tom #4

Week 4

This morning, I had breakfast with one of my good friends from Pepperdine who just got back from a medical mission to Fiji, and he brought me back a machete. This afternoon I used said machete to cut down a cactus in our front yard that my dad wanted me to use the chainsaw for. Nope. The machete was 10 times more fun and 100 times more satisfying.

While this doesn’t much speak to any kind of universal theme or message, this is one of the things that makes my heart beat. As a Chemistry major and a very science minded person, this may seem a bit paradoxical, but I thoroughly enjoy low tech life. I would rather use the machete than the chain saw (ideally I would use a machete that I had made, but I am still working on that). I know that God has provided me with everything I need. The incredible amount of riches I have compared to some makes it impossible for me to second-guess that fact. He provides for all of His creation though, but he didn’t start doing that just in the 21^st or even 20^th century. It is obvious then that we didn’t need to have cars, planes, televisions, or even chainsaws.

There is incredible beauty in man’s simplicity. God provided a few things for every human generation that has ever walked the earth. Humans have always had food, water, nature, other humans, and the Big Man Himself. These are some of the things that drive me to Africa. Here those things are all put at the bottom of the importance hierarchy.

Food is now fat.

Water is now soda.

Nature is now paved.

Humans are now producers.

And God in the U.S. is out of the picture.

I want to go somewhere that I can give someone food and have it be valuable. I want to go somewhere that I can see the earth as God created it whether that be green and lush, snowy and mountainous, or dry, vast, and open. I want to go somewhere that the conversations I have with others are my entertainment, not the conversations others have with others on a screen. I want to go somewhere and see my sovereign Father at work among people who are focused on those other four things He provided for his people – not the things we make up for ourselves.