken pieces of metal that street children scooped up and sold to anyone with a listening ear.  Scrap, as the world sees it, are the leftover, unwanted, broken children who now live on the streets as a result of broken homes, wars, and the AIDS epidemic, especially in Uganda.

And I met them.

On Wednesday morning while I was in Uganda, I went on an adventure to explore the countryside and more of the town of Masaka.  Curious about where a particular road wondered, I followed it.  I thought and hoped it would circle around and become a back way to Masaka (I was wrong about this and ended up walking quite a few miles out of the way!)  On route, however, I saw a little boy who was dressed in rags.  He approached me carrying a pouch.  “Do you want to buy?”  He spoke in ragged English.  When he opened his pouch, I saw scrap pieces of metal and immediately knew him to be a street child. 

“How much?” I asked. 

He misunderstood me, thinking that I asked him how much he had, and pulled out a handful of coins (worth very little).  I espied a 200 shillings coin and pulled out a 2000 shillings bill.  “I’ll buy that coin for 2000 shillings.”  I said.  His eyes grew wide.  We traded. 

And as I went on my way, he kept saying, “God bless you, sir!  God bless you!”

Later that evening, Moses K. and I walked down to Nyendo so I could again participate in feeding the children.  A handful of four to five children sat waiting for their food, which consisted of mere porridge and a few pieces of white bread—hardly sustainable or nourishing!  As I recorded a few of them and their stories, a couple more trickled in from the streets for the free meal.  For a little while we stayed there but then Moses K. led the children and I to the place where some would sleep for the night.

Fred and Ronald #1 (there were two named Ronald) held my hands as we wove through the byways and back streets of Nyendo.  We squished through mud, jumped over puddles, and wove our way through the alleyways of Nyendo until we reached the shelter Little Hands of Hope rents for 11 of the street boys.  It is a room we visited early in the week: small, maybe 3 paces in width and a little over four in length.  Eleven children, possibly a few others, will stay the night there and then return to the streets when morning dawns.  One mattress, a few rugs on the cold cement floor, and a mosquito net are the only items to grace the otherwise barren room.

 

The building where 11 of the children will stay for a night

The inside of the house where 11 street children will stay

Some of the street children Little Hands of Hope feeds

 

But Fred would not sleep there that night or any night.  He was older, somewhere in his teens perhaps.  He then led us further and deeper into the town through a maze of streets and people to an old brick building filled with trash.  Some street children would sleep there for the night, using darkness for covering and trash for blankets.  Then, Fred took us deeper, as if bringing us to the heart of life on the streets, to the place where he and perhaps others would sleep that very night.  In a little concave of houses, he showed us a bare porch, his bed for the night.  A concrete slab built into an adjacent building provided a temporary bed for other street children.  

Moses K. became nervous, perhaps because it was ‘dangerous’ for a white person to be out and about after dark.  Who knows? 

So I returned to the comfort of a retreat center in the nun’s convent with the stinging thought that several children ages 6 and above would endure another night on the streets.  Home, clean water, food, sanitation, someone to tuck them in at night and say, “I love you”—these children have none of these things.

The Ministry of Little Hands of Hope seeks to bring a touch of God’s light and love to the many children by a simple meal.  If you feel God’s tug on your heart for these children and desire to help them, click the above Little Hands of Hope to see more of its ministry in Uganda.

A Meal a Day

Off to the right of muddy dirt road some twenty-thirty minutes from down town Masaka, a white sign welcomed us to the Butale Mixed Primary School.  Beyond the natural guardians of a handful of banana trees and a mango tree robust with baby mangoes sat the public school.  Chances are when you hear ‘public school’ you very well might imagine the school you attended as a child; however, I assure you, it is not a replica.  Instead, before my eyes, a long brown-stained building stood with open doors and windows; a metal roof latched onto the top and parts of it were rusted.  Inside faired no better: the walls were bare concrete with wooden benches and desks that sat two or three students at a time.  This is a public, government school.  I hear private schools are better in Uganda. 

 

The School at Butale

Yet despite its unhealthy appearance, eager Ugandan children with their chocolate skin and deep brown eyes poured out of the classrooms with white smiles.  These children or at least many of these children are orphans.  Some walked a considerable distance from their ‘homes’ to come to school.  So why were they so happy? 

