A centurion's faith, a widow's son and a possessed man....

In Luke 7:1-10 a centurion sends the Jewish elders to Jesus to request for Jesus to come and heal his valued servant. He does this because he feels that he is not worthy of coming to Jesus himself (vs.7) and yet, Jesus states that it is his faith that is greater than any that he had even found in all of Israel (vs.9). It made me think... we're never worthy to come to Jesus, our sin has messed that up, and yet He comes to us. People (like the elders in this story) come to Jesus on our behalf by praying and interceding for us, but its Jesus who himself decides to come and act and our faith impacts that.

At the same time though I think that our circumstance is a big part of things. Continuing on in Luke 7:11-17, Jesus raises the son of a widow from the dead. In vs.13 it says that, "when the Lord saw her (the widow) his heart went out to her and he said, "Don't cry."" He raises the young man from the dead and "Jesus gave him back to his mother." (vs.15). Time and time again when Jesus heals throughout the New Testament it says that he does this in response to faith (Luke 8:48 for example), whether spoken or simply in the eyes and the actions of the people desiring and more than that believing to be healed. Here there's no talk of the widow's faith, simply that the Lord's heart went out to her and he acts on that.... I think it's absolutely beautiful. How many times do I let my heart be broken and act based on circumstance? Not enough.

This morning I read the story in Luke 8:26-39 when Jesus healed a demon possessed man and again the idea of circumstance came up. In vs. 27 it says "for a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs." This in itself is a physical manifestation of our spiritual brokeness without Christ. In Rev 3:17 it talks about this condition and how, "You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked." This man was naked, homeless and living among the dead, and in a tortured state, he knew his condition and the demons themselves were scared when Jesus came to cast them out (vs.28-29). The sin in our lives is shameful in light of the glory of Christ, but yet there was healing for this man (vs.35) and there is healing for us.

Jesus said in Isaiah 61:1-3 "The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeanace of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion- to bestow on them a crown of beauty in instead of ashes, the oil of gladness, instead of mourning, and a garment of praise,instead of a spirit of despair."

The joy of my life is that I don't have to live in my broken state of sin. Jesus came to take us out of our condition and he counsels us to come to him and "to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see." (Rev 3:18). Jesus acts in response to our faith, he acts in response to our circumstance and he acts in response to our brokenness but we still need to come to him and let ourselves be healed.

Just wanted to say I hope you're all having a very Merry Christmas!! We've been singing Christmas carols which has been great... other than "let it snow, let it snow, let it snow," just doesn't ring as true as it could.... see you all soon, I need to go put turkey in the oven!! Love you all so much!(Jessica, Emily, Tricia and I at Casca Viejo

before the Christmas cantata at Teatro Nacional.)

Kinda a weird note today but I was thinking all the cab drivers in this city. This week more so than normal I've been in cabs all over the city. My grasp of Spanish has improved vastly from 4 months ago and its too the place I can actually have a conversation that makes some sense. It's just been nutty, but my first conversation that made me giggle was when the cab driver kept asking me why I didn't speak french and I was Canadian... then I had a cab driver recite me poetry about the sunshine when I asked him how his day was. And then today one driver put in english hip-hop when we got in and the next driver, with his 5 or 6 words in English called the traffic in Panama crazy and then proceeded to tell us in Spanish how his day was better because Jess and I were in the cab. I love being able to converse with the men that more or less make this city how it is. They just crack me up.

Tuesday night after a freezing cold bus ride (seriously, I had 2 shirts and a hoody on and still froze...) the western half of our team (Jessica, Steve and I) returned from a vision trip to the interior city of David. Before we left I really had no idea of what we were doing or going to do. Sure I had a list of smart sounding questions and concerns to be addressed but I really wasn't sure how it was going to play out. But we had an amazing trip!

One of the things that we really focused on was what we called the "current reality": whats really going on with the campus ministry, who's involved, how many are involved, on what campus etc. etc. etc. Quickly it became apparent that the current reality is really quite simple, there's no campus movement. But (!!!!) it doesn't end there, because more than anything I was encouraged by what we did find, a framework for the future campus movement. 3 young men, students on the 2 public universities that have a heart for reaching their campus and are committed to being a support if we're able to send a team of canadians there this summer. A dedicated group of volunteers that desire to see a movement started. A super friendly dean at the tecnologica university and seemingly open doors at Unachi, the other public and priority university. Both of the public university campuses are great and the atmosphere there is so similar to what it is in Panama city at the national campus.

It really took me aback and excited me when I realized something. What the campuses look like in David now is what the Universidad de Panama looked like 2 or 3 years ago. And yet look what God's doing, I get the blessing of seeing that day after day as I step onto campus and work with the students. And so the groundwork is getting set, the framework laid out and the campuses waiting for the Canadian team, but more than that, waiting for God to move and a movement to begin.

Wow... Christmas is coming and as we set up a Christmas tree and cut out snowflakes for our apartment there's a Christmas word that keeps coming up and up... Emmanuel. And so I want to introduce you all to my "guest editor," my roomate Jess who's going to write this with me...

"K so Jess tell me about the fish..."

"So imagine that you own a fish tank. You buy the pretty black and white rocks for your crazy expensive filter, you buy the nice light, you fill the tank with colorful rocks and different kinds of plants. You even feed them..."

"Feed who Jess...??"

"But when you go to feed them what happens??"

"Yay but who are we feeding?"

"The fish. Okay so, the fish, we're feeding them. And what usually happens Lindsey?"

"The fish hide, especially when I go to the boys and feed their fish. They just swim away from me."

"Okay, so how would you convey to these fish that you love them... when they just swim away from you?"

"I don't know, because I can't explain to the fish that I love them. They're fish??"

"I know they're fish, but what if you became a fish?? What if you swam among them? What if you weren't just a big looming figure over the tank? But you were a fish?? Someone they could relate too, someone who could speak their language."

Sooo... moral of the story if this. We're little fish in a big huge ocean that is this world. We have no idea how big God is and there's no way that we can get any comprehension of how big he is... but on the flip side how much he loves us. That is... until we look at Jesus. Man.. Jess and I are just blown away by this. I mean think about it... God, almighty, all powerful, omnipotent God became a fish. A little tiny helpless baby boy... and why??? Yes to save us from our sins... but also to show us how much he loved us and for us to be able to relate to him!!! There was no way he could do that as a huge lurking shadow, he had to become like us, like a little fish so that we could see the truth. So that we could learn straight from God, everything God said as a man is in the bible, its the only time that he was able to communicate with us, man to man, fish to fish. Jess saw a little baby in church on Sunday as we sang, "Emmanuel, Emmanuel, God is with us." There was no better and no other way for God to show us himself, than to simply come and be with us.

And so as Christmas comes remember this... we're little fish, but we have a loving Heavenly Father that knows exactly what its like to be us.