Recently, our pastor presented   the vision for  our church in  2014 :  “Living Beyond Ourselves.”

Mountain Life Church  has been given  a prophetic Word  over and over again by  people who knew nothing about us.  It is always the same,  that Mountain Life Church is to make a difference in this area and be a sound in the community. In  faith and  obedience to that Word being fulfilled,  a bell rings out each Sunday morning before  service  to sound the gospel news to the community. Therefore, it’s no surprise that our pastor’s  vision for this year aligns  with what’s been prophesied many times before.

At first, I silently applauded Vision 2014.   “Great. Wonderful.”   To be honest, what I really meant was, “OK.  But, I’m already in!”   After all, Heartland Hunger & Resource Center, the food bank  in McCall, Idaho has been ministering to hungry families for  more than a decade.  Surely, providing food for hungry families week after week is  living very beyond ourselves, isn’t it?

It’s a good thing that only God hears some of my interior conversations. In Psalm 139 David   dealt with his own honesty  as he prayed,     “Search me,  Oh God , and know  my heart; try me and know my thoughts.” Sometimes when  my smug notions  pop up   the Holy Spirit brings   appropriate and not always gentle  conviction.   After less flippancy and more heartfelt prayer,  I  realize I’ve become complacent, relying on old successes and growing spiritually weary in the work. I need the Lord to  refresh  the vision and to show me again what it means to “Live Beyond Ourselves.”

God draws us to  serve Him and co-labor with Christ  and strangely, He picks the most unqualified to do so.  Years ago I  was asked to help in a small food pantry. I said  “yes”    not out of  kindness and certainly not out of spirituality, but out of sheer desperation.  I needed to get out of my own  misery and help some one else.   The offer  made to me was like a crust of bread thrown to a starving prisoner. I  never  imagined  it was  the  t Lord calling me to a banquet.  Despite the wreckage of my life,  His  merciful  eye  beheld me and  He  simply said, “That one. I’ll take her.”

Over the years,  a vision for the future of the food bank has emerged.   Part of that vision  is working with other churches,  outreaching into  the community,  inviting  numerous  volunteers to help with the work.   It is no longer just about handing out food boxes to hungry families.  The biggest  ongoing  challenge   is constantly testing the  work   against  the Word in Matthew 25, never letting Jesus’ commands to feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty  become  common place or  hyped-up  cultural  cliches.

It took a lot of obedience to the calling before anything  remotely visionary came. It still does.  At times it  just feels like a lot of hard and unrewarding work. I see the same people with the same problems with the same drifting, purposeless  lives,  sometimes for years,  and wonder what I’m doing and why I’m doing it anyway. A sunny beach on the Mexican Riviera sounds a lot better than sludging through McCall’s ice and  snow to get to the food bank early enough to turn on the battered propane heater for the clients waiting outside.  There aren’t enough diapers again for all the babies  born  this winter.  I see twenty-somethings with no jobs  or ambitions already lounging against the building  half  an hour before we open and,  truthfully, there’s nothing of Mother Teresa in me at those times. I pray  not so much for the poor and the jobless and the pregnant again mothers, but for myself. I pray because in my own human nature, I constantly want to live within, not beyond myself.

I can minister to  others  only because of God’s grace to me and beyond me. The essence of “living beyond ourselves” is to live in Christ Jesus,   living His Word,  for “in Him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28). It’s impossible to live beyond ourselves by ourselves.

The shelves  fill up again with this week’s food supply.   Someone leaves  a case of toilet paper.  There are enough diapers for a month or two.  Faithful volunteers show up to serve. The cold isn’t that bad. I’m not tired any more.

Behind their  casual swagger, I see lost young people who are disconnected  and alienated. An unemployed  man   registers for the first time. His eyes  are shame -filled as he   walks like an old person into the pantry to get food. A new mom smiles a little too brightly.  The crowded waiting area is filled with God’s children. One of the younger kids  selects  a book from the book shelf.  I encourage her to take home several more, knowing that  as she reads the stories out loud, her mother who doesn’t speak much English will be listening.

That’s when the vision comes back more  brightly, as God’s Spirit  breathes new  life into the work of my hands.   That’s when I see Jesus’ kingdom all around touching  the poor, the hungry and thirsty  with compassion.

Friede Gabbert

Heartland Hunger & Resource Center