...but have everlasting life.

Do you ever stop to think? Does anyone ever do that anymore? Or do we just live our lives as we see fit? Too often, we get stuck in these "convenient" bubbles. Life goes good, so we do anything in our power to keep it that way. However, what's really happening? Are we really living the best, safest, fullest way? Or are we just keeping our power flips switched on till the battery dies out? Seems like a lot of questions to ask yourself.

Sometimes things happen and it puts things into perspective. We always want attention in one way or another. For someone to feel bad for us and all our "troubles"; for someone to praise us; or for someone just to love us. Anything to get people to pay attention to us. Yet while doing so, we overlook everyone else who really isn't getting any attention.

Last month, I went to LA. It was a lot of fun, we did a lot of cool things, and I had a blast. But that trip did a lot more for me in the long run then I was expecting. While I was there, I was able to talk to homeless folk. These folk have more passion than anyone else that I ever encounter. The reason being that they have nothing. No food; shelter; pillow to lie on, or blanket to cover themselves. Their bathrooms are the streets and their beds are the sidewalks. Their best bet for food is organizations that come through, random nice people that make their way down, or the closest trashcan. Human trafficking, the issue I am most passionate about, puts things into perspective as well. I live in a lovely home. My parents and family love me. We have money, a constant source of food, a means for education, anything that I need to survive. And yet, there are girls out there my age, not too far from where I live, who are being bought and sold just like this keyboard that my fingers are flying on. They are seen as mere objects; things that can be replaced when one dies. They are being used so men can have their way with them; their innocence and purity sold as if it is merely something you could pick up at your closest Target. This all helped my perspective greatly.

Now as to how I got to understanding that perspective is another story. You see, I was, for a long time, a very shy person. Ask my parents; I had a hard time talking to people, even waiters at restaurants. Why I signed up for that trip is still amazing to me and those who knew me then. However, since then, a lot of things have happened. When I signed up for the trip, I trusted God would lead me there and that I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. Boy, is God the planner. Everything went smoother than I could have imagined. I learned how to talk to people, how to deal with things. I went from having trouble talking at all to talking in public. That all was changing, but still before the trip, I was a little nervous and quite nearly having second thoughts. But God...

It was the day before leaving and I was feeling the nerves. People were praying for me and talking to me more and more about it and boy, was I realizing that the time had come. I remember sitting under my Dad's teaching that day and that was when I woke up... I don't think he was planning on it, but he started talking about Christ's death. He was going into details of what happened there. Here's what it was:

Christ was beaten over and over again with whips and chains. His back was bleeding a river and the gashes were deep enough to stick your finger in. His bones and muscles were glowing a bright, beautiful, hideous scarlet. After that, they stuck a crown of thorns on His head. Not thorns on your mom's rose bush, but long thorns that could work as toothpicks for after your dinner. He was then forced to carry a splintered long in the shape of a cross. It had been used before as a means to hang people, so the wood is full of bacteria and all sorts of illnesses. The splinters were digging deep into His fresh, bloody gouges on His back. He was then nailed to the tree. Nails that were as big as steaks that you use to keep your tent down when you camp. More germy splinters piercing into His skin. He was put upright, hanging on the cross. He was suffocating because of the gravity pulling Him down. He was growing weaker and weaker, making it harder and harder to breathe. They speared His side to kill Him faster, because our Jesus is strong. There were scoffers and mockers in the crowd. They were pointing and laughing and making jokes at my God, my Savior, my Lord, my Jesus as He hung there in my place. My place. MY place...

That's when I realized it. Jesus did all that... for me. I was amongst the scoffers, amongst those who hated Him, who rebuked Him, who despised Him.

Why would someone do that for a rotten soul who hates them? What on earth would possess a person to do that? I'll tell you what: Love. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not die, but have ever lasting life.

That put a lot more things into perspective. Jesus did all of that for lousy me and I'm too scared to talk to people? No, I must talk to people. I must tell people about what Jesus did for me and what He did for them. That was my breakthrough, my realization. When God truly opened my eyes to this. I'd always heard it, but never understood it. Thanks to His providence, I now do.

That is why I try to talk to people now, why I want to do mission work, why I talk about human trafficking, why I do anything I do. Now I can see things with a better understanding. The next time I whine because my clothes are dirty, I should rejoice that I have any. The next time I complain about doing the dishes, I should rejoice because I ate food from them. The next time I grumble about my mother sending me to bed so I can get up for school, I should rejoice that I have a loving mother who teaches and educates me and cares enough to want to send me to the bed that I actually have. All this and more. I try not to take life for granted, or the things I have for granted. It could be gone in the blink of an eye. So many people don't have a fraction of what I do, what you do. They would do anything for it, even go to extremes and beyond.

In comparison, you don't have it bad. At all. No matter how bad things may seem, there is always someone suffering worse. And the One person who suffered the worse from anyone else in all of history did just that for the scoffers, the mockers, the sinners, the haters, the prostitutes, the scumbags, the tax collectors, the losers, the misfits, the broken, the bruised. Tell the world of this Jesus. Count what you have and not what you don't. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not die, but have everlasting life.