I’m reading the book “Crazy Love” right now, ya know in all my free time. I would recommend it to anyone! Francis Chan really puts into prospective how “unloving” the church has become, we as Christians tend to take the easy way out, the comfortable way, whatever is less painful. I think we often forget the first and second commandment, or maybe we don’t forget, maybe we just choose not to remember- “Love the Lord your God with all you heart, soul, and mind” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” I know it’s easy for me to forget to love the people around me, and that’s my everyday job. I came to a different country to specifically love people, and I still find myself getting frustrated with that person who shows up at 9:30pm with malaria, needing stitches, or treatment for scabies. On those nights it’s sometimes only after the fact that I remember the incredible privilege I have to LOVE; to love them as if it were Jesus Christ himself sitting at my kitchen table. Christ said “whatever you do for the least of these, you have done unto me.” All too often when I look down at that dirty kid sitting on my floor, with jiggers in His feet, and fungus covering the top of his head, I don’t see Jesus. But only when I look into the teary eyes of that little boy, being so brave to sit and endure pain do I see Him! The pain he’s going through will make him clean in the end. Healthy even. I know that, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t know what the next few minutes, or hours will bring? Yet, he sits... He waits... He trusts that I will care for Him… I imagine what the eyes of Jesus must have looked like that day He endured unbelievable amounts of pain for me… I don’t think I can even begin to imagine, but If God in the flesh took all that suffering for me, why can’t I at the least get a little uncomfortable, do something outside of the box, and show His crazy love to the people around me? He continually gives me chances to LOVE, but what will I do with these opportunities, what will I do with the opportunities to serve Christ, and I mean literally serve the least of these? Will I embrace the challenge, whatever it may be? Will you? Will people remember you for running with reckless abandon toward the prize God has set before you? Will people remember you for living with CRAZY LOVE?
I want you to read these stories of people that ran hard for Jesus! People that LOVED, trusted, and served God in everyday life. Most of these people you’ve probably never heard of, but they made a difference, they changed the lives around them. I don’t think anyone has ever written a book about them, or given them a huge amount of recognition; they just lived with incredible love. As you read, I challenge you to think about what people would write about you. What would your story be? Is it worth writing about...?
George Mueller-
George was born in Prussia in 1805 and was attending the University of Halle when he became a Christian. Up until then he had been infamous for his gambling debts, drunken stories, and escapades. But his life was transformed when he came to know Christ. He finished school and left for England to be a preacher. He and his British wife eventually settled in Bristol, England, where they saw many orphans rooming the streets-uncared for, unfed, often sick, and virtually guaranteed death at a young age. At this time, writers like Charles Dickens and William Blake had not yet brought attention to the plight of these children, and nothing was being done to help them. George and his wife decided to start an orphanage that would be entirely free of charge, and for which they would never ask any money or support. When they had needs, they would go to God alone, trusting that He would give them everything they needed. Many people were incredulous, and so the Muellers’ purpose in starting the orphanage became twofold: the first was obviously to help the orphans; the second was to show people what it looked like to trust God for EVERYTHING. When the first orphan house opened, George and his wife, Mary, prayed for everything they needed. According to George’s meticulous records, God provided all they asked for! By the time George died, in 1898, over ten thousand orphans had been housed and cared for in the five orphan houses they built. During His lifetime, a million and a half pounds went through George’s hands in the form of donations. He directed every cent toward those in need. After his death, a British paper wrote of George that he “robbed the cruel streets of thousands of victims, the jails of thousands of felons, and the poorhouses of thousands of helpless waifs.” Another newspaper noted that it had all been accomplished by prayer alone.
Rings-
I don’t know how old Rings is, but he’s definitely what you would call an old man. I also don’t know where he was born or what his real name is; he simply goes by Rings. His home is in the cab of His pickup, which he parks near downtown Ocean Beach, California. He is a chain smoker, and ex-convict, and ex-alcoholic. Rings likes to say that if Jesus saved him, then Jesus can save anyone and everyone. So instead of using his monthly check to buy alcoholic or a hotel for himself, he spends it on food at the local supermarket. He transfers the food he buys into coolers in the back of his truck, then drives down to the beach and makes meals for the fellow homeless. While preparing the food, Rings tells the gathering crowd about the freedom that Jesus brought into his life. He tells them that God is the One who told him to feed others with his money, and it’s all because God loves each of them. This man gives everything he has to others-literally everything-because he knows that he has nothing that wasn’t given to him by his Savior.
Nathan Barlow-
A medical doctor who chose to utilize his skills in Ethiopia for more than 60 years. Nathan dedicated his life to helping people with mossy foot. Mossy foot is a debilitating condition primarily found in rural districts, on people who work in soil of volcanic origin. It causes swelling and ulcers in the feet and lower legs. The subsequent deformity, swellings, repeated ulcerations, and secondary infections make people with mossy foot social outcast’s equivalent to lepers. I met Nathan shortly before he died when his daughter brought him to her home from Ethiopia when his health started to fail. After only a few weeks, he couldn’t handle being in the states. The people he loved were still in Ethiopia, so his daughter flew him back home so he could spend his last days there. Once while on the field, Nathan got a toothache, the pain of which was so intense that he had to fly out to get medical attention. Nathan told the dentist that he didn’t ever want to leave the field for the sake of his teeth again, so he had the dentist pull out ALL of his teeth and give him fake ones, so that he wouldn’t slow down the work of the Lord. This amazing man was the first to help these outcasts, and he spent his life doing it. Yet he died quietly without a lot of attention or recognition; no one knew about him. He worked for the Heavenly Father, not for the praise from the world. That’s a beautiful thing!
Lucy-
If you met Lucy at church, you would think she was somebody’s innocent dear grandmother. She’s the kind of woman who would come and give you a huge hug and then introduce herself. You would never guess that she was an ex-prostitute. When she was in her teens and twenties, drugs and prostitution dominated her life. Through an older woman who reached out to prostitutes, Lucy met Jesus and her life was completely transformed! To this day, almost 40 years later, Lucy lives near the streets where she once worked as a prostitute and consistently opens her home to other young women caught in prostitution. It is common knowledge on the streets that if you need anything you can go to Lucy’s house. She doesn’t have a lot, but her home is always open. Prostitutes, pimps, drug users, dealers, and anyone else who most people avoid-Lucy invites them in! This is her way of loving people who are in despite need of the hope and love that she, herself found 40 years ago.
I hope these life stories have done more than just encourage you; I hope they have eliminated every excuse in your head for not living a radical, love-motivated life. Hopefully these average, everyday people give you hope that you too can live a life worth writing about.