Day 27 – Starfish (Davidson Scott)
Posted May 27, 2008 by Sarah Johnson in Sermon Blogs Archive Tagged – One Month to LiveMaking a World of Difference
As I read through Day 27, I could vividly remember that day in LaSalle Street in downtown Chicago when I had to make the decision between staying in the USA and enjoying the comfort and relative safety or to go back to my country and continue serving in student ministry. We were just coming from talking with the Registrar at Moody, since my host had offered to finance my studies. It was in July 1999, my first time in the USA to attend an International conference of Christian students hosted by Intervarsity USA at Wheaton, Illinois. By this time, we were two years into a ten years civil war in my country, Sierra Leone, which left behind the destruction of over 200,000 lives, property and deep emotional wounds. As I prayed silently, I knew that God wanted me to go back to my country and he was waiting for me to make a decision. In my mind it did not make sense, but in my heart I felt the joy of the Lord as I said to my host, “thank you for the offer, but I have to go back to my country, because the Lord needs me there”. That moment, I knew I handed over my life completely to the Lord to let him do what he wanted with it. My safety and comfort became secondary.
My arrival back home was not exciting, because it did not make sense to most of my relative and friends. To them it was a great opportunity lost, because no one in his right mind would want to return to such danger and uncertainty after stepping his feet in the USA, the land of opportunity, freedom and comfort. I knew God wanted me back there, but during those times when life became unbearable and dangerous, it would cross my mind that may be I should not have returned home. Two of my worse times were in 1999 when I was almost killed by rocket-propelled grenades and bullets in two fierce battles between the Rebel and Government forces in the area where I lived. These battles lasted for three and five days respectively, and left behind many dead and many houses burned down, including my family house and every thing I had. In all the anguish and pain, God gave me peace and whenever I become very afraid, he would assure me that he was with me and was protecting me. The good news is that God provided for me after the war to come back to the United States to study in 2002- 2005.
I would never say it was easy, but as I look back now, I know that sacrifice I was willing to make by his grace changed my whole perspective of life and deepened my relationship with the Lord. I could see how God used that sacrifice and that of others to keep the student ministry going during those ten years of civil war. I could see how God brought courage, strength and Salvation to many Christian and non-Christian students and graduates in such a time of despair and anguish. I learned to make the most of every minute and every day I had, because you don’t know if you would live to see the next. I grew in my dependence on him, and I know there is nothing more beautiful than living for his purpose.
Not withstanding, there are times in my life when I have failed to make the right sacrifice that God wanted, because I was thinking about myself only. Sometimes, that sacrifice was to cut my sleep and pray for some one, or to give some time to encourage and pray with someone in pain. It may be speaking out against something when I know it will generate negative reactions, or sharing the gospel or giving a word of knowledge in a place where it is very uncomfortable. I know the Lord forgives me when I repent and ask for his forgiveness, but I always think of what God would have accomplished in someone’s life if I had trusted him to take care of my own issues and allow him to use me that moment. This thought of the blessings that will flow to others and the joy it brings when God works his purpose through me and bless others, even generations to come, motivates and convicts me. Like the writer said, “When our top priority is to be safe and secure, we lose touch not just with the needs of others but with a primary need of our own.” Even now that I have been back here for a while, I know he still has work for me to do there, for which he is preparing me now.
How I pray that we will trust the Lord enough to step into the uncomfortable and let him use us more and more for his glory. Remember, like the boy and the starfish we may not be able to do all we wish, but the little we can do will count for eternity. “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” (1 John3: 16).
What is God asking you to do or what step is he waiting for you to take? What is it that is holding you back? We do not even know how much more time we have here. What if it is just 30 days?
Davidson, I am convinced that when you get to heaven, you will see the tremendous fruit that came from that pivotal choice to return to your country. The commonsense wisdom to stay in the US, the “land of opportunity” was trumped by God’s direction to walk through the valley of the shadow of death into the civil war zone of Sierra Leone. He needed your light to shine in a very dark time, where people were entering eternity minute by minute all around you. In God’s wisdom, Sierra Leone was the “land of opportunity”for you to be fruitful and Christlike in that hour, because God’s ways are not our ways. He wants us to pick up our cross and follow Him, and He sometimes leads us the opposite way we expect Him to go. You are an example to all of us to be obedient and devoted to Jesus, no matter what.
One other quick comment-Jesus’ best “opportunity” on earth was the cross, not the Mount of Transfiguration. Our natural wisdom would pick the Mount of Transfiguration over the cross as the pinnacle of “having arrived”, but the cross is the turning point of human history.