Reaching Back

Outreach. Outreach, outreach, outreach, outreach! The last thing felt like doing was outreach. I sat in the van sulking, waiting for my brother John to come out of the house. We were heading over to Paradise Shadows, an apartment complex located in Palomino Square, a rougher part of the Phoenix area where a lot of our Sunday school children live. I had gotten into a fight with a sibling the night before and was still in a bad mood. I was tired from work and weary in my spirit. Everything inside of me was saying stay home. However, I figured I better go since I was the one that had planned the outreach. Plus, I knew the kids were looking forward to it. I had promised them their favorite pink cookies and they enjoyed the time being spent with them. Still, at the moment, outreach was the last thing I felt like doing.

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How could I do outreach when I felt sad, miserable and had a totally bad attitude? The whole point of outreach is to somehow reach beyond oneself and show to show these children God’s love. There is a saying that says; “Children are like sponges, they absorb everything right out of you.” I knew from experience, especially with these children, just how true this saying was. These children that lived there were mostly African refugees. I knew these kids probably needed the love and attention more than anyone else I knew. Yet I felt like my spirit was already sucked dry and empty. It seemed like there wasn’t anything even left within me for these children to absorb.

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“Well here goes nothing,” I grumbled to myself as we pulled into the parking lot. I grabbed my cookies, slammed the door and headed over to the playground. There were a lot of kids out this evening. There were some older guys playing basketball, little kids swinging, girls doing flips on gym bars, a soccer ball being kicked around, the famous dirty-sock game, (Which is some sort of version of monkey-in-the-middle, a game they used to play in Africa.), wild boys climbing to the top of the swing set instead of actually swinging, kids fighting, cussing, yelling, crying, lauging and of course little 3 and 4 year-olds running around with no adult supervision. It was total pandemonium and chaos, but nothing unusual, just a normal, typical day at Paradise Shadows.

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No one seemed to notice me as I walked by, sitting on top of one of the picnic tables, I continued sulking. I should have just stayed home. I was about to tell my brother we should leave when I heard my name being called.

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“Mary! Mary!” I looked over and saw Manific, a 5-year-old girl. She climbed up on to the table with me, giving me hug then sitting in my lap. As we sat together, something in my heart began to warm up. One by one the kids began to notice me, giving me hugs and fighting to sit in my lap, making me smile.

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“Mary! Mary!” Another voice called out, “did you bring the pink cookies?” It was Festina, a 14-year-old girl that was seriously the biggest fan of my pink cookies.
“Oh yeah,” I said pulling out the cookies, “I almost forgot about these.”
“Yes!” Squealed Festena as I began passing out the cookies. “These are my favorite, I love them!”
“Yeah I know,” I said laughing as I handed her a cookie.
“Mmmm!” she said as she took a bite, totally exaggerating the deliciousness of the cookie.

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Totally energized, I began to push some of the smaller kids on the swings. Took turns spinning around in circles until we were too dizzy to walk straight and sang everyone’s all around favorite church song; I got the Holy Ghost, which was screamed at the top of our lungs, totally off key.
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After a while I saw Esther, a 12-year-old girl that lived with me for a while.
“Esther! I haven’t seen you in FOREVER!” I exclaimed, squeezing her with a big bear hug. “Come on,” I said. “Lets go bring some cookies to Martina.”

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As we walked over to Martina’s, I stopped and said hi to different people offering them pink cookies. By the time we got back to the playground the cookies were gone and it was time to go home. I got lots of hugs as I said goodbye and got in our van. Even as we pulled away, there were kids screaming and chasing the van. Driving home I felt so happy. I couldn’t help but smile. Everything seemed better, brighter, and cheerier. I didn’t feel tired anymore and I wasn’t even mad at my sister. Instead of feeling empty, I felt full and overflowing with happiness. I was surprised I felt this way. What was it that had happened with the kids that changed my whole perspective?

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I had thought spending time with them would only make me feel worse, instead the opposite had happened. A scripture went through my mind “For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison and ye came unto me (Matthew 25:35-36) I realized that when I reached out to those children, I was in a way reaching out to God.

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The saying came back to me; Children are like sponges, they absorb everything right out of you, but a Family Circus Comic strip finishes the quote by saying, but then they squeeze you with a hug and you get it all right back.

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When I passed out cookies, pushed children on the swings or held them in my lap, I was doing it unto The Lord. The little hand holding my big hand wasn’t just any hand, but God’s hand. While I was being Jesus to them, they were being Jesus to me. …Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me (Matthew 25:40).

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When you do unto The Lord you never come up empty handed, because while you are reaching on your side, God's hand is on the other side reaching right back.

