“The Seriously Disturbed, Gloriously Ruined Club”

“Would you like to join the Seriously Disturbed, Gloriously Ruined Club?”

Kay Warren asks that question to groups she preps for short-term mission trips.

She’s joking—kind of.

Most of them have no idea what she’s talking about.

In Dangerous Surrender: What Happens When You Say Yes to God, Kay admits some of her trainees think she’s nuts.

After their mission trips, however, they say,

“Now I get it; I’m ruined.”

Kay writes:

They are no longer content to live with the focus of their lives on their world—themselves, their problems, their family, their career. 

Their eyes have been opened to new realities. 

They have seen how the suffering world lives, and it is now real. 

They cannot ignore the suffering or pretend it doesn’t exist. 

They are compelled to do something about it. 

They are now willing to live in three worlds, as I do—as seriously disturbed and gloriously ruined people.

Kay (who, by the way, is Rick Warren’s wife) then gets personal:

What about you? 

You don’t have to go to Africa to prove that you’re seriously disturbed and gloriously ruined. [Africa] is where dangerous surrender to God led me, but it’s not a litmus test of the depth of your obedience to God.
 

What is a litmus test of your surrender and obedience to God is how you treat the least among us (see Matthew 25:40). 

Will you allow God to shake up your comfortable world on behalf of those most in need, whether they live around the world or around the corner? 

There’s got to be somewhere—someplace in your world—where you are demonstrating God’s love to the least of these in concrete ways.…

This Christmas season, please consider helping reach “the least among us” through God-honoring organizations like:

World Concern

World Vision 

Compassion International

Amani ya Juu 

HEAL Africa

Rafiki Foundation

The Mercy House