Why I do Disaster Relief.

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         Have you ever thought about what really matters in life? Is it money? Your job? Family? Friends? Having fun maybe? I believe there is something more important in life than all of those but in order for me to explain I have to tell you a little more about the past few years of my life. I know this is about the point where I stop reading and continue scrolling through Facebook but please just hear me out. It will only take a few minutes of your day and what if I’m right?

 

          I always wanted to have more money growing up. I learned quickly even before I was a teenager that I could work hard, make money, and buy cool things. I didn’t waste my money on little things but I was a sucker for big things. Dirt bikes, trucks, cars, guns... There was always something bigger and more powerful than what I had. ( Don’t get me wrong I still like these things, a lot, but I look at them a little different now than I did even a year ago. )

Ever since high school I had big plans to build a bunch of rental houses, make a bunch of money and retire early to do whatever I wanted. This dream just about became a reality a few years ago. I was given a chance to make even my wildest dreams come true. I was given a chance to design, build, and be part owner in a large apartment complex, and I just couldn’t do it.... You see I met a man from church a while back and we quickly became friends. I have more in common with this man than anyone I have ever met by far. He had just sold his business that he started in his garage and built it into.... well let’s just say he did very well for himself. I remember going to his house for the first time. He literally had every material thing that I had ever wanted. Land, cars, guns, he even has a bunch of brand new Caterpillar equipment, seriously everything.... He also has two boys, that were homeschooled, just like I do.

It didn’t take long for me to realize that looking at his life and what he had accomplished was almost like looking at what my own life might be like. It was like I could almost look into the future of my life.

We talked for hours about tons of different ideas to make money. He was willing to put up the money if I had a plan and boy did I make plans!!  The first one was apartments. We were cruising right along and I was counting the days until I could quit my job when I found out someone else was planning on building a massive apartment complex literally right next door to where we wanted to build and they had a two year head start. I looked for other land but the whole time I just had the feeling that I just wasn’t supposed to be building apartments. I was also having trouble using someone else’s money to fund my dream and the thought of possibly loosing his money just didn’t sit well with me. I ended up giving up on the apartments. I just couldn’t shake the thought of risking my new friends money or the thought that I was supposed to be doing something else..

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          We came up with several other money making ideas and every time I would get close to doing something I had that same feeling that I wasn’t supposed to be spending all my time making money. Every time it got stronger until finally I could literally hear in my head “that’s not what you’re supposed to be doing”. I didn’t give up until September of 2018. That’s when God put his foot down and made me listen. You see he had been telling me all this time, for 3 years now, that I was supposed to be doing disaster relief work and helping those in need. I knew all along what I was supposed to be doing but I wanted to do it my way and told myself I had to make the money first so I could retire and then I would do what God wanted me to do. Big mistake.... ( This may be difficult for some of you to understand and it is hard to explain but it’s real. God does still call people to do things. Just as plain as day....)

 

       September 9, 2018. I came home from work ready to quit my job. I had just had enough, and then some. The stress of the job was beating me into the ground and I didn't see any future in the job which just made things worse. That's when I realized that God was using my job to get my attention. All this time I had been ignoring what he wanted me to do and he was done waiting for me. I picked up my iPad and just started reading the Bible. I started in Matthew and read chapter after chapter until I reached 6:24 "No one can serve two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money."

This hit me like a ton of bricks. So much so that I took a screenshot of it with the Ipad. I read a lot more of my Bible in the days after that. Something that was rare for me to do at the time. I soaked up what Jesus said about how we are to live and what is important in this life. Three days later on the 12th we went to the state fair. At one of the booths there was a ministry group making horseshoes for kids and stamping their name and John 3:16 on them. We stopped and while they were stamping Claytons name we talked with one of the volunteers there that shared his testimony with us of how he came into doing ministry work. He told us about how when he was a young man he was a lover of money...... But God called him into ministry, then he looked me right in the face and quoted me Matthew 6:24.... It was like God was saying it right to my face. There was no denying it. This was not a coincidence.... I had just been told by God that I was on the wrong path. That's when I knew I was sitting at a crossroad in life. It was either continue following my path, or get on Gods path. God had given me a view through my friend of what I thought I wanted in life and that helped me realize that it wasn't what God wanted for me. It was the right path according to the world and I believe it was the path God had planned for my friend but it wasn't the path God wanted for me. This was difficult for me to let go, I pretty much had to kiss most of my dreams goodby..

 

       Over the next few months I really re-evaluated just what I believed in and what is really important in life. A lot of people will say they believe in heaven and hell but do they really? If they did wouldn't they make a little more effort to know for sure which direction they were going? It is really quite simple to be honest. The Bible says you have to believe in Jesus Christ and accept that he died on the cross for your sins in order to go to heaven. There can't be any "I kinda believe" either you do or you don't.  I thought I had believed in God since I was twelve years old but I realized that all that time I didn't really, truly believe. I only kinda believed. I didn't understand this until I began to think about what if Jesus came down from heaven and said "Heath I'm going to follow you around today and see if you are doing all those things that I said you should be doing in the Bible." Would I change my plans? Would I say and do things differently? Would I go out of my way to help people in need because Jesus was standing right there? If I answered yes to changing my plans then did I really believe in Him? If I really believed it wouldn't make any difference if he was standing there because I know He is watching me every day.... I also thought about what it might be like to look down from God's point of view. To see all those suffering and in need of help and more important all those who need to know who Jesus really is and what he did for us, and then see all of the "Christians" doing nothing to help them. I thought about my two boys. How would I feel if I had to watch as one of them was lost in the wilderness and going to die and his brother just set back and did nothing.... Too busy doing his own thing to be bothered.. People die every day never really knowing how to go to Heaven and most of us do nothing about it. We are too "busy" doing our own thing or we think there is nothing that we can do. This is when I began to beg God to show me the path that he wanted for me and to use me wherever he needed me to go. I started to understand that our time on earth is short when compared to all of eternity and I really needed to make the most of it. I realized that the only thing that is really important in life is serving God, and how many people I can point towards heaven.

In the end that would be all that would matter. All the cars, apartments, money, job, none of that will matter when my time comes and I stand before God but to anyone that I can help get on path to heaven it will matter for eternity to them. I don't want to be standing there on judgement day knowing I did nothing to help them. I want to stand there knowing that I did all that I could. When it's my time to be judged I want to hear "Well done".

So how does this all relate to Disaster Relief? A lot of times when people are at their lowest and they have nowhere else to turn they look to God for help. Someone needs to be there to help them during those times and to share if they want to know more about faith in God. If they aren't interested in hearing about Jesus that's fine I can at least show them love and maybe someday down the road they will look back and remember that crazy Christian guy that helped them and want to know more.