A re-post as this writer goes into his third cultural transition in a little over three years…
We contradict the Lord to his face when we say: It is hard, it is difficult; we cannot, we are men; we are encompassed with fragile flesh. O blind madness! O unholy audacity! We charge the God of all knowledge with a twofold ignorance, that He does not seem to know what He has made nor what He has commanded, as though, forgetting the human weakness of which He is Himself the author, He imposed laws upon man which he cannot endure.
~Pelagius (c. 354-after 418)
For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us. On Him we have set our hope that He will deliver us again. You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.
~ paul, The Least of The Apostles, in 2 Corinthians 1:8-11
Surely it is true beloved, that as Graham Cooke says, “God allows in His wisdom, that which He could easily prevent by His power.”
Problems come into our lives.
We face untenable situations.
We fail those around us.
We fail our children.
We fail our spouses.
We fail our G_d.
A friend of mine sent me a note on stress indexing a few days ago, and this writer blew the thing off the scale and into the red-zone. i am living a life of my dreams in Jakarta. But, the friction of life in a place like this is mind-blowing.
i have a wicked tropical infection in my sinus cavities… details are unnecessary for those who have had such a bug, you know and it is amazing how much green the body can create. The infection waxes and wanes – as does my energy level in this pollution and humidity soaked environment. And even getting clean involves bathing in water that is not safe to drink.
i love the food here, but it has literally killed people within my sphere of influence. Food safety is something that gets nothing more than a wink and a nod… The safest approach is to eat stuff that has been steamed or fried and hammer the intestinal tract with probiotics and yogurts to allow plenty of good bacteria to compete with the deadly bad that get through.
Even buying plants for the house today turned into a life or death situation for our four-year old son as he simply ran out into a street during our “roadside nursery” shopping and as he exited our foliage-packed “taksi” out the wrong side of the vehicle back at the apartment. The more difficult aspect of this whole situation is that, not only is he an energetic and age-expectedly rebellious little boy, but i have very little ability to communicate with this beautiful little brown Indonesian boy. Yeah, tone and hugs and hand-signs and smiles go a long way; but sometimes the only appropriate approach is a little young warrior education on the buttock of this Batak. And this writer is way out of practice… my next youngest child is 17, and i’m not sure that i ever had to discipline her very firmly – ever. Both my wife and i fought (and lost) the battle to maintain full patience in dealing with this cute little peanut of a boy today.
Things that take seconds to purchase in the US can take hours or days here. Perhaps the US is drunk on convenience, but sometimes the 3rd world can be just plain goofy on how hard it makes simple day-to-day activities.
Further, and most relevantly, i am literally living and breathing in the nexus of the largest Muslim population on the planet… and the spiritual buffeting caused by the stirred up demonic hoards after being prayed and fasted after over Ramadan make for almost physically tangible spiritual battle. We have literally dealt with people (especially drivers) that were under demonic influence and who drove with the effect of putting the two of us missionaries and our son in physically mortal danger.
And then it was made clear me. He did it. He allowed all of this to happen to me (yeah, specifically me, but please do make the application in your own lives as well) in the past couple of months. He did it because He Loves me, and wants me to see that absolutely everything that happens on this planet (ergo in the Universe) happens for His glory AND my good.
Can we see it friends? The manifold wisdom of G_d is so manifold as to be perceived as foolishness to a world that can really only think in about four dimensions. He has caused even the most infinitesimal of events to work toward each of our good over the millenia of creation.
What am i saying? Indonesia is beautiful wreck, and it is a beautiful wreck specifically because it is being used as a place to bring about the most good in my life and make me more usable to G_d. Now, before any gentle reader consider this writer has also been infected with some sort of “Messiah complex,” note that i am saying that the entire world is exactly as it is for you in your place – that you might also receive the most good and be the most useful to Him in the same way.
His plans towards us are for peace and not for evil. They are to give us a future and a hope. And in the deepest sense of “not for evil,” they are also designed to discipline us and widen the bore and deepen the stroke of our ability to both receive and dispense the Grace He pours into our lives.
So, the question (i hope) is obvious for all of us. Will we yield to this truth? Will we yield deeply to the truth that G_d is absolutely in absolutely everything He is doing in our lives? Will we get out of the way and let Him work? We have a choice. We can laugh derisively like Sarah or Zechariah (John The Baptist’s dad), or will we laugh like Abraham laughed when he giggled at the glorious prospect of a 100-year old man making a baby with his wife. Or, will we yield like our sister Mary who said from the very depths of her being, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word?”
This writer chooses to go the with the cute little girl with the big heart full of faith, and the ancient old Semite to whose faith was accounted as righteousness.
We bring God to the bar of our judgment and say hard things about him: “Why does God bring thunderclouds and disasters when we want green pastures and still waters?” Bit by bit we find, behind the clouds, the Father’s feet; behind the lightning, an abiding day that has no night; behind the thunder a still, small voice that comforts with a comfort that is unspeakable.
~Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)
