What Can You Do?

READ PSALM 82

INTRODUCTION

In thinking about today’s service, and in speaking with some close people about their struggles this week, and just in praying about how I want to follow-up after this presentation from Heifer International with some words of encouragement, one word kept blinking in my mind throughout the week - the word wilderness.

RANDOM you may say, to which I would agree, but as God brought me through the study of this word and showed me what He wanted to see about this word, it ended up being incredibly powerful, and I only hope I can share my musings in a way that will be powerful for you as well, so that you may be inspired and even convicted to be in serious prayer about how you can do your part in fulling the plea of Psalm 82. (P)

Now wilderness is one of those big words that has a lot of understandings, examples, and stories, but here’s a simple definition to consider from the New Unger’s Bible Dictionary:

DEFINITIONS OF WILDERNESS:

The New Unger’s Bible Dictionary Wilderness

A wild, uninhabited region suitable only for pasturage (Heb. midbār, Ps. 107:4) or sparse human occupation. A sterile tract of country not supporting human life (Heb. ˓ărābâ, Job 24:5), and hence a place of desolation (Heb. yshı̂môn, Deut. 32:10). The Gk. term erēmia, “solitude,” is used in the NT

Now in that definition are a number of scripture references, one from Deuteronomy where we consider the 40 years of wandering, and a Psalm reflecting on that experience found in chapter 107:

4 Some wandered in desert wastelands,

finding no way to a city where they could settle.

5 They were hungry and thirsty,

and their lives ebbed away.

ALSO NOTE:

Nelson and Holman both suggest that there is a slight difference between a desert and an actual wilderness - but both were unsuitable for supporting lives of the large population of Israelites living in there…that is - there is no chance that that many people would have been able to survive there that long without God’s divine provision.

ALL SOURCES I studied imply an incredible amount of discomfort, sadness, and hunger in this kind of setting…not surprising when you think of the word wilderness.

MOST COMMON BIBLICAL EXAMPLES:

Again there are many experiences of wilderness, but the two most common examples are made even more significant by examining how they are sandwiched between seasons of relative bliss, making their experience in the wilderness even more distressful.

The wilderness in which Israel spent at least 40 years wandering. They had known plenty in Egypt when Joseph was there. They saw the miracles of God when he led them out of Egypt when it was no longer the Utopia they had once known. They were headed for the Promised Land, another Utopia that was flowing with milk and honey - but not before they ended up wandering in desolation.

Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness - probably not a mistake and probably not without some parallel to the 40 years of the sinful Israelites. Like the Israelites, the wilderness Jesus spent time in was an incredible downgrade from the life Jesus had known in His Father’s Kingdom and even His earthly parents’ care.

IMPLICATIONS WE CAN DRAW TODAY FROM THE WORD “WILDERNESS” WITH THIS BIBLICAL FOUNDATION IN PLACE

If we understand that a wilderness, in essence, is a significant downgrade from what we might expect or prefer in “ideal circumstances,” then we can probably think of many experiences or situations in life as a spiritual or emotional wilderness. (P)

If you receive the prayer chain, and you could hear me through my muffled phone, you heard me ask for prayer for friends of ours who were going through a very challenging situation. I can’t go into details, but I can share that, by God’s miraculous power, He brought them through and everything is fine. In my conversation with these friends, the word “wilderness” was used to describe how they felt about this situation. It was a time of incredible discomfort and fear, stomach in knots, tears, worry, and a situation where they cried out to God more than once, even admittedly asking where He was through all of this. (P)

Some people experience a physical, economical, or financial wilderness, where health is poor and/or finances are no better, and many of the same questions are asked. (P)

HOW THIS APPLIES TO HEIFER

Understanding this, we return to thinking about what was shared this morning by Heifer International. As with many of these kinds of presentations, from people who do mission work, service, or anyone who offers helping hands to people in need, we can listen and absorb the description of what people experience in these poverty-torn areas. None of us, however, can fully understand what people go through unless we experience it for ourselves.

Even to get a taste of it doesn’t fully bring the horrors of poverty into view. And understand, it doesn’t even matter if we are talking about international or domestic - people here experience it, too. (P)

MY EXPERIENCE WITH HEIFER

I don’t remember the exact year anymore but it was somewhere in the middle of my first time here, just as the Jr High ministry at that time was getting started - perhaps around 2010, give or take a year, when we had an opportunity to experience a Heifer Project farm in Massachusetts, and getting a glimpse of what the people Heifer helps to actually go through.

We had one evening and night when we had to live as many of these people do. We were broken into groups and given our own piece of the farm that was set up like a habitat in a specific region, and it had two main difficult parts.

