Keeping up

It's not easy to keep up with all our responsibilities these days. Work, family, citizenship, community, church -- these all are deserving of our best. I have friends who have just returned from mission trips to Haiti and Colombia, others who are currently engaged in a mission trip in southeast Asia, others who have been working on home re-building for flood victims in West Tennessee, and still others who have helped repair the roof of a church in a very poor area of Birmingham. I think to myself: how do these friends -- who are every bit as busy as I am -- find time to do these things? The answer, clearly, is that they prioritize their time and personal finances for mission work of this kind.

Listening to their stories, I get the strong impression that these involvements really help give meaning to all the other activities of their lives. This kind of ministry keeps everything else in perspective. For them, it's not so much a matter of keeping up, as keeping in! Keeping in the unfolding purpose of God. Keeping in the mission and will of God. Through the sights, the smiles, the touches, the pain, the hope they encounter along these arduous journies, my friends are stepping in the footprints of Jesus. Talk about keeping up!