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The Kikuyu tribe in Kenya have this proverb; ‘never interview a hungry man.’ It is a common delay tactic for those of us who call ourselves Christians. No matter how dire the situation might be, we find a way to delay, defer, distract, debrief and deter any solution, until we have the answers we want.

This is how it works for me. Once I have the answers, I hold my head down checking my list, and closing my eyes (at least one of them) praying and observing that they have really moved on. That buys even more time and serves to let God know I am really serious about the matter before me.

When the Christ said;

• I was hungry. I ask; have you lost any weight?
• I was naked. What is your shoe size?
• I was thirsty. Do you have a glass or bottle for water?
• I was in prison. Just how big was your cell?
• I was sick. What did you do to acquire this illness?
• I was homeless. How is life on the streets?
• I was a stranger. Would you like me to introduce you to people like you?
• I have good precedence for this behavior.

The disciples did the same thing. Mark 6:36 Send them away, that they may go into the country round about, and into the villages, and buy themselves bread: for they have nothing to eat. Mark 6:37 He answered and said unto them, Give ye them to eat. And they say unto him, Shall we go and buy two hundred pennyworth of bread, and give them to eat?

We debate because it keeps us from actually doing what we are called to do. Jesus has the only real answer for our self-absorbed negotiations. These rhetorical questions are not only endless, but they serve to deny the power of God to be able to work and thus deny His glory.

Don’t pray about it. Don’t think about it. Luke 6:38 Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that you give it shall be given to you again.

Riddle the hungry with rhetoric. God is listening and watching as you weigh out your options and measure your response. He will bless you in that same measure.

I have really perverted the scripture this time. I have made works I claim to be in God’s name, to be evidence that I am working in His name. I have become more than a mere deviant. I have become a self-idolizer. I believe I know the answers to the challenges and struggles that mankind faces and I have not begun to deal with those very same issues in my own life.

The Bible declares; Psalms 46:10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

I want to be exalted. I want the non-believers, and even better, the believers, and better yet, my wife and offspring to know that I am right and I should be exalted.

The problem with that of course is that God will share His glory with no-one. So I get busy, hoping that people will see me and give me just a bit of the glory that belongs to God. The busier I get, the further I move away from God. Jehovah alone deserves glory and honor. I will perish. I will ‘disappear’ and return to the dust from which I came.

To catch up with God means to slow down, and be still, not speed up and do more. Be still and know that He alone is God. He alone is exalted and He shares that glory with no-one. Not even a nice good person like me.

Isaiah 42:8 I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.

I got a new car. God is good. I got a house big enough for two families. Yes indeed, God is good. My cancer is in remission. God is really, really good. My children are all doing well in school, my wife embraces me when I come home and gives me a big kiss, and my job is a perfect fit. God is tremendously good, until He ain’t.

It is clear that my evaluation of God’s goodness is based upon the good stuff that I get, or that happens to me. If bad stuff happens, God ain’t good no more.

The God I like caters to my needs. He does what I want, when I want it, like I want it. He is my genie, my butler, my servant and (don’t tell Him this part) my slave. He is good, until he stops doing things that please me. God is good, until he ain’t.

I would like you to know this God. He can be found in any of the churches, or clubs or secret societies and religions that give meaning to life. This God does not speak about unpleasant things like; Hell, Damnation, Repentance, Sin, Evil, or all those other bad words.

God is good until He starts to remind me that I can’t do right or be right or even think right without His presence. God is good until He ain’t meeting me on my terms.

It is all a lie of course. I know this without a doubt. God defines all that is good, because He is all that is good. He ain’t never anything but good. It is grammatically wrong, but theologically sound.

Psalms 73:1 Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart.

Mark 10:18 And Jesus said unto him, Why do you call me good? There is none good but one, that is, God.

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I confessed to my sister recently that I felt things were out of control. She reminded me that indeed things are out of control, to which she added; they are out of your control. They are only in God’s control. God has control issues.

I took a step back and reflected on that truth. As one of my favorite preachers asked; has it ever occurred to you that nothing ever occurs to God? Nothing takes Him by surprise, or catches Him unprepared. Jehovah does not need a contingency plan, a parachute clause, or an escape hatch. Yahweh needs no one to defend His name, reputation or credentials. He requires no letters of reference or recommendation. He explains Himself; Exodus 3:14 I AM THAT I AM. That is His calling card.