First was dinner, where we were given pretend money - a VERY small amount - to spend on the raw ingredients for our meal. As I recall, we had enough money to buy 1 tomato, 1 onion, a small amount of black beans, and a small amount of rice, to feed all of us in the group. We cooked it ourselves over a fire. Now rice can be tricky enough on a stovetop - never had I cooked it over a fire, and if we messed up, that was too bad - that was our meal.

And then we had to sleep outside, on a platform in a tree, where the only protection from the elements we had was a mosquito net canopied over the platform that didn’t do a lick of good.

Hungry, bugs singing their high-pitched buzzes in our ears all night long, on an uncomfortable wooden platform - misery at its finest.

And all I could do is wake up the next morning and ask myself, what have I to complain about that night, as that was still cake compared to what many live like - every single day.

And it doesn’t matter if we’re talking abroad in other countries or in Los Angeles, where one experience of a mission trip we took was to drive around Beverly Hills to see how many of the celebrities live, only to go directly from there to a place where within 15 minutes of viewing luxury, we were looking upon people with no food in cardboard boxes on Skid Row…or if we are talking about our very own brothers and sisters right here in York County. (P)

In my lifetime, I’ve heard many people criticize the efforts of ministry and service abroad when we have needs right here in our own community, yet if you ask many of those people what they are doing for the local needs, their answer is, nothing.

When Jesus tells us in Matthew 28 to go into all the world, He doesn’t give us the luxury to avoid service abroad by pretending to be noble about the needs in our own town. We are called to follow the call of God to serve His people, at the place of His choosing, regardless of the location, and regardless of how people feel about working in other distant locations.

And we can cast whatever judgments we want about why we think people may be homeless in the streets, but God also doesn’t give us the luxury to play judge and jury, He just commands us not to turn away from our own flesh and blood, as you are about to see in Isaiah 58.

WHAT WE CAN DO

We can’t solve everyone’s problems, but there are things we can do to help. And while helping others is much more meaningful when it comes from a heart of compassion, we are also reminded that we have a Biblical mandate to seek these opportunities.

I started talking about Isaiah 58:6–7, a very familiar passage for us lately, especially if we are taking our new Vision and Mission statements seriously.

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?”

There are many options, and God may be calling each of us to a particular means of fulfilling our Psalm 82 command to defend the weak and the fatherless - how many of us know folks who are sick - even in our own congregation. How about single mothers and even fathers who have to figure out how to work and raise their children? How many of us know someone with needs? How many of you have seen folks down on their financial luck - how many of us know people that are in poverty?

Can any one person fix all the problems we encounter? Of course not. Can everyone do something? Of course YES. Does it seem like a mere drop in the bucket? For sure, but I love how a story I came across once helps us to think of this.

ILLUSTRATION

One day, an old man was walking along a beach that was littered with thousands of starfish that had been washed ashore by the high tide. As he walked, he came upon a young boy who was eagerly throwing the starfish back into the ocean, one by one.

Puzzled, the man looked at the boy and asked what he was doing. Without looking up from his task, the boy simply replied, ‘I’m saving these starfish, Sir.’

The old man chuckled aloud, ‘Son, there are thousands of starfish and only one of you. What difference can you make?’

The boy picked up a starfish, gently tossed it into the water and turning to the man, said, “It made a difference to that one!

WHAT ABOUT YOU?

What drop in your bucket meant the world to someone else - or are you still waiting to put those drops in that bucket? For whom in our sphere of influence, or our community, can we say, I made a difference for that one!?

Can we make a difference by saying a prayer for someone we see who is struggling - not merely saying, I will pray for you, but stopping on the spot to offer a prayer with them?

Can we make a difference by contributing to the answer to that prayer, as God commands us to do many times over, as does His Son, Jesus? Can you buy a gift card for someone you know who is struggling?

Can you seek our community organizations, like LifePath (for just one example) that could use your aid in some way?

Can you cook a meal for someone you know who is sick or hurting?

When you see someone holding a cardboard sign in a grocery store parking lot, can you buy an extra sandwich, bottle of water, and perhaps a small Bible to put in that bag to hand to them on the way back out?

Do you have the time to offer your services on some sort of service project or mission trip?

Maybe organizations like Compassion would be of interest to you, where you can not only pay a small amount of money each month to sponsor a child, but you can actually communicate with that child through letters and offer words of encouragement and tell them about Jesus.

Heifer Project International is a very tangible resource - they just shared what they do, can you support their efforts through prayer, and if God so leads, financial contribution, so you can empower those who make a career of fulfulling this Biblical obligation of compassion and care?

And I could go on all morning to list examples, but I won’t. I just hope what you experienced from Heifer this morning will encourage you can find ways through prayer, study, and empathy to find a way to make a difference-for that one - that one person who needs it the most.