God – and His Church – on the Move

By: Scott Armstrong

Reading: Psalm 146:1-10

Key Verse: “The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked” (Ps. 146:9).

Felipe was eleven years old, but he looked three years younger. His growth had been stunted by malnourishment; his gaunt frame ached with hunger.  His family had been homeless for as long as he could remember, and a year ago his dad had left in a caravan in order to search for a job, or food, or anything in another country.

It was just Felipe and his mom now, sleeping under a highway overpass and begging for coins at stoplights.

One Saturday a peculiar group of smiling strangers visited the smelly underbelly of the overpass.  Wearing bright yellow t-shirts and calling themselves cristianos, they offered Felipe and his mom beans and rice and bread and the cleanest water Felipe had tasted in years.  He was eating his third plate when he heard them invite his mom to a Vacation Bible School and services the coming week.  “I don’t know who these people are, but I like them,” Felipe thought. “Plus, maybe they’ll have some more food.”*

In Psalm 146, we see a sneak peek of God’s character and job description: faithful forever, defending the oppressed, feeding the hungry, setting prisoners free, giving sight to the blind, lifting up the lowly, caring for the foreigner and defenseless.

The God we serve is on the move in those ways.  And he invites us to join him in that mission.

*Felipe and his mom came to know the Lord after the VBS. Felipe is in school now and his mom has a job cleaning the templo.