Monday, March 29, 2004
God's blessings
I saw something amazing last night. I was sitting around watching Extreme Makeover Home Edition. It's a pretty nice show about a team of designers and carpenters that travels the country and spends a week redoing the home of a family in one sort of need or another. Last night's show was one the most touching things I have ever seen.
They went to Watts, a neighborhood in LA that's had more than it's share of problems. They were there to help a woman named "Sweet Alice." This woman is what living for Jesus is all about. She feeds 500 homeless people at her home every thanksgiving and numerous others throughout the year. She built a special room on her house where people could come in off the streets and stay and get a new start. She gives toys to thousands of kids every year all from a place of very humble means.
Sweet Alice's house was severely damaged in a flood, which just goes to show the rain falls on the just and the unjust and so Ty and the team came in to fix her house. They ended up so touched by Alice that they fixed up the whole neighborhood.
A couple of things made this special. First of all when the team rolled up in their million dollar bus, she said to them, "You know you're in Watts, right?" When asked what she wanted on her house, she said "I'd like a room with a big window so I can see the kids out on the street and tell them to go home before they get into trouble." I guess some people are still their brother's keeper.
As Alice returned to her newly renovated home the whole neighborhood turned out. The choir from her church was singing to Jesus and Alice walked through her house saying "Oh my God" over and over again. The legalist in me was taken aback for a second but then I thought. God was the only one who could have made this happen, and Alice knew it, "Oh my God" was the only thing she could say in the face of such awesome blessing. At one point Alice broke down in tears and said she never thought someone would come to Watts and do this for her. And that is the point of all of this. Alice is Radically Real. She didn't do all this stuff to be recognized by men and she didn't do it for an earthly reward. She did it out of love and God proved once again that no one not even "Sweet Alice" can outgive Him.
One last thing, there are people all around us in need, if secular TV shows can make this stuff happen (and that's awesome), what do you think that the church could do if we all; got together and sought to bless our neighbors? Thanks Ty, ABC and Sweet Alice for giving us something to shoot for.
I saw something amazing last night. I was sitting around watching Extreme Makeover Home Edition. It's a pretty nice show about a team of designers and carpenters that travels the country and spends a week redoing the home of a family in one sort of need or another. Last night's show was one the most touching things I have ever seen.
They went to Watts, a neighborhood in LA that's had more than it's share of problems. They were there to help a woman named "Sweet Alice." This woman is what living for Jesus is all about. She feeds 500 homeless people at her home every thanksgiving and numerous others throughout the year. She built a special room on her house where people could come in off the streets and stay and get a new start. She gives toys to thousands of kids every year all from a place of very humble means.
Sweet Alice's house was severely damaged in a flood, which just goes to show the rain falls on the just and the unjust and so Ty and the team came in to fix her house. They ended up so touched by Alice that they fixed up the whole neighborhood.
A couple of things made this special. First of all when the team rolled up in their million dollar bus, she said to them, "You know you're in Watts, right?" When asked what she wanted on her house, she said "I'd like a room with a big window so I can see the kids out on the street and tell them to go home before they get into trouble." I guess some people are still their brother's keeper.
As Alice returned to her newly renovated home the whole neighborhood turned out. The choir from her church was singing to Jesus and Alice walked through her house saying "Oh my God" over and over again. The legalist in me was taken aback for a second but then I thought. God was the only one who could have made this happen, and Alice knew it, "Oh my God" was the only thing she could say in the face of such awesome blessing. At one point Alice broke down in tears and said she never thought someone would come to Watts and do this for her. And that is the point of all of this. Alice is Radically Real. She didn't do all this stuff to be recognized by men and she didn't do it for an earthly reward. She did it out of love and God proved once again that no one not even "Sweet Alice" can outgive Him.
One last thing, there are people all around us in need, if secular TV shows can make this stuff happen (and that's awesome), what do you think that the church could do if we all; got together and sought to bless our neighbors? Thanks Ty, ABC and Sweet Alice for giving us something to shoot for.
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