What Kind of Investment Do You Need To Make Today?

29-year-old, Nicholas Winton, was an ordinary young man who was a clerk at the London Stock Exchange. His world was investments. However, he would soon make an investment of his own that would change many, many lives.

The year was 1938. He had been invited by a friend to come to Czechoslovakia and visit. During his visit, he became alarmed about the events that were unfolding. Czechoslovakia was on the verge of joining forces with Nazi Germany. They were already exporting the Jewish citizens in that country to concentration camps. He feared that not only would the adults be sent to the concentration camps, but the children as well.

He knew that he had to do something to save those children. He began to organize a way to get these children out of the country and into foster homes in Great Britain. He arranged for eight trains to take 669 children to London. Few of them would ever see their parents again. Meanwhile, as expected, these parents were taken away and put in concentration camps.

As I read the above post, I feel a deep hunger in my heart to do something different. Something meaningful and extraordinary. If God can use a middle-class investment clerk in a safe and comfortable country - about the same age as you and me...

I feel an increasing hunger. It won't stop. So I am still asking God right now, "Lord, what do You want me to do? I'm not sure where I should start. But what do You want me to do?"

I don't know. There seem to be so many helpless people. And there is church ministry too. And I'm not making the most of my time I know. But what do I do? What do I do? Am I doing the things He want me to do? Or does He want me to do something on my own initiative for Him? Am I rushing ahead of His commands? Or does He want me to be still and know that He is God?

This irresistible urge to do something is building up within me. I have the freedom. I have some money. What can I do? What can I do? I want to help in whatever way I can help. What do we do, Lord, what do we do?

That's why I'm willing to foolishly spend about $1K of my savings to go for the Cambodia trip. I need to. I can't play prudent here. There must be something more than just living a safe comfortable life. Because being a disciple of Christ was never meant to be anything like this. Not to advocate foolishness, of course... but I just feel His siren call so strongly in my heart. It is like a fire in me. I can't quench His voice. And I don't want to.

We want to be comfortable, well-adjusted and get along well with everyone. But as someone put it so nicely, "You can't be very well-adjusted to your world if it leaves you nailed naked and hanging on a cross."

Ah. While searching for the author of that quote, I stumbled upon Romans 12:1-2 (The Message).

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Amazing. The words are speaking to me. They're speaking what I am thinking and feeling! Ah. To paraphrase Eugene Peterson, Christ speaks in ten thousand places!

YES! This is what I want to do. To place my ordinary life before God as a daily offering. I don't want to be a mindless zombie, mindlessly clawing the "career ladder", blindly following what is expected in my society's culture and worse still, confusing cultural norms for biblical principles.

I don't care if I'm counter-cultural - I want to follow Christ completely, even when I stumble and stumble and stumble. Because He is the Author and Perfecter of my faith.

Ah. I must seek the Lord... and work hard even as I seek Him. Think this is what I'll do. As I read the news... I will ask the Lord to show me what can we do to help those in need. I don't want to turn my eyes away like how I turn the pages. Maybe I'm not the one to help them, but I can pray a prayer for them as I read. And... if/when the time is right, God will call me to go and minister to them.

What can the Church do? What can I do? With these ministries I'm doing... how do all these things fit into God's plan to redeem the world? Here I am helping pioneer a drama/video ministry in church... how does it all fit into God's plan to use my life? I'm puzzled.

Oh Lord. Here I am... use me more each day! (haha they say it's the five most dangerous words you can pray...)

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Oh! I'm reminded of two Bible passages. Both are the very words of Jesus himself. The passage about the sheep and the goats... about whatever we do for one of the least of His brothers, we do it unto Him... and also the passage about being faithful with little and God will entrust more to me. And also the injunction to do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.

Oh! :) I see. So the little things that I do in the family of God... God will help me multiply it. To encourage others to join in. Which is very much part of God's plan. Because God doesn't only want to use me... He also wants to rope other brothers and sisters in too! No one is too small to be used by God! There are already poor people in the church... if we don't help them, but want to help those outside the church... not very logical leh!

Ah. :) God's Word make things simpler to understand.