Moving into a Tent

It looks like I will be moving into a tent and going to live on the streets of San Diego. Mind you the Lord might still provide for me in some other way but if nothing opens up for me in the next few days that is what I will ultimately end up doing (I have housing until Monday and will be staying with a gracious Christian couple over the weekend).

My web development work that I have been doing for my present landlord in exchange for the rent is coming to a close as he no longer needs my services. He decided to get out of internet everything as a way of potentially making money and to start renting out as many of his rooms as possible, including mine, as a way to generate extra income.

Something that in his shoes I would definitely think advisable to do as renting a room will produce tangible income much more quickly than trying to make money through the Internet (which takes a huge amount of work up front with little immediate pay).

But of course that leaves me without a definite place to stay.

It's still possible that the Lord might work out something else for me but it is also possible that He might want me to live among the homeless.

And there are distinct reasons why that might be the case.

Lately I have gotten involved in a good local church. Wonderful folks there.

But like with most traditional, Sunday going churches I have found a disconnect between the life of the church as I see it in the New Testament and the life of the local church as it is today.

I have tried to initiate with members of this church. But like with most Christians today most all the people that I have initiated with have been too busy to really get very involved in a give and take exchange of mutual relationship.

We have gotten together for some bible studies, even to watch the Super Bowl once, all outside normal church activities...which has been great but, other than the occasional time of doing such things that might be considered movement toward deeper involvement and relationship...nothing.

The Lord has taught me a great deal in the last week. He revealed to me a need to repent from the belief that I don't or can't fit into the Body. He showed me that my bad attitude toward Christians when they let me down has been a direct reflection of my bad attitude toward Him when He seems to let me down.

And He has divinely, dare I say, miraculously given me dreams and otherwise worked out in the timing of my circumstances to continue to provide for my needs. Especially for food.

This is a wonderful thing! To have the living God show me things such that I end up feeling like the apple of His eye.

But despite the things He has shown me and helped me realize, things that have helped me grow as a Christian, I am left with the inescapable conclusion that there is still something seriously wrong with the practice of church today.

And that good hearted, sincere Christians, simply don't see it.

I hesitate to talk of this because I do not want to go down the road to condemning and judging the Christians again but not doing so doesn't mean that I am not to speak up respecting the continuing need for Christians to open their eyes and repent to be all that God might want them to be.

We live in a very self-centered and materialistic culture. And that culture has influenced the church to such an extent that most Christians today are lulled into a false sense of thinking that it's okay for them to give some money to charitable organizations or to volunteer at a soup kitchen once a week, or to do some other token work of grace. And that such is enough to satisfy the call of God to love as Jesus did.

I say token because however good such acts of mercy are, they are not enough. Compared to the totality of the call of God upon every Christian, such acts are indeed token.

We are to give ourselves in ways that are nothing short of complete life involvement with others. Our money, our homes, our time, and all that we have and hope to be are to be placed at the foot of the cross and given freely to further the Kingdom of God and to love others according to their needs.

If I were to call local churches to find out if anyone might be willing to store a tent of mine on a daily basis who might work downtown, during the day in the trunk of their car, such that I could then be free to walk around without looking homeless...how readily would I find a Christian willing to do that for me?

I daresay, based on past experience, that finding a Christian willing to do so little to help a brother in Christ who will be living in a tent on the streets, would be next to impossible.

The church I have been attending will be storing my two suitcases for a few months. So at least I know that photographs from my childhood, my grandmothers antique parasoul umbrella that I was given when I last visited the home country, photos of my wife, even the little rubber ducky I played with as a child...will be safe. And for that I am very thankful.

But as thankful as I am for such a willingness to do this for me on the part of the local church I can't help but wonder at the disparity between the richness of the homes in which it's members live and the lack of ready willingness I found when I initially asked around about the possibility of storing my two suitcases.

Don't get me wrong. The Lord met my need still and met it through the Christians to store my suitcases.