Could it be the visit of a ‘white person’?  Perhaps, but something more was afoot. 

We arrived at the Butale School shortly before lunchtime.  Classes were dismissed and the children walked and some ran down a grassy slope in back of the school towards a small, brick, square building that (if I remember correctly) had no roof on it.  This was the kitchen.  Inside the kitchen, a few people stirred a cauldron of bubbling white stuff.  What potion were they mixing to feed four hundred plus children? 

Porridge.  Porridge made of corn meal, perhaps a little sugar, and water.  This was their school meal, and for many the only meal they received a day.  These four hundred plus children lined up with a colorful array of bowls or cups to receive what looked like thick milk.  And they were grateful! 

A line full of Ugandan children waiting for food

 

In a translated interview with Moses K., the children shared their thankfulness for a single meal at school because they could then concentrate on their studies.  Talking with the principal.  And indeed, since Little Hands of Hope started to feed the children at this school, much has improved.  In a type written letter from the Head Teacher (what I would call a principal), a list of the ‘situation before’ verses the situation after Little Hands of Hope started to feed the children lunches went like this:

Before:

1) Pupils used to dodge classes because they were hungry

2) We had a high rate of dropouts

3) Children used to be sickly all the time

4) Children with HIV/AIDs and were on ARVs used to find it hard to study without lunch

5) Education performance was very low characterized with failures in the school

 

“The positive impacts of [your] intervention of lunch program into our school”

1) Pupils are no-longer dodging classes

2) Pupils are no-longer drop out i.e. from 320 pupils to 440 now in the school

3) Sickly and HIV/AIDS children are now living positively in the school and learning is now real to them

4) Education achievement has improved from 30% passing children to 82% of this year.

 

This is the ordinary power of a simple meal and a full belly.  A meal a day = health, concentration, a desire to be in school, passing grades, and in due time receptiveness to the gospel because they will see love in action. For more information about Little Hands of Hope click here.

Ugandan Children at the School

   

A Scent of Uganda

          For thirty-some hours I traveled over land and sea by air and land to reach Uganda, a southeastern African nation.  The stale air of our KLM Dutch airbus quickly gave way to the balmy Ugandan air filled with a peculiar scent as I exited onto the accommodation ladder.  By peculiar I do not mean a horrible stench; rather, it is a unique smell associated with the country.  If you have ever traveled to other countries, you might understand what I am talking about. Each country seems to have a unique scent associated with it that simply is that country.  Katie Davis described it this way in her book: “I took a deep breath of the air that smells what I can only describe as ‘Uganda’ and let it fill me with the joy of being in the place God has called me.”[1]

            Words might fail me if I try to describe the Ugandan scent to you, especially since we as humans have associated words with certain scents, fragrances, and odors.  For instance, you welcome the very pungent but sweet fragrance of a rose or the warm, buttery-chocolate aroma of chocolate chip cookies fresh from the oven.  However, you very well might run away if you saw a skunk and caught a whiff of his ripe odor or feel queasy when you open a gallon of spoiled milk.  Rose, chocolate chip cookies, skunk and spoiled milk all, if you have smelled them, call to mind a scent associated with each of them, whether a pleasant or unpleasant smell.  So instead of attempting to describe it, you will simply have to travel to Uganda to discover the scent.

            However, I will describe a different Ugandan scent to you.  Uganda is known as the Pearl of Africa due to its lush countryside and multiple lakes spotted throughout the land.  Should you climb a mountain, a picturesque and panoramic beauty awaits you.  It is a proverbial sweet scent.  But now travel down into the marketplaces and alleyways of the cities and you will quickly discover a different scent.   One of the Ugandan men whom I met, Moses K., said that 46-49% of the country’s population is 14 years old and under!  It is a very young nation.  Out of this vast number of statistics, over one million children are orphans.  If they have relatives who desire to care for them, they are among the fortunate few; however, if they do not, which is the case for most, they will leave for the streets in hopes to escape the pain of broken homes. 

Broken homes.  Sigh.  They are quickly becoming the norm in Uganda (and the USA!) due to a recent war in the north and the AIDS epidemic that has ravished large regions of sub-Saharan Africa.  Sad to write, very sad, but I think necessary to do so:  I noticed an AIDS prevention billboard promoting safe sex, not abstinence, and perhaps even more sorrowful was the sponsor of this ad.  It was an organization from the USA.

