Mission: Kenya: Inspiration

Mission: Kenya: Inspiration: "Have you ever wanted to do something others thought was crazy, and even scared you just a bit, but you knew it would satisfy your spirit?
Mission Kenya chronicles my family's journey across the world to a new home with a new people in Kenya, to do the LORD's work through the sharing of truth and the use of community service."

I want to take a moment here to thank Angela Cowley for sharing her very inspiring story, and for speaking so poignantly on the use of the challenges we face in life. Having faced many herself, Angela is imminently qualified to speak to the lessons we learn and the growth we experience when we choose to respond to crisis from a belief in God for the sake of a relationship with God.

I want to talk today about the importance of risk taking. A famous phrase of Rick Warren's (pastor of Saddleback Church in Orange County CA, and author of the "Purpose Driven Life") is that "God's more interested in your character than your comfort." I say Amen. It is often the things that stretch us the most spiritually, that make us the most profoundly uncomfortable, that are the most essential to character development. Two passages from the Heavenly Doctrines come to mind:

1) Your character is stamped on your soul through the life that you live in the world. (AC 6467)

2) In temptation (a struggle between the internal and external person) we are reduced to despair when we recognize that we cannot manufacture the answer to life's challenges ourselves, but that only with the Lord Jesus Christ can we find the power to chose heaven over the world, His love over our pride - and we give our Lord the opportunity to change our heart and reset our priorities. *(See TCR 599).

Angela, go in peace - and may the God of peace go with you.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, today and everyday. Amen.