In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift. If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others.
~Brennan Manning
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent His only Son into the world, so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us… By this we know that we abide in Him and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent His Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in Him, and He in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in Him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as He is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because He first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
~ John, The Beloved disciple, in 1 John 4
Oh beloved, it is true. The third world is a torrent. Everything is going in lots of different directions. Nothing seems to work. And anything that gets tried gets eaten up by the evil love of money and the control that (seemingly, though not really) comes with it.
Kids are starved out.
People are used up.
Infrastructure does not work.
Motivation is skewed.
Sewage is visible.
Rats are as big as cats.
Productivity is nearly non-existent.
Cats are cleanup machines.
Dogs are lunch.
Nothing works like it should.
Institutions are shells.
Spiritual realities are easier to see.
Death comes easy.
Freedom is hard.
And Love still works.
This fool of a writer was propelled towards the 2nd largest metroplex on the planet exactly three years ago. I disconnected from a Skype interview, and within an hour was dancing around in my ultra-convenient house in Arizona, dreaming about the excitement of living and working and Loving in Asia.
Thankfully, i was not even close to prepared for the gauntlet into which He flung me. It would have been impossible for me to understand and find even an iota of the strength required for the 1,095 days He had prescribed for me.
The moving from the ultra-convenience of the posh world of Chandler, Arizona, into the roiling developing mass of Jakarta is not something that can be comprehended with the mind. You have to smell it.
See it.
Feel it.
Hear it.
Bleed in it.
Be sick in it.
Love in it.
I had come to marry the woman He had given me. And this was a saving grace. But the saving was not really for me. This city and its demons had beaten a single mom mercilessly for some years before my arrival. And the stresses of raising a little abandoned boy she had found – along with the realities of other failed relationships and circumstances – had put this princess into some need of rescuing. Love has set her free. She is now walking in the Spirit and seeing who she truly is in Christ.
The same little boy was desperately in need of a father. Years of developmental delay and improper care by helpers, had left him fearful and withdrawn. His strong will was not working itself out into growth, but into destructive patterns that would have ruined him over the years. And while i am far from a perfect father, i was the perfect father for him. Hours upon days upon weeks upon months of firm and Loving discipline have been needed to set this little one free. It was a job that i thought i had left behind when my first four grown-up kids had left the house.
In all of this, this writer has felt completely ill-equipped…. Just as i thought i had a handle on the cross-cultural thing, He sent me into a tsunami of change…. Just as i thought i knew how to raise kids, He gives me a kid with whom i could not communicate…. Just as i though i knew how to love a woman, He gives me a woman who had never really been, and needed much more than i knew how to give…. Then, He began to show me some more.
He gave me hundreds of kids to Love. And many of these kids are the toughest kids in the world. They have nearly all the material things that are desire. They are the “rich” kids of the third world. They have drivers and maids, and helpers and tutors and every “thing” else that they could desire. But in actuality many of them are some of the poorest kids I have ever met. They are nearly orphaned by the enormous hours that their parents work, and by the choking hours of the commutes in this incredibly congested city.
Their motivation is nearly non-existent, as they live on funds and privilege that us westerners could barely begin to comprehend. They do not understand that the world in which they live is exceedingly precarious. They have never seen the riots that tear cities like this apart every decade or so, and they believe that they never will. The only hope for a country like this is to help the materially rich learn how to Love the rest of their countrymen, like they need to be Loved.
Then there is more. He gave me thousands more to Love. Many of the kids in cities like Jakarta have no idea what it means to have everything they want. Most of them live in various states of need from profound to absurd. Sometimes, right in front of you, walks up a kid that you simply know has not eaten anything substantial in days. Their noses are running, and their skin is so thin. And while things are improving here – they have a very long way to go.
All of this nearly killed me. And i am so glad that it did.
Can we see it? What we find is that G_d does not just stretch those that He would use.
He crushes our hearts to beat out the ego.
He breaks our hearts that the cracks would shine His Love.
He defeats our abilities that He might Love through us.
He expands our hearts that we could Love all the more.
He ruins our expectations and replaces them with His fruit.
He shows us what Love really is, so that we can give it away.
So, where to next? He is leading me deeper into the dream He has had for me since the foundation of His plans. The Philippines for a few weeks to rest, and then up into China, where over a billion precious people are just beginning to learn of His Great Love. He is taking me to a place that was communicated to me nearly thirty years ago through the dream of a friend… Can’t wait to see how He destroys my expectations and replaces them with His own fruit.
Would you join me? Love drives us on beloved. Just let Him crush your heart. Just let Him show you how to Love. Tonight is your night. Time to Love.
