KSC’s Blog

Today, I preach the first part of a sermon series called “Global.” In talking about God’s global heart for all the nations, I told an illustration of something that happened this week:

On Friday night, as our family was watching the Beijing Olympic opening ceremonies, I was reminded of God’s global heart. Besides the fact that it was one of the most incredible display of technology and humanity that I have seen in my lifetime, the kids and I were looking forward to seeing the different countries enter the stadium with their respective flags. And just like we are all conditioned to do, the first thing you do is you want to see the country that represents you. Kailey was looking for Korea and Emily was looking for USA. But Nathan, well, he was looking for Texas. We tried to teach him that Texas wasn’t a country, but I guess I would have a tough time trying to teach that to some of you Texans about that fact. Just when he finally understood, the country of Georgia comes on, and all my kids are now confused. So, anyway, as they sat there, country after country, trying to pronounce these country names, they were getting restless. They were looking for their countries. I’m sure you did the same.

The other thing I noticed on TV is that there were Chinese women dressed in white that were dancing and cheering for every country to welcome them to the games, and by the end, I could see that they were getting tired and their smiles were more like fake smiles. This was made obvious when, of course, China was announced.

Well, after both USA and South Korea had passed, I told the kids to go to bed, but Kailey insisted to go to bed right after seeing the country of Mongolia. You see, her two best friends moved to Mongolia about 7-8 months ago because their parents became missionaries there. And since then, she has been emailing with them, choosing to do school reports on Mongolia, and praying for them every night. And when we were talking about the possibility of USA playing against Korea, who they would cheer for, they were torn but used the reason that they live in US to cheer for USA. But, when I asked what they would do if they played against Mongolia, Kailey blurted out that she would cheer for Mongolia.

I took away something that night. Because my daughter’s heart was becoming more like God’s heart … a global heart. Not looking out for and cheering for her own country, but for another. I wondered as I was watching the Chinese women cheerleaders getting tired with fake smiles, if God got tired that night. Or I wondered if He had a genuine smile on His face for each and every country.

We need to have that global heart of God.

To watch the whole sermon, check it out here.