So, I have been asked to sum up in 100 words (or less or more) the book I am reading, THE HOLE IN OUR GOSPEL by Richard Stearns.
Richard Stearns is the president of World Vision, a well known faith based relief organization serving, well, the whole world. Mr. Stearns life testimony begins with a troubled childhood and a decision he made to rise above the poverty and alcoholism he experienced as a child. His young adulthood was spent in colleges and universities as he evolved into an intellectual who felt he didn't need God.
God did become a part of Mr. Stearns's life in his mid to late twenties and he went on to have a successful business life and family of his own. His transition to president of World Vision is preceded by a grown man huddled in bed sobbing midday because he does not want to make a decision he senses God is asking him to make.
That was just the intro! The meat of the book is the most convicting, how do you view, what do you do to relieve, and what do you perceive as God's desire for us to soften the bitter sting of poverty around the world? As president of World Vision, Mr. Stearns has seen poverty at its cruelest measure.
Where do faith and assistance meet? It is so easy for us Americans to view poverty as their choice or just a way of life that we want to avoid at all cost. According to Mr. Stearns it goes much deeper than just wrong choices people have made. In Mr. Stearns own words, "These precious human beings created in God's image have been left behind and cast on the garbage dump of history by circumstances they cannot change. We must never say it is their fault. How dare we?"
This sounds like a great book! I think as Americans we have the "luxury" of deciding that the poor are poor only because they don't have enough ambition to make something of themselves. Christians are particularly good at making this judgement.
ReplyDeleteMy hope is that we as believers begin to realize that it is not our job to decide if a person "deserves" our help, but to simply help when the Holy Spirit leads us. How freeing it would be to simply love one another without worrying about whether God was big enough to meet our needs and whether the person receiving help was "worthy". I'm still working on changing that attitude within myself.
Nice post! I'll have to check this book out!