It is in when nothing seems right that I am reminded that God alone is in control. The plane is on auto-pilot, the driver is not asleep at the wheel. The world is careening, orbiting, rotating and revolving through space at millions of miles per second without an air bag.

God is self-absorbed because He is self-contained and self-sustained. It is His creation and His creatures that need Him and not the other way around. My next breath is best used to praise Him who grants it. That praise can be in the form of admiring Him for who He is, and thanking Him for what He has allowed me to be and finding ways to serve every person He has put in my life.

There are people with none of the advantages I have, who in my opinion have little or nothing to thank God for, because they have so little. And so I try to wrestle control and set things right on my own terms. When I ask God about His ‘unfairness’, He answers; He reminds me, I am clay.

Romans 9:21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?

God reminds me that the every disaster, every event, every occurrence is because He allows it. That does not mean He approves the terrors that cause us fright, but He does indeed allow it. Job was wise enough to not get angry with God about the disasters that came his way. Job 1:22 In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.

When it seems God is out of control remember what He says about the disasters, the devastation and disease that we face now or fear later.

Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

I AM is in control. Get His card.

He is the perfect Husband. He is polite, considerate and always soft spoken. He will not force His bride to yield to His touch. He will not push open the door of a closed heart. There is no forced entry. He stands at the door and knocks. He holds out His hand and beckons. He does not beg. He allows free will to turn Him down. He can take rejection, persecution, ridicule and even death. He beckons not because it would serve His best interest, but because it serves mine.

He is the servant. No servant begs to serve. Servants submit to serve. He is the ultimate servant, the humble shepherd, the submissive slave. He wants us to surrender our will to His.

Can you hear Him beckon? Surrender now.

Ephesians 5:25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.

Revelation 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with me.

“And the LORD said unto him, What is that in thine hand? And he said, A rod.”
(Exodus 4:2 KJV)

There is a blues song that goes something like this: “I started out with nothing, and I still have most of it.” I imagine that Moses felt the same way going to a people from whom he had been separated for decades and speaking to people in power who were more than a bit aloof to the suffering of those serving them. Moses felt as if he didn’t have much. God told him to use even something that might seem worthless. I hear God saying the same and to use what we do not have.

Since our return to Philadelphia a few years ago, we have been in language study. We still do know American English; however, we had to learn how to speak using terms and concepts from which we have been far removed for almost 20 years while we served in Kenya.

Terms such as pro-life or healthcare debate don’t roll off our tongue as easily as malaria epidemic or malnourished orphans. We speak a different language, and we have had to really use what we don’t have to gain momentum for the causes to which God has called us.

We used what we did not have. Using our home church as our base, we sent out a survey to churches and the community asking them what were the most pressing problems they faced. Our initial idea was that pro-life and the healthcare debate would be very high on the list. But when the surveys were returned, we realized just how naïve we were. We did not even ask the right questions. People wrote in their own responses. The principal one was “We need mentoring for our young men and women.”

With nothing in our hands to do this, we turned to those who had the calling. God used them to shape our cause.

We participated in two large forums on pro-life among African American Christian leaders. Our focus has been more in tune with promoting families; not just on the woman and her child, but on the circumstances that led to her impregnation, including how to involve the father of the child.

We have worked on promoting counseling and a gun buy-back program as well as rehabilitation and reuniting Returning Citizens (a.k.a. those released from jails), and are moving toward establishing a healthcare center for those who “fall between the cracks” in the medical system.

We started out with nothing, but it becomes clearer day by day that God is moving in our lives to make a difference, especially in areas that we know nothing about.

‘Are you monogamous?’

She looked down as I talked to her. I am not sure if it was fear, shame or a mixture of both. I was glad that the female nurse was there with me to witness the conversation and hold this 20 year old girl’s hand.

‘I don’t know what that means, she answered.’

‘Do you have more than one sexual partner?’

‘Not in the last 4 months.’

I moved on; ‘I wish I could tell you something different, but these warts in your private parts are not only difficult to treat, but you most likely never be able to have sexual intercourse without the chance of spreading them to your partner.’

I hate this kind of discourse, because I feel as though I am inflicting deeper wounds and I only have 15 minutes to do so and then try to stitch it back together in a nice package of correct diagnosis and codes. Medicine and compassion don’t mix in today’s fast paced, need to fix it now and save money at the same time culture.

