"Mexico City has 28 million inhabitants in its metropolitan area. There are over 400 universities in Mexico City filled with over 1 million students. The largest and most prestigious university in Latin America, UNAM, boasts 300,000 students by itself. El Zócalo is one of the oldest, largest squares in the world. Mexico City is big. Really, really big.
Since going to Mexico City last year for Spring Break, and especially in the last couple of months, I have been struck with just how big God is. I have seen that the King who came down to die for peasants like you and me is so big that He can take a really tall, white, non Spanish-speaking person like myself and still somehow use him in kingdom work in Mexico. It is really amazing actually, the paradoxical reality inside which we as Christians find ourselves. We know that Jesus is King, and yet we know that the Prince of this world is an evil one. We know that Jesus will come someday to physically rule with a mighty hand, but we also somehow see that Kingdom in part today. There is a constant tension between seeing Christ work in the lives of Mexican students first hand and then seeing vast mountain-sides covered in slums of people who are barely living. We see the frightening consequences of sin, and we see the power of Redemption at work. We watch for His return without forgetting that we are here for a reason. We put our faith individually in the Cross of the Messiah, but we act out our faith corporately with millions and billions of others. Our God is mighty to save and gentle to comfort. He is the Lamb and the Lion. He is both Servant and King. And Mexico is messy, yes, but it is also beautiful, because God is at work there."
When i put that into my "support" letter, i really just wanted to try to communicate the so-called "Beautiful Mess" that we have been discovering at CRU this year. i wanted to try to invite others to share the incredible lessons that we have seen already. Even last night after CRU, when we heard that the father of one of our adopted families had died, we saw that intensely powerful paradox first-hand. We had sung of our yearning for the Father. Our desire to see Him work in our lives and in our world and in our love. And then we see that this world is so broken that a family in that condition has just lost its Dad. Broken isn't even the right word. Shattered. Obliterated. Mangled beyond recognition. It is nothing like what God intended. And i just sat there almost numb. why? Why do these things happen? Because sin affects each and every part of our lives, whether or not we are even sinning.
But here is the absolutely amazing thing: the sin that has brought injustice, and war, and famine, and sickness--the sin that has brought death--it cannot stand up to the One who has conquered it. It has been given temporary reign here, sure. It can tear apart families. It can destroy relationships. It can ruin nations and peoples. It can even make your heart an eternal winter. But it can never hurt anything or anyone beyond repair, because Jesus can always mend a family. He can put back together relationships. He can preserve nations and peoples. Most of all, He can take your heart and warm it in His own embrace.
Jesus never promised that life would be easy. In fact, He told us it would be hard. He didn't tell us all the reasons why it would be hard, but i suspect that would just confuse our feeble minds anyways. In what He said, though, there is eternal Hope.
"I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
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