What then is the answer to the plagues of poverty, the rise of broken homes, and the leftover orphans as a result?  The answer: “For we are the fragrant aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing” (2 Corinthians 2:15).  Just as a rose is known by its sweet fragrant scent, so also are Christians known by their fragrant scent of Christ-likeness.  Thus when a person acknowledges our love or patience or self-control, they catch a whiff of the aroma of Christ Jesus in us.  It is when we as Christians live out of the glorious reality of Christ in us, that we love and give and serve and heal and speak and bring the good news of hope to a broken world, whether here in the States or abroad in Uganda.

 

And part of what the ministry Little Hands of Hope is all about is to be a means of promoting the aroma of Christ to the multiple orphans in a poverty-stricken land like Uganda. 

A View of Masaka in the Ugandan country-side

 

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[1] Davis, Katie.  Kisses from Katie.  (Howard Books: New York, 2011), 93.

A Text to the Unexpected

Sometime during the New Year’s Eve party in 2014 as I played ‘telephone pictionary’ with some of my fellow co-workers and friends, my cell phone chimed and alerted me to a text.  In this technologically bound society most people would not think this odd or strange but I did.  I wonder who sent me a message before the New Year? was my initial thought.  Normally, I do not receive an abundance of texts, except from work or around holidays when my family will wish a “Merry Christmas” or the expected “Happy New Year,” which would fall a couple hours from then.

I snuck my hand into my pocket, pulled out my cell phone, and read the text: “Jeff, I’m not sure if you are on Facebook but my wife and I wanted to know if you would like to go to Uganda with her.  Little Hands can flip the bill…leaving in March.”  I reread the text to make sure I understood the entirety of it.  It came from my best friend from college, Tom Johnson.  About a year ago, his wife, Kristen, journeyed to Uganda, saw the needs of street children and orphans, and began an organization called Little Hands of Hope to feed and care for such children. 

Now I was strangely invited to Uganda.

Uganda?  Somewhere in Africa, I knew, but couldn’t place the exact location. 

March?  Three months away.

“Ok…let me pray about it.”  I typed back on my cell phone.

Uganda?  Surprise.  The invitation to Uganda flew under my mental radar as a country to consider on the edge of a New Year.  Unexpected.  Unforeseen.  This small text would later grow as I first prayed and then accepted the invitation, traveled to receive my shots, and blossom into a ten to twelve day adventure in Uganda. 

This small text began to chart the course of the New Year for me and would leave a pensive aftertaste in my mind and heart during the weeks that followed it.  Such is the reality of small things though.  Small things or words often change the course of our lives or affect them greatly without our knowing. They come in unnoticed and uninvited but decide to stay with our conscience and linger with our minds, dinning with them until they set up residence in our hearts. 

Yet it is not the nature of a small thing or word to remain such.  A small acorn when planted will grow into its destined oak tree in time and with the proper conditions.  A small word can affect a child greatly, whether for good or bad.  A small thought will produce an action.  A small action has the ability to produce a habit, which will quickly become a lifestyle if left unhindered.  Indeed, as the Prophet Zechariah said centuries ago: “Who dares despise the day of small things?” (Zechariah 4:10)

And so the adventure to Uganda began with a text on that cold New Year’s Eve…

To See a Sunrise...

My phone beeped at 3:20 AM on August 24^th, warning me of a low battery, and woke me from a forgotten dream.  In my early morning grogginess, I plugged my phone into its charger and stumbled outside to check the sky.  Innumerable stars winked at me from above in the black velvet sky.  I smiled.  Yes, today was the day I would catch a sunrise on top of a mountain.

I quickly gathered the necessities of hiking in the dark and stuffed them in my backpack: three flashlights, a sweatshirt, a jacket, a windbreaker, my Bible, my journal and a pen, and a water bottle.  At 3:45 I took my phone, snatched my walking staff, and headed into the darkness. 

For the next forty-five minutes I drove through the foggy town of Lyndonville, past the sleepy village of Burke, and over hills to reach the trailhead for the mountain.  I checked my phone: 4:30, about an hour and a half before sunrise.    

