Witness
Loving on the Edge
In the vast expanse of God’s power and provision, the woman began to tell the family and many other villagers the story of Jesus in their own language!
God sees people on the edge; the margins, the fringe. None are beyond His reach. Sometimes, to our surprise, God calls us to the edge to meet those waiting there – people who have lost hope.
I love to read the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8. As Philip shares the Good News of Jesus in Samaria, signs and miracles are happening! People are being healed. Suddenly, an angel asks Philip to leave the situation and go far away to the desert. Talk about going to the edge!
Philip obeys the invitation. He has no idea what he will find, yet he has learned to trust the One who leads him.
As we read on in Acts, we learn that God has intentionally orchestrated a meeting between Philip and a eunuch from Ethiopia. Philip explains the scripture that the eunuch is reading in Isaiah 53. I like to think that the two men kept reading on to Isaiah 56: “For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off… For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.”
Imagine the incredulity of the eunuch – the LORD of the universe had deemed him better than a son? Why would he not want to give his life to such a loving father offering an everlasting inheritance? In that instant, the Ethiopian moved from rejection to acceptance; from being alone to having a family. His identity was no longer “the eunuch of Queen Candace.” He was now a son of the King of Kings!
Because of Philip’s obedience to the call, he is included in God’s narrative. His faithfulness reminds me of Marilyn*, a long-term worker in East Asia. She told me a powerful story of how the Spirit prompted her to love the unloved. Walking down a crowded, urban street, Marilyn tugged on the hands of her daughters, making sure all four were safely in tow. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a woman in a soiled red sweater with an 8-month old baby on her lap. He had an unprepared cleft lip.
The mother sat on a brown, burlap sack. Her legs gathered underneath her, she stared down at a handwritten sign that published her plight. Random coins had been tossed around her. Beside her lay a blanket, a wet diaper and some garbage.
At first Marilyn walked past the woman. A moment later, she stopped to pull out some money to slip into the mother’s calloused hands. As she turned to walk away, the Spirit prompted her to show compassion.
“I couldn’t take another step,” Marilyn remembers. “I was convinced that the Holy Spirit wanted me to be a conduit of His love right there.”
Communication with the mother was difficult. She spoke only her minority’s dialect. Through a miraculous turn of events, God provided a translator for Marilyn right there in the street! She soon learned that baby Qian Qian had never seen a doctor. Marilyn offered to help.
The mother was overwhelmed. Her husband had abandoned her when he saw his newborn son’s deformity. She had never let her heart hope that the baby might be healed. She began to sob. Marilyn touched them both and prayed for them, asking God to show them mercy. A large crowd had gathered, and as she prayed Marilyn felt God’s immense compassion for this pair.
After exchanging information, Marilyn began to walk away. Her 9-year-old daughter looked up at her and said, “Mom, this is why we left home to live here.”
I marvel at the intricate measures the Lord will go to in order to reach those on the periphery. One after another, He provided the necessary translators, doctors and funds to repair the cleft lip of baby Qian Qian. The mother and her son began to walk the road to physical and emotional healing as they reunited with the father and his family.
What’s equally amazing is that God led Marilyn to a woman who lived near Qian Qian’s countryside home. This woman was a Christian, and she spoke the local dialect! The family was curious as to why they were receiving such compassion, and they wanted an answer to give to the other villagers who had seen the miracle but didn’t understand how it happened.
In the vast expanse of God’s power and provision, the woman began to tell the family and many other villagers the story of Jesus in their own language!
Marilyn was deeply impacted by the whole experience:
“As I walked on the street that day, I heard the voice of the Holy Spirit saying to me, ‘I am here. In the needs of this child, you see me.’ In all my life I won’t forget that moment. There are events that cut deeply into us, and this was one of those.”.
I am grateful for faithful followers like Marilyn who, like Philip in Acts, reach out to meet needs in the name of the one, true, living God. Her story prompts me to ask: ‘Am I willing to go to the edge to touch the least reached?’ Are you?
*Name has been changed.