The Root of Freedom, Safety, and Ease

I asked Simon on one of our drives, "Of all the places you live right now, which one feels the best?"

He answered without hesitation.

 Simon lives several different places right now.  He moves around often within the week.

Simon is a staff member and a board member of Redeemer House.  He is a leader that is well respected there for his position and his experience.  The house is a newly built well-equipped house on gorgeous land with farm ground and land and a wall around the property, a gate to enter thru and a well for clean fresh water. He lives here part-time.

Simon is also a student at a very nice, university in Uganda.  He lives there and has a room with roommates and access to the dining hall, libraries, and football fields.

 It's a beautiful campus.

Simon is also a son and a brother.  His mom and brother Patrick live where he grew up and it's dirt floors and outdoor common cooking area are conservative, to say the least.
 It's a small living area and outside the small living space are other houses lined up one after another.  No privacy, no yard, no concrete, no gate.
 The kitchen is an outdoor area shared with others and they cook over an open fire, and the toilet area is also shared with many others in a common area.

  All water must be carried.

 Of all the places Simon lives this is the place he calls home, the place he feels the most comfortable.  He answered without hesitation and with a big smile.

I asked him, "Why, what makes it your favorite?"  He answered easily. 

 He said it was the place he feels the freest, the place he feels the safest, the place he feels at ease.

I can't quit thinking about this.

  Simon is free and safe and at ease with no electricity and no running water and a mat covered dirt floor. 

 I love this and I couldn't quit thinking about it and wondering WHY, WHAT is the secret to this freedom and safety.

  It boils down to looking deeper, getting to the root of the freedom and the saftety and ease.

  It's not coming from outside, it is from the inside. 

 From the outside, there is no provision of comfort or safety or freedom.  

It's from deep inside that this freedom and safety and ease stem from.

Maezie who always sees things much deeper than most and yet she can't see 90% of what is right in front of her.  It's weird, it's like she only has eyes for what is underneath (maybe this is why she is obsessed with pregnant bellies).  Whatever Simon sees at HOME Maezie saw it.  She was so thrilled with the candle lighting (she didn't even realize it was because the electricity was out) and she loved how Simon's mom was there on the floor on her bed mattress waiting for us to arrive (she didn't realize it was because Simon's mom was so sick at the time she couldn't even get up off her bed mattress).  Maezie talks about our visit with Simon's mom (who doesn't speak English) as one of her favorite visits.  I think she saw the deeper things that Simon feels there.  There is acceptance and there is a realness and a rawness that makes Maezie in all her childlike heart feel safe and happy and free.

May we live and love to see the deeper things in people.  

May we have eyes that look thru the outside and see deep into people's eyes and see their lives and look into people's hearts. 

 May we be rooted so deep in Jesus, that no matter what the outside circumstances we live with joy and freedom and safety in Him alone!

Jeremiah 17:7-10 New Living Translation (NLT)

7 

“But blessed are those who trust in the Lord

    and have made the Lord their hope and confidence.

8 

They are like trees planted along a riverbank,

    with roots that reach deep into the water.

Such trees are not bothered by the heat

    or worried by long months of drought.

Their leaves stay green,

    and they never stop producing fruit.

9 

“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things,

    and desperately wicked.

    Who really knows how bad it is?

10 

But I, the Lord, search all hearts

    and examine secret motives.

I give all people their due rewards,

    according to what their actions deserve.”