Somewhere in the darkness an owl hooted as if to greet me to the haunted trail.  I hesitated for a moment and thought of a few unpleasant encounters I wished to avoid: a hungry bear, an angry moose or a random cougar searching for an early morning breakfast.  Not to mention the roots and rocks at my feet in the dark or the fire tower on top of the mountain…now, why was I climbing to see a sunrise? 

Ah…a sunrise captures a special place in my heart.  It is a memorial of a new beginning, the dawn of a new day, and restores hope that darkness is not final.  Its sheer brilliance deepens beauty in my own heart and (remains one of the few things that) squeezes tears from my eyes.  Brushes of pinks, oranges, and reds proclaim God’s glory as the fireball rises over the eastern horizon.  Along with all these, I am reminded that the Earth orbits the sun at a tremendous speed—the heavens truly declared the glory of God!

So ever since I arrived in northern Vermont, I kept my eyes out for a good place to catch a sunrise.  However, this was no easy feat!  It is not called the ‘Green Mountain State’ for nothing.  Mountains surround the town I live in.  So I quickly surmised that I would have to climb one in order to see a sunrise. 

On the Sunday before, August 17^th, I thought to see a sunrise to celebrate my 32^nd spiritual birthday with the Lord (see Anniversary 2012 below).  However, a broken spring on the strut of my car and rain hindered me from catching one that particular morning.  Instead, I stayed home and wrote a poem about how the Lord is the true Sunrise. So this was not some crazy, last minute decision.  It was well thought out —it was probably just crazy hiking up a mountain to a summit over 3000 feet in the dark.

Nevertheless, I pushed any hesitation out of my mind and began my ascent in the dark.  For the first ten minutes or so, I hiked up a steep, gravel roadway, which led to a clearing.  From there, I found the trailhead and entered into the foliage of the forest.  For a moment I paused, turned off my flashlight, and listened.  Except for a quiet wind hushing the branches and a gentle creek gurgling a lullaby, silence reigned.  No crickets chirped.  No birds sang. 

Darkness. Silence.  For the next hour I trekked up the side of mountain in darkness and silence with only the shaft of light from my flashlight illuminating my way.  Somewhere on the path, I startled a gaggle of three bats resting in a pine tree.  Thrice I slipped in the mud or on roots and rocks.  Once I took a bypath, and fortunately for me, came out on the main path.  And once I took a path I thought was a path and was not.  I had to backtrack to find the way.  

After about an hour’s hike, I reached the summit of Bald Mountain, but not the height I knew I needed to see the sunrise.  On top of this mountain sits a little cabin next to a rickety looking fire tower.  I still had to climb about four to five flights of stairs to reach the absolute top. 

But heights are not my thing.  Twice before I hiked up this mountain.  I still remember the first time.  A work team had come to help out at the Fold and Mike decided to take them to hike up Bald Mountain—a never ending climb when you are hiking it for the first time.  My heart sunk when I reached the summit after a rather long, sweaty climb.  The fire tower stood before me and fear whispered in my ear.

“Are you coming up here, Jeff?”  Mike’s voice echoed from the top.

The others from the work team cheered me on so I climbed to the top.  I’m sure my knuckles were white once I reached the top.

But on this particular occasion I was alone in the dark.  There were no voices of others to beckon me upwards or to cheer me on.  My only hope was to see the sunrise.  So I climbed those rickety stairs to the top of the fire tower, constantly looking upwards—never, never down—and finally reached the top.  I crawled into the little box on top and did not even dare to lean against the frail walls.      

Then I waited, reading Psalms 45-47, and occasionally glancing out the window. Fog drifted through the valleys and consumed a small town.  A bank of clouds or so I thought stood in the eastern horizon.  Was my hike in the dark in vain? 

Waiting for the sun to rise...

But then, wonders of wonders, s sliver of fire erupted from the eastern mountains.  The sun began to rise…

The beauty of the sunrise enraptured my heart.  A tear rolled down my right cheek.  The fire tower, the heights and fears associated with it, the trek through the darkness...all of it was consumed and forgotten by the brilliance and wonder of the sun rising in its strength over the eastern horizon.

This is the lesson of the sunrise, I think, and suppose this is what it means to be ‘consumed’ with the Lord Jesus.  When he captures my complete attention, my whole heart, then all my worries, anxieties, and fears diminish in light of his beauty.  O that He may truly be my All in all!

The sun fully risen.

