Stuck Inside a Box

The World Outside the Box. What is it? The world outside each one of our boxes is different as we all have different callings, but our lives inside the box are very similar.
Namely, we tend to be self-centered, grumbling at not getting extra pickles on our hamburger while many people eat out of the dump - if they are lucky. We buy hundreds of dollars of new clothes, shoes, accessories, mani and pedicures, etc. while many people go barefoot and have been wearing their hand-me-down shirt and pants for so long that the fabric is paper thin and soaked in dirt - if they have clothes at all. We go off at the waiter when our food isnt hot or our water isnt iced and cold, while many people walk ten miles for hot, dirty, diseased water - if they're lucky. We spend a countless amount of money indulging on ourselves even when we say we are on a budget, while many people work for 50 cents a day, and give what they have to their family- if their family is still alive. We complain if our bed is too hard or too soft, if we get to sleep too late or wake up too early, or if our sheets are to scratchy, while so many children and babeis and mothers sleep on the sidewalks all year long. Oh! and did I mention how we say, "Something must be done!" but when the opportunity arises, we whistle a tune and pretend we don't see the offering basket as it passes by?
Our life inside the box revolves around us. My life. My wants. My "needs". My desires. My schedule. My budget. We are so stuck inside the box, completely caught up with sports, meetings, activities, work, and so on, that we fill our box up and forget we are in a box at all. Our world revolves around us and what we feel we have to do to make ourselves happy.

Life outside the box is pretty much, Love God, Love His people. Serve God, Serve His people. Life outside is wild. It's raw. It's real. It's real life. It's like nothing box-dwellers have ever tasted.

It's amazing how much my eyes have been opened to life outside the box in the last year! And I have only tapped the beggining! The purpose of this blog is to welcome you into what God is doing around the world. It is meant to help open your eyes in a new way as I tour you through some of the poorest groups of people in the world. I want you to share in a life waaaay outside the box. It is such an exciting life where God's heart is revealed in powerful ways. God's heart is for His people. We have been in Manila for a week and half now, and God has opened up many doors of purposeful networking for us. He has brought us a missionary family as well as direct contacts with World Vision and Habitat for Humanity field work as well as the Ophanges we are already in contact with. He has blessed us with a house far too big for practicality in worldly sense, but has opened the door for us to be able to house mission groups! He has opened up hundreds of oportunities for relief work on the field as well as teaching and giving opportunities. There is SO much to do! So many hurting people and so many opportunities to share the pure, open-hearted, enrapturing love of God that we ourselves have experienced.

It's time to live Outside the Box.