Its life or death for someone...

The past few weeks the Lord has been challenging me to wake up.  "Wake up o sleeper, rise from the dead and Christ will shine upon you." Eph 5:14  Nothing super radical has happened but my heart has a longing that has not been awakened in a while. If anyone has 63 minutes, take a minute to listen to Tammy Hutchins' message from this past Sunday at Vintage 242. Vintage242.org Mind blowing. Eye opening. Heart breaking. Passion. It has it all people. Since listening to Tammy's talk and listening to a clip of Misty Edwards explaining what abandonment looks like to her, I'm just kind of out in left field with my glove on my head, staring at the sky in wondering what I can do to make things better.

I had a revelation today that broke my heart. Let me preface by saying that I keep heart ache at arms length, maybe I'm a little scared of it or something but for the most part I don't invite it into my life. I don't watch emotional movies, read emotional books and if one of those 'feed the children' commercials come on, I change it with a quickness. I guess I 'm kind of all-or-nothing. If I'm going to grieve over the heart break of this world, then I'm going to live my life heart broken. So this morning JM and I were chatting about living with less excess and I realized that in that moment when we were talking that there were babies and children who were living that would not still be alive by the time the sun set tonight because they lack simple things like appropriate clothing, food, places to sleep. Each time I run to chic-fil-a because I need my life to be easier there is a child fight to survive and my $12 easy meal could have helped that. Then I rationalize it and say sadly, that child isn't going to directly benefit from my $12 even if I gave it today. BUT i realized that if I had taken a step back with each of my purchases in "excess" and thought that this money is life or death for someone today that I would have spent it differently. I would have used SO much more of it to aide the many friends I have already serving over seas, saving lives everyday.

I need Jesus. I need the heart of Jesus to live a life that is completely abandoned to pull and pressures of Marietta, GA and American standards. I love America and the freedoms I have here. I just need Jesus in me to to out weigh the desire to have stuff. Today is life or death for someone. How can I live my life to give more people the chance to have life?