Week 10—Friday 3 John 9–10
Week 10—FRIDAY
TROUBLEMAKER OR TROUBLESHOOTER?
“Man is made for conversion.” Even Freud got a glimpse of this fact and gave this definition of conversion: “The only kind of change in life which means anything, because it transforms everything in its path, is that which changes peoples’ thinking, their deepest convictions, that which makes them see the world in a different way. This doesn’t happen often.” True, it doesn’t happen often, not from his premises and from his procedures. Because when he left Christ out, he left out Life. Therefore his method is proving more and more sterile. No wonder Freud was pessimistic about humans: “In the depths of my heart, I can’t help being convinced that my dear fellow men, with a few exceptions, are worthless.” But the Christian never looks on anyone as worthless but believes in conversion. For instance, in Africa a woman of eighty listened to the gospel. It awakened her though she was blind and illiterate. She came to the missionary and asked him to underscore John 3:16 in a French Bible. She sat near a school, and when the boys would come out she would ask them to read this passage. Proud of being able to read French, they would gladly do so. Then she would ask them what it meant. When they said they didn’t know, she would tell them out of her experience what it meant to her. Forty-four Christian workers came out of her work, most of them assistant lay pastors. This work she did for eight years. She is now known as Madame Dundjee—she was a person!
A beautiful church in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, is made out of bits of waste stone. The Christian church, in general, is made up in large measure of waste material—material that would have been wasted in conflicts and futile living had it not been converted into contributive forms. Here was a wife who was always complaining about everything. Then the light dawned. She was converted. Now instead of complaining, she began to take up things as they arose and began to solve them. Then there was nothing to complain about. She is now a troubleshooter instead of a troublemaker.
O Jesus, you make the nobodies into the somebodies, the waste material into a temple of God. Help me to pick up the broken fragments of my life that nothing be lost and put them into your hands. For you use everything—use even me! Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: Outside of Jesus I am wasted, inside of Jesus I am wanted.