Indian Food for Thought

Complaining is my trade mark move.

I complain about the noises my car makes when I brake.

I complain a lot about being tired.

Usually once a day I complain about being single.

I'll even complain about the ministry I am doing sometimes - does it really matter? Am I really gifted? Do people really care?

The other day in the midst of me feeling sorry for myself I had picked up a magazine and bolted to Zona Fresca to get a bite. While eating, I began to read about some of the stuff going on in India. The country with the 2nd fastest growing economy in the world but where still more than half the population lives in abject poverty. The country home to New Delhi - a metropolis where on any given day you might see a 4 year old doing a cartwheel in the street, narrowly missing traffic, in an attempt to get a few coins from a passerby so that child can eat. The country home to such a rigorous caste system that you have an infintessimal chance of being born into happiness but a pretty sure bet to be born into a living hell.

The country home to one-seventh of all humanity.

And I read about a pastor in the backwards land of India - the place where cows are king, where Hindu's make the rules, where Muslims are gaining a foothold, and where Christians hold on for dear life.

This pastor went to spread the Gospel in a heavily Hindu village and his first day there had his ears mutilated and his teeth kicked out.

But he kept preaching.

The next time they tried to burn him alive.

But he kept preaching
And loving.

No ears. No teeth.

That village is now home to a church.

What's sad is that this great man of faith and I are both labeled "pastor."

But I started the day complaining and ended it eating a burrito.

Lord have mercy.