Sometimes it's amazing how unexpected things can affect us. To have a surprising conversation, to run into a friend thought long-lost. People may call these occurrences "coincidence", but as Christians, we are called to believe otherwise.
In all things, we strive to seek God. Daily reading of His Word and prayer in all circumstances guide and grow our faiths. We recognize that God works in many ways, "inscrutable" as Paul describes them in his letter to the Romans (Romans 11:33).
This is exactly the thought that crossed my mind after a fundraiser I recently attended for the burial of a well-known member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Kenya who won his victory in the Lord. It is common to have fundraisers, or "harambees", in which a community pulls together to contribute or solicit funds to overcome a debt or financial goal. In this case, a great many expenses were incurred for the extended medical treatment of Matthew Ole Esho, and even more to receive his body after death and to prepare burial arrangements.
I was asked to attend this fundraiser and present a contribution from the LCMS at a congregation in Nairobi, and to give a brief address for why we offered the gift. I was somewhat apprehensive, knowing that I would be the youngest one in attendance and that many people might not acknowledge me like they would the elders, due to my age.
While I sat listening to the speeches and presentations from others in attendance, I found myself getting a bigger picture of Matthew. I had never personally known or met him, but the many ways in which he served others were apparent from the diverse group of people remembering him and his love of God and His Church. He was almost solely responsible for helping to bring the ELCK to the Masai in Kenya, his tribe. He helped to grow the church in this way, and save the souls of many.
When I presented, I reflected on how Matthew had helped the LCMS to send many missionaries to serve in East Africa and Kenya. Matthew first worked for the Department of Immigration, and was a just civil servant who never accepted bribes and discouraged this practice, which can be all too common when trying to complete work permits or citizenship papers. His selflessness and focus on vocation enabled others to serve far beyond his own influence and supported the work of the church. We, as the LCMS, were very grateful for his efforts, and while we mourned his physical death, we held onto joy in his victory in the Lord.
I was warmly received, and found it hard not to wonder about the legacy that I would leave behind should I die shortly after that presentation. Would the service I rendered for others be as strongly received? Would the things that I did against others eclipse the things I did for others? Feeling surprised to ponder such things and remember how young I really am, I couldn't help briefly wondering how much time I have been given.
Just as He worked in Matthew's life, we remember that the Holy Spirit works in our lives, guiding our actions and shaping us for God's purposes and service as His children through baptism. Some days it feels like the faults outnumber the victories, and we struggle to "rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances," as Paul urges the Thessalonians to do (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). At times it seems that Satan creeps so easily into the small, quiet place in our minds and insists that our baptism could not be enough to cover all of our sins. "Surely, something so easily done could not be as powerful and miraculous as God's Word says," he claims. "It has to take hard work, and who could say even then that you are really forgiven?" But he is wrong.
Paul reminds us that "the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Corinthians 1:18). In this passage in his letter to the Corinthians, Paul turns our eyes to Christ again and clears the distortion that Satan and the world place upon us in their insistence that our sins are overwhelming, and that our good works can "help" Christ clear us of our blighted human nature. Salvation by faith alone is not something that we as sinful human beings can naturally grasp, but
"Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles..." (1 Corinthians 1:20-23)
Christ did that hard work for us on the cross. His work was and is, for all time, so much more thorough and good than ours can ever be. His righteousness was transferred to us to strike out our iniquities not through any merit of our own, but because of God the Father's love for us. That He would send His only-begotten Son as the worthiest sacrifice for all people, we whose "righteous deeds are like a polluted garment," is a profound act of love (Isaiah 64:6). Why God would give me such a gift lies beyond my understanding, but I do not question it, "for the foolishness of God is wiser than men" (1 Corinthians 1:25).
Like I said, it's amazing what can get your mind working. What really cemented this fundraiser for me was how one of the hosts, John, closed up the proceedings. He guided our eyes to the table at the front of the sanctuary where VIPs and special guests were requested to sit. He reminded us that, though many were asked to attend- local business leaders, members of Parliament and others- they did not show, even having given their word that they would send representatives if they were unable to attend. The table was quite empty. These people were asked because Matthew was a well-known and liked man, and surely they would be willing to give generously to support his family.
Disappointing as this note was, John said to us "But you all came. And because you attended and gave generously, we have met and greatly surpassed our goal. For this, I give thanks to God." This message amazed me, and reminded me that God works in ways we cannot comprehend. Those of us who had gathered were neither the most powerful nor the wealthiest people who were invited, but we came together, and our combined efforts met the goal.
Pamoja. Together, this word means in Swahili. The weakest link in the chain attempts to carry its burden alone. Praise be to God that we are never alone and do not have to carry our burdens of sin. We have been bonded to Christ forever through His saving blood and the waters of baptism.
Monday, December 1, 2014
Monday, October 20, 2014
"And all is darkened in the vale of tears"
'As [Jesus] was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”' (Luke 19:37-40)
As Christians, we understand that suffering is used by God to grow our faith, and that as an earthly father uses discipline to teach his child because of his love and concern for them, so too, our Heavenly Father. As Luther stated it, "...we are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it".
There are times when we feel the vale of tears most keenly, as though Satan seeks to sap all joy, all hope, all comfort, even those truths we know to be promised to us not through any merit of our own, but for the sake of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and even then, only because God loved us first and beyond our human comprehension.
