response to overcoming

my friend travis left a comment in response to my past last week entitled overcoming. i post it here because it articulated a lot of things i know, but don't always feel and continues to keep me thinking about our role in doing kingdom work.

here is his response in full...

I was struck by the beginning of this post as I often have those same overwhelmeing feelings. I cam across this quote not too long ago that made the burden a little lighter: “What did Jesus actually bring, if not world peace, universal prosperity, and a better world? What has he brought? … The answer is very simple: God. He has brought God! He has brought the God who formerly unveiled his countenance gradually first to Abraham, then to Moses and the Prophets, and then in the Wisdom Literature–the God who revealed his face only in Israel, even though he was also honored among the pagans in various shadowy guises. It is this God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the true God, whom he has brought to the peoples of the earth. He has brought God, and now we know his face, now we can call upon him. Now we know the path that we human beings have to take in this world. Jesus has brought God and with God the truth about where we are going and where we come from: faith, hope, and love…. It is only because of our hardness of hearts that we think this is too little.”(the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI). If Jesus did not come to eradacate disease, end poverty, and establish world peace, then why do we think we can or must? Our calling is is to make known the living God who has, in Christ, conquered death, and the powers and principalities that often seem so overwhelming. What a humbling call we have.