But what I mean is that people did not consider my need theirs. They did not look upon my need to store my two suitcases as their own need such that they would have made room in their homes for my suitcases as if they belonged to them.

Instead they talked from the perspective that they would help me in my need if there was room within the framework of not going beyond what would have been seemly for them to do in their own homes.

Meaning that if my two suitcases took up too much room in a closet of their nice homes that they would not have wanted to store them next to a wall in their bedrooms or even to the side in their kitchen.

I am not knocking the generosity of the church in their willingness to store my suitcases within a pantry closet at the church building. Not at all. Nor am I pointing to any particular Christian within this church. I am referring to the overall reaction that I found to the need of storing my two suitcases.

Knocking the generosity I have been shown is not my intention in writing this. My intention is to highlight, for the sake of the Body, that we as Christians are falling woefully short of being what the Lord would have us be.

That we need to repent and get right with God and be all that He wants us to be if we are to once again impact the world about us as a Body. His Body.

The Bible makes clear the kind of relationship that we are to have as members of His one Body.

I am a part of the Body of Christ. And the Christians are a part of that same Body with me.

We are one in Christ. What belongs to Christ belongs to me as a member of His Body and what belongs to me belongs to the members of Christ's Body as well.

That is the theology of it and I challenge anyone to show me Scriptural grounds for believing otherwise. I could share many more verses on why the oneness of Christ's Body is to be a practical thing and not just a pie in the sky theological concept. A practical thing that is intended to demonstrate the love of God in visible form.

We are to love one another literally and completely as Christ loved us. And how did He love us? He laid down His life for us.

Is it not in line with laying down our lives for one another that other Christians would consider my two suitcases as theirs for the purpose of finding a place to store them?

I mean if Jesus Christ died that I might live is it not consistent with His death on my behalf to believe that He would want to do the very much lesser thing of finding a way to store my suitcases as though they were His own through His Body?

Yet the truth of the matter is that good and sincere Christians have responded to my need not as if these suitcases were their own, such that they would have left no stone unturned in their effort to find a place to put them, but rather in a way more in line with doing me a favor.

Jesus Christ does not call us to grant each other favors. Just as He died not to do us a favor but to meet our need for forgiveness we are to die to ourselves and meet needs in each other's lives as if they were our own.

Nothing less than this does justice to the extent which Jesus Christ suffered and bled for us.

Why is it so incredibly difficult to get the Christians to see this?

I have in times past judged and condemned my brothers and sisters in Christ for being less in this regard than God would have them be. No more. I repented from that rotten attitude.

I am speaking now, not in condemnation or judgment...God knows I have fallen and continue to fall short myself but, rather out of a desire that God might use my need to better highlight where we as a Body fall short of being all that He might want us to be.

I no longer have a need to find a place to store my suitcases. They will be stored and will be perfectly safe.

But the need in the Body to yield and submit to God with a willingness to use all that they own and hope to be for the furtherance of His Kingdom and to love as Jesus loved...remains.

We must rise up as a Body to love that way if we are to impact this world in the way God desires and intends.

We must come to realize the incredible influence our self-centered and materialistic culture has had on our walk with Christ and cast off our blinders to walk more fully as He would have us walk.

I am no longer to condemn and judge. My role, among perhaps others God might have of me, is to point to where we can do better. If need be through my own need and the response I encounter among the Christians to those needs.

But this is not just about my needs. More importantly it is about the needs all around that the Church could do so much more to meet.

Imagine, if you will, a Body where every member considered the needs of others, especially of brothers and sisters in Christ, as their own. Now imagine the impact such a Body would have?

That is the impact God wants us to have through His Body.

He is no longer here in physical form. We are. His hands are our hands. His eyes are ours.

Would He not want to do what He did while on Earth through us as His Body today? To His greater honor and glory?

