The Richest Among Us

As of right now I am looking into selling the camera equipment I have and investing in a much more advanced camera body(the Nikon D200/D300 as opposed to my current D40) and a wider variety of lenses. I realized that, not only do I need to sell what photography gear i have now, I need to sell of a bunch of other toys laying around like my BMX bike, MX helmet, a little point-and-shoot Nikon, 1st gen. PSP, and a few other valuables. 

As some of you may or may not know by now, I am a die-hard fan of Road Biking, also. After photography, road biking eats up the rest of my time. It has become my saturday morning adventures, my after school stress relief, and the occasional 4:00 AM suicide mission. I have been biking for quite a few years now and push harder and further with each year that passes. Currently I can pull off about 30 miles per day if I cut out the time for it (back in september i was doing 40+ per morning until I had to cut it off due to knee rehab and complete retraining of my quads to fix an ongoing running injury of 5 years). The steeper the hill, the more inviting it is. The higher the street speed limit, the harder I'll push to break it. The more cars I can outrun, the more pumped I get. The only problem, now, is I'm outrunning my bike. I got my bike, labeled as a serious beginners bike, 5 years ago, and I am out performing it by far. I push harder and move faster than its geometry is made to take, and I'm beginning to hit a wall. Now if only i had upwards of a few grand to get my hands on a competition level, asphalt shredding frame.

So here's what I'm getting at... This isn't bragging time, this is humility time. So far all I've written is just the opposite, you might say... well just hold on a second and let me explain. My two biggest hobbies are very expensive and time consuming. Together, I have anywhere from 5-10K to save up in order to fulfill my wants and wishes. Whether you're wealthy or not, thats a decent chunk of change, right? I think so. Well then its a darn good thing I don't have to worry about where my next meal is coming from, where the electricity powering my macbook is coming from, whether the drinking water is clean, whether I'll be able to get my full 8 hours of beauty sleep tonight, or whether I can get medical attention in the event that I get hurt pretty bad. I can let any care of every necessity slide and obsess over the luxuries in my life. How lucky am I? How lucky are any of you who are able to read this right now? Have you ever stopped to consider how fortunate you and I are, even in spite of our "hard times"? Have you ever truly appreciated the roof you live under, the food that you snack on when you aren't hungry, the car that you drive in, or the country that takes care of you? I do... rarely. Not enough. Not nearly enough. Now I wouldn't say that I'm spoiled, but you don't have to be in order to be guilty of this. 

None of these things are ours. They are God's. Who are we to take them as "ours"? What... because we've worked so hard for what we have? Yea I see your point, and that makes sense, but at the very root of it all, we are given life, forgiveness, grace, freedom, and heaven all at no cost to us. We didn't work for that, but do we appreciate that? Do we REALLY appreciate that? Our souls are what goes to heaven. All material possessions are left behind to rot with the sins of man, yet we all seem to devote all of our time and money on the material. Okay maybe not ALL, but the vast dang majority. I applaud you who sacrifice what you are blessed to offer whether it be money, time, talent, or otherwise.... you have done something that I feel I haven't done enough of. 

I spent this last weekend right in my our backyard, LA. I went with the high school group from church on a missions trip to get our hands in the poverty and homeless problem thats so close to home. As it turned out, we became the homeless. Friday night we were stripped of all our possessions except two items of our choice. I grabbed my sleeping bag and a stick of deodorant... I didn't want to stink myself out of my own bed). From there we slept outside on the sidewalk, woke up at 4:30 thanks to the law that states no person is to be sleeping in public when the sun rises, and got to work making due with what we had. We weren't given meals to eat, a place to clean up, or any means of obtaining such. We had to beg for money and find our own way to get food around the city. You wouldn't believe how difficult it is to beg on the streets. What that did to our pride and mental state in just one day was incredible and it makes me wonder what it must do to those who live that reality for years. I'd get much more into detail of what it was like to be on that side of the world, but I think you get my point. IT SUCKED!

You have to see, though, that I'm not writing this as a guilt trip for those of us who have money, whether it be a lot or not so much, but as an attempt at a wake up call. We are blessed and privileged to have the possessions that we have, but with that we most likely have the ability to sacrifice for those less fortunate. Instead of indulging in our material possessions, what if we took those material things and put them to use in changing the souls of the hopeless. Because the soul is that only thing that ever lasts. You and I may be rich with this world, but we can also be the poorest in compassion, humility, love, and soul. God blessed us with material riches not to dig our roots deeper in this world, but to help others stay afloat in this cruel world that loves to take them under when they can't provide for themselves. We can use our riches, big or small, in the name and image of God to show God to those who may not know Him and, instead, only know frustration and misery.

The picture I put up is a logo I made last Friday for a series that we do at church called Blackout. It is an effort to make us more aware of those who are less fortunate and need to see Gods loving hand now more than ever. It covers poverty and injustice here at home and on an international level. It is student lead and student created, but fueled by God. If you are interested in learning more, please contact me. I would love for anyone reading this to consider attending a Blackout event and getting involved at any level to serve and sacrifice for our Father.

Faith is dead without action. 

So Do Something.