birthday wishes

[written ahead of time - after all, it's my birthday!]

Today is my birthday. I have been dealing with selfishness again this week, as I always tend to during the week before my birthday when my flesh starts yelling that life should be all about Me and What I Think I Deserve. I know it's a weird thing to struggle with every year at birthday-time, but I do. I have wants and wish lists galore and in the end it is all nothing, none of these material things that I crave will last for long and certainly none of them will matter for eternity.

So I was remembering a post that I wrote three years ago for my birthday and I have been looking at it again this week, remembering what my real desires are, and asking God to help me remember others and not be So Stinking Selfish.

    what I really want

                            a cure for AIDS
                           worldwide literacy

end of all drug trade    

             end to child prostitution

                       no more malaria in Africa

                  illegalization of pornography

         clean water available to all people

                                   complete Bibles in every language

                ceasing of female genital mutilation

           banning of genetically modified food

        recognition that a life is a life, no matter how small

              Christian freedom in Islamic countries

              complete end to mercury contamination

          true justice, ethics, and protection by the FDA

safe and loving homes for every child in the world

       safety and excellent prenatal care for all pregnant women

Will you take a minute with me to ask the Lord for these things? For justice to prevail, and for the Many Selfish Us not to fail to do the good works that He has prepared for us to do? As we seek to walk humbly with the Lord our God, may we not fail to act justly and to love mercy. May the Lord grant us ways to be His hands and feet to the world and to make these wishes become reality.

You know, what I want most of all is for God to come and make it all right. In the end, He will. I know He will. Keith and I have just finished going through a study on Revelation, which in the end is really all about the confidence we have in Christ that He will set things aright, and it has been making me think again about all these things and about living this brief vapor of a life in light of eternity.

"I know that my Redeemer lives, and in the end He will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see Him with my own eyes - I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!" (Job 19:25-27)

It is a wonderful and yet sobering hope. I don't expect that I will be the one asking God the questions when I at last see Him face to face; like everyone else, I will be falling on my face in worship. But after we've been hanging out in eternity for a bit, or at the judgment of the saints, or whenever it happens, I suspect that the Lord whom I claim to serve will ask me about the times when I have known of suffering and have known of ways to alleviate that suffering and yet have chosen not to do so. And what will I say? That I wrote a blog post about it a few times? Somehow I don't think that will cut it.

Lord, let me not look for justice for myself, but never cease to give it to others. Show me ways to share the mercy that I have received from You. Grant me the courage and insight to extend Your justice in every way that I can. Let me be more faithful and obedient to You this year than I ever have before. I want to live for you bigger and deeper and more sincerely in every tiny aspect of this life. Help me to be faithful to You, Jesus.