Some trust in chariots

Here's the Pentagon's new truck.

Base price: $437,000.

Comfortably equipped (weapons, stealth paint, what-have-you): $1 million plus.

We're shipping 5,000 of these to Afghanistan ASAP.

Simple math puts that at $5 billion.

OK, this isn't exactly straight and linear logic here, but let's say you invested $5 billion sending 20,000 students through Moody Bible Institute and off to Afghanistan to serve as missionaries for three years. While they were training you organized every youth group in the country to pray for them each day for their entire time of training and service.

Which $5 billion do you believe would have a more lasting effect in Afghanistan? (Be honest.)

Now, sift through this a bit. Let's say it was only 200 missionaries, but you still had all the youth groups praying for them every day. What then? Or if it was 5,000 missionaries and 25 youth groups praying every day?

What do you believe it takes to change the world? If the ingredients are within our reach, the only limitation is . . . what? Vision? Imagination? Faith?

Here's an interesting passage we discovered this week:

Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who rely on horses, who trust in the multitude of their chariots and in the great strength of their horsemen, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel, or seek help from the LORD. ... But the Egyptians are men and not God; their horses are flesh and not spirit (From Isaiah 31:1,3; NIV).

The point of this exercise isn't political, but spiritual. World-changing exercises are "spirit" and not "flesh." And "spirit" is our business. So the vision we cast and the limitations we remove from our students' thinking can be as limitless as the God we serve.

What would it take to move your group in the direction of such vision?