Carlos

PS. Among the reasons the Lord might allow me to go and be among the homeless at this time in my life...I cannot help but wonder if perhaps among them I will find a greater willingness to engage each other daily. Perhaps among them the kind of Body that we are supposed to be might more easily be realized in that the homeless will readily have the time to be involved with each other. The needs among the homeless will be our common need. Perhaps I can reach out to them in a way that few Christians ever do. I can live among them and be seen as one of them disarming any preconceived ideas or walls they might have in their hearts against the Christians. In other words despite the inconvenience of having to live on the streets it is nevertheless possible that the Lord is calling me to live among them for some reason. It's in God's hands. May His will be done.

UPDATE

I know it may seem somewhat if not entirely contradictory for me to say on the one hand that it would be next to impossible to find a Christian in the downtown area to let me store my sleeping material in the trunk of their car while they work and on the other to admit that some Christians have gone out of their way to help me store my suitcases in a safe place. But be that as it may, the truth being that it is not entirely impossible to find God meeting my or anyone else needs through the Body, it is likewise true that overall, Christians tend to help others out more in line with how one would do a favor for those in need than out of consideration for the need of another as being their own. At least that has been my experience.

That is what I am trying to point out in what I say. It's the difference between trying to find some way to store a couple of suitcases that belong to one's own self and trying to help someone who you barely know store a couple of their suitcases. In a worldly sense we would be more inclined to help ourselves or our relatives to store their suitcases than we would be to help a relative stranger. But such a natural inclination to help is not commensurate with the love of God.

The love of God operating within the Body to reach out to others is to be an unnatural love. It is to be a love that rises above what one might naturally be inclined to do.

Jesus said if we love those who love us we do no more than unbelievers do. We are to be perfect in our love. Just as God is perfect in His.

The adequacy of our love is not measured by what others might naturally be inclined to do for one another. Our love as Christians is measured against the example of Jesus Christ. Against His love the only love that matters is that which sees a need in someone's life and takes that need on as their own. That is the love that motivated the Lord to die for those who were yet sinners in the eyes of God. That is the kind of love that hits home and that demonstrates the reality of God at work in the Body. A love that reflects the nature of who God is and which testifies to His living reality as people see the Christians loving as He loved. Without reserve. Wholeheartedly giving of themselves for the needs of others. Just as Jesus did.

I must stress again that I am not knocking the help that I have received. Far from it! I am thankful for the Christians who have gone out of their way to help but their help has had the flavor of a favor and has not left me with the comfort of knowing that my needs have been adopted by them as their own. That is the difference I have been wanting to describe.

Nor am I writing that anyone reading this might go out of their way to meet my needs, whatever they might be now or in the future, as described here. That too is not the reason I am writing as I do.

Above all I want the Lord to use my need and the generally inadequate response of the average Christian to my need to highlight how far we all fall short within the Body of being all that He calls us to be. I want the Lord to be glorified within the Body and to leave behind the superficial nature of what seems to pass for so much of Christianity today. Even among otherwise sincere and good hearted Christian people.

UPDATE #2

One of the leaders of the church I have been getting involved in, who is aware of my situation and who has been an encouragement to me through this whole thing, has brought up the possibility of the church helping me to go to the country of my birth to be among my relatives there as opposed to my ending up staying in a tent.

Absolutely unreal! It is a possibility that did not even enter my mind before he mentioned it as something to discuss further.

Mind you this is all very, very preliminary and I have not accepted such help nor has he offered it to me for sure. He only brought it up as a possibility.

But on thinking and praying about it some more the possibility of going to the home country does indeed seem like the best option for me. It's something that may indeed be workable with help from this church.

Too early to tell how things will pan out but this could be the Lord's provision for me...again!

At the very least this church is willing to help me get a bus pass for a month in San Diego and to help me acquire a one month gym membership to allow me to take showers and otherwise survive better if it comes down to having to live on the streets. Praise God!

Carlos