    

Going Uphill: Hope

Then the race started. The first mile: easy. The second mile the hills started to come.  The third mile felt like it was all up hill.  And as the hill came, I hoped for the finish line.  This does not mean I despise running and just cannot wait until its over; rather, I hope, I have a confident expectation that I will finish the race, whether first or last or somewhere in-between.  And so I ran with hope.       

Hope.

We cling to this word more then we realize.  A little girl hopes for the doll she has waited over three months for.  She clings to the words of her mother: “Your birthday is coming soon.”  A teenager hopes to score high on his SAT. A man might hope for a promotion at work.  A woman hopes for her boyfriend to finally muster his courage and propose to her. A young couple hopes for their family to grow. Fathers hope for their children to succeed.  Mothers hope for intimacy with their children.  Grandparents hope for grandchildren.  Employees hope for weekends. Slaves hope for freedom.

But hope often comes deepens when sufferings and trials come.  A child hopes his parents will stop arguing and be friends. A teenager hopes for the school day to end so she can hide in her room away from the bullies at school. A son sits at the bed of his mother and hopes she will live through the surgery. A man hopes for a job after the layoff so he can take care of his family. Children hope their parents will not divorce. And so on.  

Why do we so cling to hope? Perhaps we see the world as it truly is and know it is not supposed to be that way.  Perhaps there is a remnant of Eden’s goodness deep within our hearts. “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). The sons and daughters of Adam and Eve still yearn for Paradise: for our workplace to be peaceful and fulfilling, for our loved ones to be healthy, for intimacy in relationships, and for a place of rest and freedom. They yearn for this fruit and every time troubles come they hope. 

We live on the other side of Paradise and know the ugliness of life: broken promises and vows, racism, human trafficking (which is slavery in its most hideous form), hate crimes, poverty, the AIDS epidemic, the hoarding of wealth, abuse in homes, shallow relationships, and the list goes on.  No wonder hope is such a powerful word.

To be sure, some people equate the word ‘hope’ with nothing more then fanciful, wishful thinking. A man spends hundreds of dollars on the lottery and ‘hopes’ to win it.  A student ‘hopes’ she will ace her test when she has not even studied for it.  A person might hope to finish first in the Boston marathon when he/she has not trained for it.  This is wishful thinking, not hope.  

Hope, however, is the deep, rich, confident expectation that God will fulfill his promises.  Sister to faith and love, hope is one of the three most enduring words of the human language (1 Corinthians 13:13).  Though its end goal cannot be seen, it deepens patience, builds a foundation for faith, and yields the tender but strong fruit of love (Romans 4:18; 5:4; Hebrews 10:23).  We nourish it through the endurance and encouragement of the Bible (Romans 15:4) and the Spirit empowers us so that we might abound in it (Romans 15:13).  Hope purifies us (1 John 3:3), emboldens us (2 Corinthians 3:12) and lifts our head to search for Christ’s return (Titus 2:13) and heaven (Colossians 1:5).

But this kind of hope is not produced or developed in a vacuum. Our tested character leads to hope and deepens its roots in us.  Paul said as much. “We know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope” (Romans 5:3-4). In the midst of suffering, perseverance is produced. On the long road of perseverance, character is formed.  But in the depths of character, hope buds, blossoms and bears fruit. It deepens in the pangs of sufferings, teaching us to learn lessons of life and lift our heads towards Heaven.

“And hope does not put us to shame,” Paul writes (Romans 5:5).  Sometimes as we wait for the fulfillment of our own personal hopes (or wishful thinking), something goes wrong and we are disappointed or humiliated.  But God’s definition of hope does not disappoint, discourage, or humiliate us. We will never be put to shame!

Why? Paul gives the answer: “God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5).

Our hope is grounded in two unshakable agents: God’s love and God’s Spirit.

God’s love is the bedrock of our hope.  This is the reason why hope does not put us to shame.  Paul explains this love a few verses down: “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).  You and I were still going our own way instead of God’s.  We rebelled against him, disobeyed him, and incurred his judgment on ourselves. But Christ was pierced, crushed, punished and wounded for us (Isaiah 53:5).