Plugging In

“This CD player is soooo stupid,” I yelled in frustration. All I wanted to do was listen to my music, but no matter how many times I hit the play button, the CD player refused to turn on. At this point my brother came in my room to see what was going on. After I told him, he observed the situation for about ten seconds then said,“You know, it might help if you actually plugged the CD player into the wall.”
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Aha! So that’s what the problem was! It was such on obvious mistake and such a simple task to fix the problem. However, in my frustration and embarrassment, I refused to take my brother’s suggestion.
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“Why should I plug it in? I said. “It is a CD player. I have a CD in it, I hit play, now it better play the music!” At this point my brother just looked at me like I was crazy.
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Yet, as foolish as it may seem for me to expect a CD player to work without plugging it into the wall, situations like this happen all the time. We expect great things to happen in our walk with God, without plugging in with Jesus, our spiritual source of power.
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Have you ever struggled with something in your life? Has there ever been something that you tried to get the victory over, but continually failed? At one time or another we have all struggled with something in our life. We have all felt the guilt of failures and mistakes. As an Apostolic young person, there was something in my life that I really struggled with for several years.
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The thing that I struggled with was watching television. You may be thinking; what’s the big deal about watching a little television? That’s no great sin. For me it was a big deal. I had grown up my whole life without a television in our home. I was taught my whole life not to watch it and I understood why I shouldn’t. I knew that television was full of corruption, violence, cussing and imoralitey. Out of my devotion to God I had chosen to keep television out of my life. Now, as a young person, I struggled with this commitment to God.
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It’s easy to not watch T.V. when you are never around one. Now it was different. I worked in an environment that allowed me to watch television whenever I wanted. Now the temptation was right there in front of me and it was a lot harder to turn my head, close my eyes. Instead of turning to God, I gave in and began watching shows.
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The whole time I hated what I was doing. Over and over, I would promise God I wouldn’t watch T.V. anymore. Then slowly it would creep back, and once again I would find myself breaking my promise. I wanted to do right, but no matter how hard I tried I kept doing wrong. Because of one thing I lacked in my life I did not have the power to overcome this temptation.
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Its not like I was a horrible person. I was still living for God, just not to my full potential. Although at times I am known be a little crazy and hyper, most people would consider me to be a pretty good girl. I got the Holy Ghost when I was six and have always loved God. However, the one thing I lacked was a prayer life. Without prayer I didn't have God’s strength. I lacked the power to live an overcoming life.
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So I continued on with my life, trying to live for God, still struggling with television. One year at a Conqueror’s Conference youth convention in Tucson Arizona, I got the revelation I needed to overcome my struggle. During one of the evening services the power of God came very strongly into the church. As I was praying, I felt the spirit of God fall on me. I remember feeling awestruck by His power. Never in my life had I felt the spirit of God so strong. I was praying and crying and weeping before God. ‘This is it I thought. This is my victory. I am going to go home from this youth conference and not ever watch T.V. again.’
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Then, smack dab, right in the middle of this awesome experience with God, I felt a rumbling in my stomach. I couldn’t believe it, my stomach was growling. How could I be hungry at such a spiritual moment? However, it was through the growling of my stomach that God really began to speak to me.
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“You see Mary, you are still human. You are still weak. It doesn’t matter what you get from me right now. What matters is what you do when you get back home. If you want to change, you’re going to have to make a change in your own life.” I knew right then and there, if I wanted things to be different, I was going to have to get a prayer life.
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Living for God is a constant spiritual fight. We may get the victory in one spiritual battle, but the war isn’t over until we get to heaven. Paul openly talks about his own struggle in Romans chapter seven. “For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I.” (Romans 7:15)
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It doesn’t matter how much we may want or desire to do good; we are still human. Paul says that in us dwelleth no good thing. From the moment we are conceived, we are bound to fail. Before we even breathe our first breath, evil and iniquity is already in us. No one sits down and teaches a little kid how to lie, but they all do. Nobody has to teach us how to sin; it comes naturally.
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However, Paul goes on in Romans eight to say, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:1-2). What Paul is saying is that on our own we are bound to failure, but through Jesus, we have the power to overcome sin. A man once said, “To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing”(Martin Luther King Jr.). It’s like trying to drive a car without putting gas in it or trying to make a CD play work, without plugging it in to the wall.
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So as I stood in my room hitting the play button on my CD player I decided to do something. Instead of continuing to act like a fool, I got smart and listened to my brother. I took the cord to my CD player, plugged it into the wall and hit play. What do you know, the most amazing thing happened, music began to flow into my ears.
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I figured if it worked for my CD player, perhaps it would work in my walk with God as well. When I got back from that Conqueror’s Conference I determined I was going to develop a prayer life. What do you know, as I began praying, the most amazing thing happened, God gave me strength to overcome my struggle. Since gaining a prayer life, God has given me strength to stop watching television. Having a prayer life has changed me. It has made my heart softer and my spirit more sensitive to the things of God.
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The reason why I pray is not because I am some kind of super-spiritual person. I pray because I am not a super-spiritual, goody-goody, perfect kind of person. I pray because I am weak and I need God’s strength. As humans, we are temporal, finite beings. Therefore, we must go to the one that is eternal, infinite and supernatural to receive our strength.
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Don’t be ignorant, continually trying to overcome sin on your own; Ask God for his strength. The key to keeping the victory you get in revival or at a conference, is through a daily time of prayer. Don’t be foolish, plug in with Jesus, the spiritual source of power in your life.