What can one person do?

Check out this news article from October 2013:

http://news.yahoo.com/sam-childers-machine-gun-preacher-receive-mother-teresa-130000231.html

Read about this church just miles from Shanksville and the Flight 93 Memorial:

http://www.machinegunpreacher.org/the-shekinah-fellowship-church/

Watch this movie about a man who is far from being a pacifist but has brought peace, out of his own war with himself, to more child victims of the civil wars of Sudan, and those in need from his own Central City Pa to around the world.

http://www.machinegunpreacher.org/movie/

This is no superman.  Sam is no wonder worker, though some of those Sudanese kids have grown up thinking so.  He is a man who believes what he is called to do he must do, because God is the one doing the calling.

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When I watched the 2011 movie based on Sam Childer's life, I felt both anguish that God's work, in this case, seemed to require that violence be met with violence.  But violent or no Sam has made huge differences in the lives of thousands, even far beyond Sudan.

As I've reviewed his life online and elsewhere I've felt guilt that I, a person also called of God, have spent my life often caring for my own family, or even myself, when perhaps with more effort for others I could have done more, touched more, for Jesus Christ.  So I thank God that He is not through with me yet.

To some extent that is why Mona and I see God moving us now into both a life of personal and spiritual adventure on the road. We believe God has something more for us to do beyond retire to a beach.  But we trust He will direct us to a few beaches also.

Sam's story is not a model for how a Christian should answer God's call.  That call is always very personal and very different for each believer (think Moses versus Jonah). But his story, told in graphic and bloody truth in the movie and his own book, illustrate for me that each and every one of us have something very special to give to the world we live in which only comes from God.  Maybe we have a skill with machine guns to stop violent people doing awful things. Or maybe we are gifted with the ability to bring peace through simple prayer when the meeting, or the challenge, meets a wall.

Sam's story makes me think that words can make a difference, and actions make more.  Our road trip is an action beyond words. Where is God taking you in 2014?  What is the gift you have which God needs you to share?

-Ken