An Offered Heart

Or meum tibi offero domine prompte et sincere - “my heart I offer to you Lord promptly and sincerely"

My brain and heart have been racked for at least two years by the concept of obedience. I am continually baffled by the actual meaning of the word and my inability to meet and become everything that requires a life of obedience. Many excellent, far more intelligent, and far more insightful scholars have tackled this subject in thousands of hours and pages attempting to explain it to dense people just like me…to no avail, I am still baffled. So what you read is not my attempt to explain obedience to you but rather an effort of mine to articulate (for myself and whoever listens) the portions which I do understand in a way that I can build on in the years to come.

Forgive me if I leave this entry unresolved and relatively naked of witty puns and quips…as I stare at this mountain of a concept I anticipate losing brain-steam somewhere around the foothills and my current stock of mental granola is running low at best.

My chief question(s) about obedience is simply this: what is it and can I do it?

I always reminisce back to an entirely vivid experience I had when I was 17 years old…

(Scooby Doo blur effect…………and ……… NOW>>>>)

It was an overcast day, which was unusual for Panama City in July – the heat kept up despite the clouds and it had just rained hard so humidity was high. My memory starts as we cross the Panama Canal headed west past Diablo Heights, a suburb of Panama City. As I look out the shuttle window, the shipping lanes are busy and the canal looks muddy blue with specks of gray and white watercraft hundreds of feet below. We had been filed into the shuttle like inmates despite our purely voluntary involvement and my stomach was beginning to beg for the peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich it had grown so accustomed to. A summer with Teen Mania Ministries is unlike any other summer experience any teenager will ever have otherwise: from jungle treks and street dramas to worship nights and native interaction…it was an experience well worth the fundraising and strict diet of PB&J.

A windy half-highway led us to a small villa perched in the hills where we were greeted by a small Panamanian woman, Lisa, in an apron and a pink dress. She had a nurse’s hat on and the look of love on her face was so pure you could hear all she was thinking despite the language barrier. She readily welcomed our group of 15 teenage Americans into her establishment. As we entered, what we saw was truly one of the most heartbreaking and uncomfortable scenes I had ever been exposed to. The smell was unidentifiable but strong and closely resembled a hospital – the place was filled with nurses expressing the same care and devotion expressed so obviously by Lisa. The orphans were not just orphans, they were the rejected, the sick, physically misshapen, mentally retarded, and chronically helpless.

This organization exists to help those forsaken by all, to catch the dropped, and provide hope and love to the most hopeless and unloved. If anyone in the world could succeed Mother Theresa it would be one of these women. As dedicated servants these modern-day saints spend their lives at the service of the unattractive and those unable to express or give gratitude or compensation. They spend their lives wiping the chins and changing the diapers of children whose own mothers either cannot or will not do it themselves. “As you do unto the least of these, you do unto me” immediately pops into my mind; I immediately turn to see little Jorge through the bedroom window playing on the spent playground equipment and instead of a handicapped little boy, I am reminded that this is Jesus. So we spend the next 2 hours and 15 minutes helping Lisa and her co-workers feed, change, talk to, play with, and entertain the small children of her home before we are prompted to pack back into our shuttle and out of that place. As we say our goodbyes, Lisa gives and receives hugs, gives and receives love, and waves as we drive back down the windy road.

We experienced for 135 minutes what Lisa spends her lifetime living – that night, when we were debriefing the “experience” she was tucking the children into their beds and tending to the meal preparations for the next day. As we woke up sluggishly the next morning, she sprang out of her bed to change the soiled sheets of Jesus. When the glimmer and glow faded, she stayed late to keep the midnight oil burning – to spread the love and light of the cross. Obediance…

I can’t help but wonder if I could do what she has been called and chosen to do. If asked, would I be able to forsake my current life at any cost to serve in Lisa’s shoes? I don’t say this as a “whoa is me” revelation but rather a sober realization of what it could mean to serve in obedience. Christ was the ultimate example of obedience when he was found in Gethsemane bleeding from stress as he cried to God to release him from the coming trial. Tired and broken, he submits yet one more time to God and admits “not my will but yours be done”. The result? Salvation for all, and access to God for Jew and Gentile. Despite the focus on Love and Kindness and Forgiveness – all necessary things - Christ had NO desire to carry out the cross but he did so anyways. Obedience set the world free.

…rf

Or meum tibi offero domine prompte et sincere - “my heart I offer to you Lord promptly and sincerely"