Yesterday I had to go in for surgery. I had a cyst and they removed it. I got to get a spinal anaesthetic which was pretty fun. It paralyzed the whole lower half of my body. It was just like getting my mouth frozen at the dentist except with my legs. So as they were thawing out I could only walk kind of like someone that was drunk. I am so thankful for free health-care in Canada. There was not a single worry at any point in the process and it all went so well. The nurses were so helpful and made everything so comfortable and easy.

Now I have a few days off work while I heal up. Lots of time to think, and read and also maybe spend too much time playing games or checking facebook and email. I read a blog by Don Miller a while back where he talked about being drilled into him “readers are leaders”. I think that’s generally true, especially if you are reading to learn more and find out about things that fascinate you. People who read all the time but just one genre of fiction likely don’t get quite as much out of it as those reading a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction.

But it’s funny because the more I think about how fun and interesting it would be to become influential or succesful or considered knowledgeable the more I realize there’s not much value in it. “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”. I heard that in Hebrew class and I think it’s so true. We don’t have a lack of knowledgeable and influential people in the world. We have a lack of tender-hearted courageous lovers. I think that’s what the world needs more of and that’s more of what I want to become.

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
James 1:27

This is all that really matters, to love others so much and so courageously that we displace social expectations and meet the needy in the midst of their neediness. That we love God so much that we meet our holy God in the midst of his holiness.