reflection

I have been home from Cambodia for nearly two weeks and I still find myself stopping sometimes just trying to remember and reflect upon the experience. What I am finding most difficult is how to live as a person in a privileged society. I would like to think that I have never really wasted my money on pointless stuff, and I don't spend a lot of money on clothes and even before Cambodia this was something I felt convicted about - spending my money wisely, making sure I was tything and giving to Operation 58, and even though I do these things obediently and willingly I am still finding it difficult to know where to draw the line.

When I was in Cambodia I read the passage in 1 John that reminds us to live in the world but not of the world,

1 John 1:15-17

'Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world - the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boastings of what he has and does - comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.'

Reading this verse again, God is literally asking us to not love anything of this world, does this mean when I say I love a pair of jeans or when I say I love High School Musical I am dishonoring God? I sure hope not, but I think it is what this passage is talking about. Seriously this verse is intense God is saying anything in us that is of the world is wrong and that the Lord is not in them! I know I want the Father to live in me.

This verse reminds me of how simple my lifestyle was in Cambodia, that is something I miss. Being able to wake up everyday and know your going to spend the whole day with God, serving him and serving the Poipet community, it was such a privilege to be able to live like that and it's something I hope i'll never forget.

Coming back to justification, I pray that God will really just speak to me about how I can live in this society without wanting everything and 'needing' so much. I know guilt is not from God but its hard to not feel guilty about buying a pair of jeans when you know that money could send a child trapped in sex slavery to school for an entire year... How can I justify that? I guess this is the challenge - deny ourselves and take up our cross. (is that from a song? haha)