Move, NOW!

Theme song for this post.  If you look back a few months to this post you'll remember/see that I was inspired by the story of Bob Hunter as told in John Ortberg's If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get out of the Boat (awesome book, I'll send you my copy if you're interested in reading it!) and began praying for orphans in the Dominican Republic as a result. 

In that time our small group also did a study of the book of James and I was constantly prodded by his calls to action like v1:27, where he boldly states that the religion God calls us to is to "look after orphans and widows in their distress."  But what does that really mean?

Flash forward several months and I'd been praying on a (mostly) regular basis everything from a simple "God help orphans in the DR" to an application of whatever it was I was struggling with or was on my heart.  At the beginning of this month I hit the 45 day mark and began to wonder ultimately what I was doing this for.  Regardless, I felt compelled to press on and keep at it and then on March 11th a little frustrated I wrote "God, is there something I should be chasing after with this whole orphans in the DR thing?" in my prayer journal. 

9 days later I was manning my post at the check-in desk for our children's ministry and glanced up at one of the booths set up for our ministry campaign which happened to be for Compassion International and it (or rather God) hit me--"Dude, do something!" (God typically leads with "Dude" whenever he's trying to get my attention).  At that moment James 1:22 all of the sudden made sense: "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says."  Looking after orphans and widows may look like different things to different people but ultimately should be prayer followed by action in the direction it leads you in.

A few minutes later (thanks to my iPhone) I had an account set up, we welcomed 5yr old Jairo David Lucas Leon into our family, and I was on my way to putting my prayers into action at the urging of the Spirit.  As with the example of Abraham used in James 2:22, our faith and actions must work together so that our faith is made complete by what we do.

Seek, pray, do.  It seems so simple but yet in our density and propensity to stay in the rut we're in so hard to live out.  As the (energetic) dude that leads off the intro to the song linked above proclaims:

Move! Now! Move! Now! Move! Now! From dread to expectation. From bondage to freedom. From mourning to dancing. Now! Now! Now! Now lift your hands He’s here! Lift your hands He’s here! We can’t stay here! We gotta go! We gotta go! We gotta charge to keep! We gotta God to serve! We gotta gospel to preach! We got broken hearts to find! We got hurting people to heal. Come on move church. Move! We’re not waiting on a move of God! We are a move of God! Come on and shout! Now! Now! Now! How many believe mountains still move? How many believe God still reigns? Our father who art in heaven hallow it be thy name! Your kingdom come! Your will be done! HERE AND NOW!