July 2010 Prayer Letter

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For this month's prayer letter, I’d like to share several quotes that I’ve been embracing and meditating on.

“God calls new futures into being.”
study note on Genesis 22, from the Life With God Bible

“God wants me to be something I have never been.”
- Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

“So this is my prayer: that my love will flourish and that I will not only love much but well. Teach me, Lord, to love appropriately. May I use my head and test my feelings so that my love is sincere and intelligent, not sentimental gush. May I live a lover's life, careful, discreet, and exemplary - a life Jesus will be proud of. May my life be bountiful in fruits from the soul, making Jesus Christ attractive to all, getting everyone involved in the glory and praise of God.”
- Philippians 1:9-11 (personalized from the Message Bible)

“Having loved his companions, Jesus loved them right down to the end… This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you…”
- John 13: 1, 15

Let us develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness. According to the story of the Good Samaritan, instead of asking, 'If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?', we should ask, 'If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him.'
- Martin Luther King, Jr ("I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech, 1968)

“Unless we connect deeply with the people of our host culture, we will neither see nor interpret their situation accurately: their pain, their values, their structures, their social limitations, their dreams, their ethos and pathos. Until we can interpret their situation accurately… our well-meaning help won’t fit their reality.”
- Cross-Cultural Servanthood, by Duane Elmer

Thank you for praying for the following items along with me:

1. That I will be sensitive to the new future God wants to call into being in my life
2. That I will yield to being something I have never been before
3. That I will love my friends in Kenya not only much, but well
4. That Jesus will be proud of my life
5. That I will follow his example and love the folks to whom God has connected me - right down to the end
6. That I will be like the Good Samaritan and develop a “dangerous unselfishness” as I encounter people in need
7. That I will continue to connect deeply with my friends in Kenya and that I will understand such things as their values, their pain, and their dreams
8. That my well-meaning help will actually fit their reality