So What's in the Drop Box?

Did you know that in our world today there exists a small wooden drop box?  It's an ordinary drop box only large enough to receive the packages for which it was designed.  It has a wooden lid, with a handle attached to a small depository. The box is affixed to the side of a building allowing access to the contents placed within the box from the inside of this building.  A person can walk up to this drop box, pull open the wooden lid, and then place their package gently within the box, and walk away unnoticed.

The packages placed inside the box come in small assorted sizes.  Their weight ranges from tiny 5 or 6lbs packages to heftier packages weighing 8, 9 or 10lbs.

"What is the value of the package," you ask?
That's a great question!  To the person dropping off the package, they are seemingly worthless.  To the person picking them up, they're priceless.

"And where is the package being sent?"
Another great question!  To the person dropping off the package they... well,... they don't really care.  To the person picking up the package, their destinations are endless, and filled now with hope.

"So what's in the drop box," you ask?

First, let me mention where this drop box is located.  It's located in Seoul, South Korea.  It's a real box, and it was handmade and placed on the side of a building by a precious, precious man.  The creator of this drop box made it for the express purposes of the unwanted, worthless packages that are placed in the box year round.

You see, there's a problem in Seoul, South Korea.  For whatever reason (and I use the word "reason" very losely here), women are abandoning their babies on the streets.  When they become pregnant, and don't want to take care of this precious new born, she goes out in the dark of night, lays her tiny 6 to 10lbs package on the street, and simply walks away.

Seeing this tragedy, Korean Pastor, Lee Jong-rak, decided to build a wooden drop box. He, by proxy, then created an orphanage.  Now, mothers who wish to give up their child, won't just leave them on the streets without any other option, but can come and place the tiny package into the wooden drop box, and the Pastor and his caregivers will care for this precious baby boy, or girl, as their own.  They don't simply just get these children off the street, but will lavish extravagant love on these seemingly unwanted, undesired precious babies.  Pastor Lee says he made a promise to God that he will love these children and care for them like his own.  He knows this wooden box isn't the best solution, but he decided he couldn't stand by preaching the gospel of love and hope in Jesus and allow this to continue without doing something himself.

Sadness

So today, in our world, their exists a box.  A drop box; a baby box.  Where babies are placed into the box, and abandoned by those who have been created with an intimate instinct to love, nourish and care for this most precious of creations.  They disregard this internal instinct and walk off into the night.

We live in a broken, sad world.  I don't care any longer to live in such a sad world as this.  I want to live in a world, an eternal world, where no babies are abandoned, and no wooden drop boxes exist.  It pains me to see, and be among the ranks, of professing Christians, who claim to be followers of Christ, who have more passion, concern and priority for this messed up, tangled, broken, messy world than for the new world into which they were newly born when they believed.  It's the epitome of sadness.

I think what we have to examine closely is, are we really born into that new existence, that new world, or are we following empty orphan-ignoring-false-religion?  I know that sounds heavy handed, and if most of us saw a baby abandoned on the streets we too would pick this baby up and do our best to care for the child, or get him or her to someone who would.  But everyday we allow those around us who don't know Christ to continue on living in their lost states without leading them to the Father.  In a sense, we choose to leave orphans on the streets, in our families and at our work places because we refuse to go into all the world and make disciples.  It just costs us too much.  We Christians do love, however, to attend our services (or not), sing our songs (or not), listen to the message (or not), and then go home to live our "real" lives.  Our fun lives.  Our orphan-ignoring lives.  We all do it.  Me included... the chief among baby abandoners.

Without Christ the world is abandoned and orphaned, and lying helplessly on busy streets with names like Addiction St., Success St., Fun St., Don't Bother Me St., or my personal favorite street: I'm A Good Person St.

Broken

We fail, or at least I do, to recognize that there's a broken, hurting, dead world all around us that we've been saved for the purposes of bringing hope, love... and wooden drop boxes to.  Not just worldly, I-feel-good-about-myself kind of love that celebrities enjoy and makes us do good deeds at Christmas time.  I'm talking about a wooden-drop-box-making kind of love that says give me your discarded packages and I'll love them as my own sons and daughters no matter the cost.  That's the real transformational, selfless love that Christ came to put within us.  He said we would be known to be His true disciples by our love for one another, and for the widows and for the orphans, and for all those who need His grace.  Just like we ourselves did too.  Love, in the world, is broken when it's not supplied by Christ.

So the question to ask now: "Is that kind of love within us?"  Where in this world can we build our wooden boxes to help save the discarded?  Will we get to heaven and brag to God and show Him how big our houses are?  Or how new our cars are?  Or how cool we are? Or how smart we are?  Or how fit we are?  Or how much we attended church? No, I think those things will look somewhat silly sitting next to the martyrs' crowns that will be handed out by nail pierced hands to those who loved  Him selflessly.

I want to build eternal crowns of wooden drop boxes.  Not for my glory, but for the precious glory of Christ -- the carpenter of my wooden drop box when I too was abandoned and orphaned by my sins separated from my Father, the eternal Father.