My blogs are becoming scarcer and scarcer these days, but I guess I couldn't keep away for always. Inspiration had to come sometime :).
The other day I did a picture college of different people who inspired my faith over the past 3 years. The original collage was quite different from the one you see above as it only contained 7 people in it. After some thought and reflection I realised there were others I had to include. However, there were a number of things I realised after finishing and taking time to look at the original unaltered collage.
The first thing was that except for James Beatt of Abimaro & the free (far middle right), every person was of black heritage.
First I felt 'Oh No! There has to be someone else from some other background I haven't thought to include', yet my mind drew a blank. This isn't because there were none. People like David Wilkerson and John Stott are examples of those who have really inspired my faith, yet are from a different socio-economic background to mine. There is also a brother named Siyamak and a sister named Marie who go to my church- both of whom inspire my faith in the past and present tense and are from different backgrounds to the one I grew up in. However when compiling these pictures only these 7 people came to mind and I think that is for reason.
Naturally people of a certain heritage incline to others of that same heritage, in terms of drawing inspiration and sometimes in terms of other things. For me, I find myself drawing inspiration from people who are black and have reached out in an urban setting because I'm black and I find myself more often than not reaching out in urban settings. The struggles of someone who's been through what I've been through or someone who is passing through something I see God leading me into fascinates me, inspires me and in the end often teaches me valuable lessons. I see the things I learn from such people as comfort for now and hope/help for the future. Ultimately, they show me that someone like me can also break through in my mission field with the gospel message, despite the obstacles.
The second thing that struck me was the fact that there was more women than men in the picture. Only just......but I also found this significant.
I've wrote long Facebook statuses on this in the past so I won't go too deep into it now. The truth remains however that we do need more Godly men, standing up for righteousness and reaching out with impact and without fear in places that are very dark.
The third thing and last thing that I'll mention for now is that all the people in these pictures are ones of reputation.
In other words people that people know across different groupings and nations.
What does this mean? Does this mean that the common people don't inspire my faith? May it never be so. It just means that sometimes it is easier to see those stars that are far away, whilst bypassing the ones that are right by you. May God give me eyes to see, and help me not to become too familiar with those he's sent to inspire my faith.