It is through Christ’s death that we see the greatness of God’s love for us. God saw our defiant hearts but our miserable state. So he sent his Son on a search and rescue mission for us.  Jesus became one of us and took upon himself all of our sin and the punishment for it. From every white lie to lustful thought, from every thought of hate to every theft, from bowing to idols of money and television to rejecting the cries of the poor, to the very monster of sin itself—God laid all of it on Jesus and punished him for it, poured out his righteous wrath on him until he died for it. 

The results for us, if we believe in him, are truly amazing!  We no longer face condemnation (Romans 8:1), no longer have to fear God’s wrath (1 Thessalonians 1:10), and no longer are slaves of the fear of death (Hebrews 2:14-15). Instead, we are justified (declared righteous in his sight), have peace with God (Romans 5:1), and become his adopted children (Romans 8:15), and so much more! This was God’s demonstration of love: Christ died for us. 

 

His love was not done in a quiet corner of the world; instead, it was public!  Jesus stumbled through the crowded streets of a capital city during a high festival with a cross on his back.  Everyone in the city heard of it and knew it.  He was nailed to a cross and hung on top of a hill, the hill marked as a skull, outside the city where everyone could see (Matthew 27:33). Roman soldiers, religious leaders and leaders of society gathered to see how he would die. If there were newspaper or television reporters back then, they would have written about it. The internet would have posted it.  People would have sent texts or tweets about it.  Everyone in Jerusalem knew about Jesus’ life and death. 

 God even did extraordinary signs so that people would know that this was no ordinary death.  Darkness covered the entire land for three hours (Matthew 27:45).  And when Jesus died, God ripped the curtain in the temple in two and shook the earth so that graves and tombs split open (27:51).  The pagan centurion who guarded him understood his death was different and declared him to be the Son of God (Mark 15:39).  And God’s declaration of love resounds and rumbles through the centuries covering sin and shaking hearts awake.

And should we ever doubt his love, as we sometimes do, all we have to do is look at the cross.

His love is also our security.  “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword” (Romans 8:35)? According to Paul, these things will not separate us from the love of Christ.  But he takes it a step further. Let’s make that a leap or a light year further! He tells us that ‘we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37). Through Christ and his love we conqueror in life!!

Let’s rephrase this for our modern ears, shall we? “Who or what shall separate us from the love of Christ?” Shall layoffs at work or mean employers or rude customers or debt or poverty or cancer or AIDS or angry words said to you or people picking on you or lack of food or unemployment or the calamities of the world or terrorists or you fill in the blank…the answer is NO.  Nothing has the power to separate you.  Rather, God has given you his love to become more then a conqueror over layoffs, mean employers, rude customers, debt, etc.  You are greater then the Napoleons and Caesars in this life because of him and his love.  And his love gives us the foundation of hope to believe it!

While God’s love is the bedrock of our hope, God’s Spirit is the agent and avenue for God’s love to fill and indwell us.

Even a brief glance at the Spirit’s work in Romans 8 staggers me (and hopefully you). The Spirit’s law is our life and freedom (8:2). He is the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead (!) and He lives in us (8:11)!!! By him we are able to execute the ‘misdeeds’ of the body (8:13). He is the Spirit of adoption so that we are able to call God by the intimate names of Abba or Papa or Daddy (8:15).  God is our Father and the Spirit testifies and reminds us often that we are God’s children (8:16). He helps us in our weaknesses and intercedes for us (8:26). And this is only in one chapter in the Bible!

And He is the one who pours out God’s love into our hearts.  Imagine for a moment that the Pacific Ocean represents God’s love: vast beyond our comprehension, deeper then we realize and more wild and powerful then we dare imagine.  Now imagine you are an everyday cup. Perhaps you are a cute pink one with a handle or a handsome tall green one or a coffee mug with a sunshiney smiley face on it (you’ll have to use your own imagination here—be creative). Now get this! The Spirit pours and squeezes all of the Pacific Ocean (God’s love) into you, the cup!!!

“Impossible!” you say.  And yet that is what the Spirit does with God’s love. 

If we are ever empty on love, it is not on account of the Spirit! He pours God’s love into us.  And so we have hope. Rich. Deep. Genuine. Real hope. 

And so I live with hope.  Do you?

Oh…and by the way, I finished the race and placed something like 128 or 138 out of 300-400 people or something like that—not too bad for running only the day before.  Plus I beat my sister by a few seconds…but I won’t brag...well, not too much.   

