| | Another reason to love UnderOath and to have a heart for the homeless...Our homeless have 20/20 vision.
Posted July 26, 2006
So last September we were on tour with The Used in Canada, and spent a day in a small western town called Kelowna. There I met a homeless man who looked like Tom hanks from Cast Away. He said God told him to sell all that he had and move to Kelowna and live on the streets. We spent a good portion of the day together and I heard some of the most profound things come out of his mouth. I often wonder how those "dirty" people we seem to pass on the street ,and pretend don't exist, can have a far superior grasp on life and how God is wanting to integrate himself into every aspect of human life....they have no distractions! Here I am consumed by motion pictures, strip malls, and social status...and this man with nothing but a backpack to his name is teaching me the very bare bones basics to life and why we were created. In a world clouded by society and it's predispositions, a man with no distractions or goals to climb the ladders of success can truly focus all his time and energy on allowing God to renew his mind and rewire his heart. We had a day off last week in Kelowna as well and as I was driving my scooter around town, I passed Castaway on the street again. I pulled over and said hello and he remembered me from last year. I asked him how life had been and he said to me..."God has shown me that the time of believing in something we can not see is over. That is a childlike mentality, and we must mature past this spiritually. We must KNOW that God exists, and not just hope he does. The time has come for us to allow God to manifest himself in our lives in a way in which we have no choice but to know he exists. To believe in something we hope for is childish, to not believe at all is ignorance, but to believe in something we know is perfect. The root to perfect is FACT! We must know God factually exists in our lives to truly see what he is capable of doing." Although I believe there is some biblical truth to having the "faith of a child", I believe there is something to be learned by what Castaway had to say. The time for hoping and wishing is over...today is a day of knowing and doing. Wishing and hoping doesn't change anything...but an action spawned from an undeniable truth revealed to us by God himself is as effective as any weapon on earth. We must KNOW and we must put what we know into action.
"Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." James 1:22...
Until next time friends...be blessed. Timmy
*This was posted by one of the guys from UnderOath in their tour journal. I love it b/c society looks so far down on the homeless, but maybe they're the ones who really have it all figured out. Psalm 46:10 "Be still and KNOW that I am God..." Amen.
~Cass
P.S. here's the website where I found their journal, but beware, you have to spell words to "define" the site. It can be kind of annoying and time consuming, but use the hints and it shouldn't be too hard. Type JOURNAL to read more... http://www.definethegreatline.com/ |