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Step up by stepping down

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Kay and I attended Highland Baptist Church with Jonathan and Meredith yesterday. Their Sunday School class is studying the gospel of John. Yesterday, the focus was John 13 where Jesus washes the disciples’ feet.

The focus of the discussion was how Jesus’ stepped down to serve the disciples. The Philippians 2 kind of stepping down, out of eternity, not clinging to his divine nature. Here’s the trusted rabbi, the great teacher, the Lord washing their feet. Peter verbalized everyone’s feelings with “Lord, you are not going to wash my feet!” That’s how I’ve taught this passage before also.

But yesterday, I had another thought.

John 13:1 sets up an important background thought: “Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love.”

Here is the thought I was captivated with. What if Jesus did not step down, but rather stepped up to serving the disciples? What if serving in a lowly way as an expression of “the full extent of his love” is actually up?

God has this amazing way of turning down into up. Of turning harm into good. Of turning sacrifice into blessing.

Down to up: 1 Corinthians 1:27

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things — and the things that are not — to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.

Harm into good: Genesis 50:20

You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.

Sacrifice into blessing: Romans 12:1-2

I urge you, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship. … Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — his good, pleasing and perfect will.

So, we can step up into a higher/deeper/broader/fuller understanding of love by stepping down to serve others.

Amazing, isn’t it?

Safest places to live

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I grew up in tornado country. One of my vivid childhood memories is my dad driving us a couple of miles from home to a vantage point where we watched a tornado go through downtown Dallas (1957) and praying for my mother who had not yet returned home from working downtown. 6 year olds remember stuff like that.

Tornadoes are unpredictable, hit very fast, can do tremendous damage, but are confined to relatively small areas and are over quickly.

A few years ago, I moved to Florida just in time to experience the new upswing in hurricane activity. 4 hurricanes in 1 year rapidly introduced me to plywood over windows, stores of food and bottled water, and long hours sitting inside while wind and rain build, peak, and then subside. Since I live in Orlando, the tremendously destructive winds are not nearly as severe as on the coast, so mostly, hurricanes are boring.

Two weeks ago, Floridians were reminded of our second wind danger. I learned that I’m back in tornado country.

I’ve never lived in earthquake country. I really don’t care too. But a friend in California told me that he’d much rather live in earthquake country than hurricane country. His analysis: you don’t have to prepare, it happens quickly, there is really nothing you can do, you survive or you don’t. That’s actually a healthy perspective, particularly if you are prepared for death and have confidence in your destination for eternity.

So I found this map interesting. Looking for a safe place to live? There are not a lot of choices!

Looks like Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota and Michigan are best. Or way out in West Texas. But then there are other issues like cold, snow, heat, and no rain. Oh well, guess I’ll stay in Florida.

934 indicate decisions to receive Christ

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Beyond the UltimateDid you visit our BeyondTheUltimate.org Superbowl evangelistic website? If not, I encourage you to listen to the stories of Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith.

Did you show someone the fullpage newspaper ad? Did you forward my email to anyone? If so, then you may be among those who contributed to this exciting result. [NOTE: These are not the final numbers, but they are exciting numbers!]

Stats (as of Tuesday, 6 February)

  • Total site visits – 176,249
  • Visitors who indicated that they received Christ – 934
  • Visitors who moved on to a followup site – 510
  • Visitors who went to a special email page where they could request more information – 958

How People Found the Site

  • 122,333 – typed BeyondTheUltimate.org into their computer
  • 24,294 – in an email they received, they clicked on www.beyondtheultimate.org, which was included in the email
  • 7,536 – typed in a search phrase on Google and clicked on our ads
  • 4,210 – typed in a search phrase on Google, Yahoo, etc. and clicked the link, shown in the search
  • 17,876 – were visiting other Web sites and clicked on a link to www.beyondtheultimate.org

Wxxx in Orlando visited the site. He was interested in learning to share his faith. He had some questions about science and the Bible. Wxxx’s questions came to me. I serve as an email mentor helping people with their questions.

I’ve written to Wxxx. I hope he will write back.

French using similar solution

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Eiffel TowerMy colleague Rob alerted me to this plan:

French authorities plan on passing out open-source software to incoming high school freshman next year. The software expected to include Firefox and Thunderbird as well as an office suite; instant messaging software and an audio video player will be put on a USB flash drive and passed out to students at the beginning of the school year. The USB drive will give students the ability to check email and surf the web with personal preferences without purchasing each child their own personal laptop.

Mobile OfficeWe distributed a very similar solution at Pamoja! Glad to see others thinking similar thoughts. Our goal is not just to distribute software, but to increase communication and collaboration. We added headphones and a nice bag. Plus training and technical support.

Our finance leader in southern Africa wrote this week to tell me it is working. He needed some banking information from one of the countries in his area. He saw one of our Pamoja trainees online using his new Skype skills. So he used text chat to ask for the banking information he needed to help flow funds to the country. We’re building operational capacity, one step at a time, enabling better communication.