Going Uphill: Character

While running up hills develops perseverance in me, it is not the only reason I run—there are other benefits when I do.  The same is true with our trials and sufferings of various sorts.  Perseverance is produced but the Apostle Paul understood that it is not an end in and of itself. Though it is a good characteristic in a person’s life, it is also a road or pathway that leads to other benefits.  

Let me put it another way. When a little girl starts out playing the piano with a desire to play a piece from Beethoven or Bach, she does not have the ability or skill to just sit down and play it.  She will need to learn music notes, coordinate her fingers to the keys, practice repetitions and simple songs, tap her foot to the beat of whole notes, half notes and quarter notes, learn the meaning of rests and flats, and learn to read notes without looking at her fingers. The path to playing a great musician is perseverance, not just practice. She will need to practice but without perseverance she will not achieve her goal.  Through her practice she will need to learn perseverance through the painstaking repetitions, long hours, and her mistakes in both private and public atmospheres.  She learns perseverance but she does not play the piano for perseverance’s sake alone.  There is something greater beyond. 

The same is true when I run.  I do not run for perseverance alone.  Indeed, it will come in handy when I run a half marathon or marathon. However, there are many other reasons why I choose to run: lower blood pressure, a release of stress, overall health, a toned body, able to outrun my nieces and nephews and my sister’s three dogs (which comes in handy every now and then), able to beat my sister in a race (nope...not bragging, well not too much), and so on.

So if perseverance is a path, then what is the outcome? Why did Paul persevere through his sufferings?  What did he see as the end result of perseverance? This is what he wrote in Romans 5:3 “We know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”

Perseverance leads to ‘character.’ Character? What does this word mean?  Perhaps you have heard someone say, “Well, you know Bobby, he is a character” meaning that Bobby is a little odd or perhaps a little too funny for his own good.  And while you like Bobby as a friend, you would rather pass on the notion to become like Bobby.  While our English word ‘character’ has that meaning and a variety of others from an ‘actor in a play’ to ‘reputation’ to ‘moral strength,’ the biblical word for it has the nuance of ‘proof’ or ‘evidence’ or ‘approved and tried.’  Perhaps a good rendering for it would be ‘tried or approved character,’ something tested and refined by persevering up the rugged hills of our adversities and sufferings.

If we return to the running imagery (no pun intended), ‘character’ is equivalent to being in shape.  After you persevere in running up hills several times your body becomes toned, your muscles stronger, and your body now coincides with your mind that you can go that distance. Or with the pianist, ‘character’ is equivalent to becoming an accomplished pianist. Your trained mind now comprehends the notes to play while at the same time your fingers dance across the ivories to play Beethoven or Bach’s pieces. It is the same with persevering through suffering. Character is established or as James wrote, “Let perseverance finish its work so that you might be mature and complete.” 

So perseverance leads to Christ-likeness in our character and maturity in our faith.  You know it while you wait in patience for a slow cashier during the Christmas season. You experience it while you pray for someone who has ridiculed you at work. You taste it when you refuse to listen to gossip or turn from pornography on the internet. You understand it when you have compassion on your drunken neighbor and reach out to him with a basket filled with fruits and cookies.  You delight in it when you listen to your teenage daughter’s problems at one o’clock in the morning. You rejoice in it when your spouse has a rough day and takes it out on you. Instead of retaliation you ask questions, listen to his/her needs, and respond with love.

This kind of character is not formed overnight.  It takes time. It takes perseverance.  It takes trials, adversity, and suffering in our lives to get us there.  But it is worth it!  And in our society, men and women of character are sorely needed. We hear of road rage, embezzlement, fraud, statistics of divorce, abuse in the homes, fathers running away leaving families, drunkenness, gossip in workplaces, teenage pregnancies, and…well, you get the picture.  I don’t need to tell you the state of the world. You know it. If you open your eyes you see it.  If you open your heart, you’ll feel it.

Our world desperately needs men and women who will BE the light of Christ to the people around them. “You are the light of the world,” Jesus said (Matthew 5:14).  It is a statement, a declaration of character, and a truth you and I must reckon with. Light comforts those in fear, disperses the darkness of depression, and warms the cold heart. Light is visible.  So are people with character.  They stand out among the crowd not just with their voices but, more importantly, with their lives. 

And character yields the great fruit of hope.