The Weak and the Wise

“Can I take this back for my brothers?”

She pushed the slice of cake away from her own fork and asked if she was allowed to bring it home. We sat next to our sponsor child at the child development center in an impoverished rural area right outside of Lima, Peru. We had all eaten a meal together and Sughey, nine-years-old and full of questions and smiles, refused dessert for herself so she could bring back the small slice of chocolate cake for her three little brothers to share.

“Of course you can.” The translator told her.

We walked down the dirt street to her house: my husband and me, a translator, Sughey and her slice of chocolate cake.  She smiled when she saw her father as we turned the corner. Past the pack of dogs that she calls her own, past the low wooden gate that is the only “security” between her home and the world, and past the hanging rug that is the door to her house, she handed the slice of cake to her mother.

Her mother smiled and hugged us both.

Jesus always seems to turn things upside down.

The first shall be last. The last shall be first.

Brokenness leads to wholeness. {And the whol-est among us are usually the most broken.}

We must be like little children.

And for me lately, most noted in the topsy-turvy notions of the Kingdom of God is that the weak shame the strong and the foolish confound the wise.

Two weeks ago my husband and I traveled with a child poverty relief organization on a vision trip to Peru. We were a group of speakers and event promoters with a combined “influence” numbering in the hundreds of thousands.  I’m a nobody, but some of the people on this trip we would definitely call “somebodies”: Radio people, actors, music tour owners and festival managers {and then there was me}.

In some ways, this group was “strong.” They were wise. They were influential.

Yet, day by day, as I watched hope spring new in the middle of outward hopelessness and I saw children lead in grace and kindness, I also watched the weak things of this world confound the wise.

It is an upside down world, it would seem, when the selfless act of a nine year old convicts me in my own selfishness and when the loving arms of the impoverished hold more love than my own might ever hold.

The weak were vessels to lead and to teach the strong.

And then something else happened: Not only did the weak lead the strong, but I witnessed the “strong” take on characteristics of the “weak.” I saw the grown men on our trip stoop in the dust to raise up a child, the ones who influence thousands on a daily basis stop to speak to one young mother, one young father, or one teenager and I felt my own heart bend and sway to the rhythms of the broken and the hard-pressed.

We live in an upside down world but most often, we operate as if we are living right side up.  It takes the “weak” to show us that we are not strong, the “foolish” to show us that we are not in fact wise and the broken to show us that we are not whole.

Lord, help us to see this world as it really is because wisdom is born in the dust, power in the powerless and strength in weakness.

How have you seen the irony or the upside-down quality of this world? Have you ever seen hope in hopeless situations or joy amidst pain?

 To read about our trip to Peru and how you can get involved in helping to break the cycle of poverty, click here and here and here.