Able or Available?
I recently had the privilege of interviewing two heroes of mine who are working social change in various parts of the world: Baroness Caroline Cox from the UK (see www.hart-uk.org) and Dr. Sasa from Burma (see www.healthandhope.org).
From the left, Dr Sansa, Baroness Cox, and Lance Jacobs
As Jesus followers who have taken seriously His call to partner with Him in righting wrongs in the earth, these two are shining examples of what the Lord can do with a life yielded to Him and His priorities.
They are partnering with God to bring effective, lasting solutions to human suffering in the earth. Baroness Cox serves in British parliament and founded an international humanitarian organization. Dr. Sasa is a medical doctor who founded and directs Health and Hope, an organization that that works to bring health services, education and food security to some of the poorest people in Chin State, Myanmar (Burma).
The interview will be available on the Justice Collective podcast soon (our Podbean page is here).
There’s a phrase I wanted to highlight during that conversation that Baroness Cox shared:
“It’s not so much about your ability as it your availability to The Lord and His desires.”
There is a ton of gold within that statement. In the information age, it can seem like as much as we want to pursue big, world-changing dreams, we quickly learn about our lack in comparison to the size of a problem. We become aware of how much more equipment and tools we need to be effective in working much-needed change in the earth. Our focus can get stuck on the lack of our own abilities.
But what Baroness Cox reminds us is that the start to social change is so important. How do we move from merely carrying passion to actually bringing about Heaven’s realm here in the earth? First availability, then ability.
To start, move with what is in your heart— don’t get stuck because of a lack of tools or capacity. Capacity is developed by doing.
Tools are added when we engage in our heart’s passions and walk further down the paths we are called to walk down. Those paths will lead to the ones we are called to serve, to those who have found themselves in a place of need and a state of suffering.
Baroness Cox speaking at the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry in September 2019
Listening to these two Giants in the faith during the interview, I found myself inspired by the simplicity of their faith, the willingness in their spirits to do what must be done— even when they didn’t necessarily know what to do or what ‘getting there’ clearly involved.
For Baroness Cox, her journey has involved following her heart and being true to herself and her Jesus-motivations. She responds to the suffering of others around her by simply showing up and attempting to represent the needs of those oppressed people groups to the British parliament she has responsibility to stand before.
For Dr. Sasa, the journey has been a long and winding road of seeing the physical needs of his people in rural Burma, needless death which is largely preventable by medicine and medical training, and him choosing to educate himself and become a doctor. That involved traveling to other foreign countries and doing what he could to increase his capacity to make a difference. Again, by starting, making choices and engaging in practical ways, the path has unfolded for him and for people in his country who have suffered needlessly.
Their stories of transformation are heroic examples; possibly even the kinds of stories that can just reside in books due to the grandeur and scale of impact.
But the reality here is that these monuments of social change are merely the result of two people who have made themselves available to The Lord. He is the One who added ability to their availability.
Jesus is the One who ultimately rights wrongs in the earth. But He is looking for partners, co-laborers, those in whom He can strengthen with His power and grace to bring transformation.
I want to end with a quote I’ve found inspiring in my own journey. It’s from a speech by Robert F. Kennedy at the University of Cape Town, South Africa in 1966 during a climactic moment in the anti- apartheid movement:
“The belief there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills--against misery and ignorance, injustice and violence...Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.
It is from numberless and diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”
-Lance Jacobs