What makes it worse is this is the difficult ‘good news- bad news’ kind of conversation. That is the good news being you won’t infect anybody if you don’t have sex and the bad news is you should not have sex. It is not what any one wants to hear, especially upon entering the second decade in life.

If I tell the truth, I am going to accused or at least perceived as being cold, callused, uncaring and possibly even unprofessional by many and a narrow minded conservative bigot by others. I sit and ponder the dilemma at my desk for a few minutes, knowing that most likely whatever I say, I must neither betray, nor display my moral convictions. I can only give my well thought out scientific professional opinion.

As I consider the nationwide statistics I have no other choice than to confront the person in front of me as if she bore some dreaded contagion shown on horror movies. The CDC is well aware of the contagion that confronts the nation and world, and documents it in several of its publications.

Just one illness alone is cause for alarm. In 2011, a total of 1,412,791 cases of Chlamydia trachomatis infection were reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This is the largest number of cases ever reported to CDC for any condition. This case count corresponds to arate of 457.6 cases per 100,000 population, an increase of 8.0% compared with the rate in 2010. Rates of reported chlamydial infections among women have been increasing annually since the late 1980s, when public programs for screening and treatment of women were first established to avert pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) and related complications. (http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats11/Surv2011.pdf)

This same report goes on to document the continued rise in every disease category including the prevalence of syphilis and gonorrhea in select groups: These populations are most vulnerable to STDs and their consequences. They include women and infants, adolescents and young adults, racial and ethnic minorities, MSM (men who have sex with men), and persons entering corrections facilities.

My personal bias is that poverty and poor or absent parenting plays a significant role in much of this profile. However, I would be remiss to add that my clinic is not in an impoverished area and most of the youngest patients are accompanied by their parents.

In 2011 the first and second highest rates of gonorrhea were amongst women 20-24 and 15-19 years of age. The steady increase in these illnesses is mirrored in men in the same age brackets.

So I still tread lightly when giving my professional opinion as I know it will not be received well.

I return to the room where she remains seated, with her head hung low. I remain silent, hoping she will start the conversation. She complies.

‘So what can I do’ she asked?

I always continue such conversations with a verbal sigh; ‘Well, to tell you the truth, the most important thing to do at this point is to test you for other potential illnesses.’ I dare not use the word ‘diseases’ knowing full well at least from a professional point of view these options are potentially deadly or crippling in nature.

‘We can draw some blood tests now and schedule you for tests at 6 weeks, twelve weeks and twenty four weeks to confirm the results. During that interval, you must abstain from sexual intercourse. There is no safe sex. Do you understand?’

She nods in affirmation, while keeping her downward gaze.

I leave the room quickly and the nurse follows closely behind, as we discuss how many tubes of blood and what color and label need to go with them. This varies of course depending on the insurance provider. I don’t return to the room. There are too many people waiting to be seen is my excuse, but truthfully, I just don’t know how to deal with the unfolding drama in her mind. I think I have actually poured salt in a wound that won’t heal.

We are eating ourselves to death, but it feels good. The average Body Mass Index (BMI) in America has risen to over 30 (which is defined as obese by the medical journals). That means that the life expectancy for at least one half of Americans will be shortened by 10-15 very miserable years. I add miserable years because they will be years of sensual suffering. Bad feet, knees and hips, will cause difficulty sleeping, walking, a box full of pills to follow the platefuls of food. We are feeding our sensual natures, our flesh and suffering in the process. At least one third of Americans are pre-diabetic. We need to put down our forks and push away from several tables.

There is nothing wrong with being sensual. God made us with five senses. Touch, smell, vision, hearing and tasting are indeed part of normal life for most of us. However, when we are controlled by our senses, we suffer.

We indulge our eyes and ears in things that will damage our minds, control our desires and interfere with our relationships. We are lured by our sense of smell to wade and waddle just deep and long enough to excite our appetites so we can taste and ultimately imbibe things we know we really don’t need.

The result is sensual suffering. We are held captive by the desires of our flesh, and then the failings of our flesh as we go from hospital clinic to hospital cafeteria without even recognizing the conflict of interest. We take in the poison and ask the doctor for the antidote, so we can go eat, drink and smoke the poison again.

1 Corinthians 6:12 All things are lawful unto me, but not all things are expedient. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.

Proverbs 23:2 And put a knife to your throat if you are a man who cannot control his appetite.