There are times when we see or experience injustice, chaos, death, evil and hatred, sometimes founded conversely on what some would have us believe are even secular virtues of truth, equality, love, and justice. During these times, we must return to what we truly know as love, and we can only know that because God first loved us. Where shallow human understanding ends, the depths of God's abiding love begins.
The apostle Paul reminds us in his letter to the Romans that we deserve nothing less than God's full and justified wrath because of our inheritance in original sin, and the sins we commit during our lives. Here, though, God's logic conquers that of the world. "For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly". That was us, all of us, before our baptism into and our inheritance of the Kingdom of God. (Romans 5:6)
"For one will scarcely die for a righteous person-though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God." (Romans 5:7-9)
Justified. Saved. Not just restored, but improved. Christ's blood shed for us on the cross not only cleansed us of all our sins, but improved us. As if this exchange could not be more unequal, we have nothing to offer in return for this gift beyond measure! We were "ungodly", and "sinners". Leaving our sins in the past, nailed to Christ's cross throughout time and space, we are called to new life in Him.
The apostle John reminds us about the love God lavishes on us.
"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...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." (1 John:15-16, 18-21)
So when we stand accused of not practicing what we preach, or adrift in the sea of uncertainty that is so often earthly life, what shall we say? We must speak the truth: we have a past as sinners, and a future as saints. In our lives, we can take comfort in the surety of God's promises. As Paul writes in his second letter to the Corinthians, there is no uncertainty in Christ.
"For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not Yes and No, but in Him it is always Yes. For all the promises of God find their Yes in Him. That is why it is through Him that we utter our Amen to God for His glory. And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put His seal on us and given us His Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee." (2 Corinthians 1:19-22)
When those in authority would silence us with threats of death and imprisonment, we should not fear. While our earthly bodies can be destroyed we remember our justification in Christ, and the promise of the new heaven and the new earth. The Gospel can never be destroyed, though Satan would seek to silence those who joyfully share it. Though the world would not hear God's Word, there is no hiding His "mighty works". Even God's creation cries out in acknowledgement of His majesty and power.
The apostle Paul gives us our marching orders for this life when we find ourselves in war or in peace.
"So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)
As Christians, we understand that suffering is used by God to grow our faith, and that as an earthly father uses discipline to teach his child because of his love and concern for them, so too, our Heavenly Father. As Luther stated it, "...we are not yet what we shall be, but we are growing toward it".
There are times when we feel the vale of tears most keenly, as though Satan seeks to sap all joy, all hope, all comfort, even those truths we know to be promised to us not through any merit of our own, but for the sake of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and even then, only because God loved us first and beyond our human comprehension.
There are times when we see or experience injustice, chaos, death, evil and hatred, sometimes founded conversely on what some would have us believe are even secular virtues of truth, equality, love, and justice. During these times, we must return to what we truly know as love, and we can only know that because God first loved us. Where shallow human understanding ends, the depths of God's abiding love begins.
The apostle Paul reminds us in his letter to the Romans that we deserve nothing less than God's full and justified wrath because of our inheritance in original sin, and the sins we commit during our lives. Here, though, God's logic conquers that of the world. "For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly". That was us, all of us, before our baptism into and our inheritance of the Kingdom of God. (Romans 5:6)
"For one will scarcely die for a righteous person-though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God." (Romans 5:7-9)
Justified. Saved. Not just restored, but improved. Christ's blood shed for us on the cross not only cleansed us of all our sins, but improved us. As if this exchange could not be more unequal, we have nothing to offer in return for this gift beyond measure! We were "ungodly", and "sinners". Leaving our sins in the past, nailed to Christ's cross throughout time and space, we are called to new life in Him.
The apostle John reminds us about the love God lavishes on us.
"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...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." (1 John:15-16, 18-21)
So when we stand accused of not practicing what we preach, or adrift in the sea of uncertainty that is so often earthly life, what shall we say? We must speak the truth: we have a past as sinners, and a future as saints. In our lives, we can take comfort in the surety of God's promises. As Paul writes in his second letter to the Corinthians, there is no uncertainty in Christ.
"For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Silvanus and Timothy and I, was not Yes and No, but in Him it is always Yes. For all the promises of God find their Yes in Him. That is why it is through Him that we utter our Amen to God for His glory. And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put His seal on us and given us His Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee." (2 Corinthians 1:19-22)
When those in authority would silence us with threats of death and imprisonment, we should not fear. While our earthly bodies can be destroyed we remember our justification in Christ, and the promise of the new heaven and the new earth. The Gospel can never be destroyed, though Satan would seek to silence those who joyfully share it. Though the world would not hear God's Word, there is no hiding His "mighty works". Even God's creation cries out in acknowledgement of His majesty and power.
The apostle Paul gives us our marching orders for this life when we find ourselves in war or in peace.
"So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)
Wednesday, August 20, 2014
An Afternoon in the Life
It seems like I can measure so much of my time here in Kenya, perhaps Africa in general, by how much time I spend going somewhere. Walking, taking a local bus, a matatu, a cross-country bus, an airplane, even a camel, but that was just for fun at the Kenyan coast.
I have figured out that, on the very best of days, a commute from my apartment in the greater Nairobi area to Karen, where The LCMS East Africa Office is (still technically part of Nairobi), takes about 45 minutes. It averages 30 minutes down Ngong Road-assuming that the driver and conductor don't wait for 15-20 minutes trying to pick up more passengers so that they can have a totally full bus-and 15 minutes down Langata Road to our office.
Ngong Road is a really interesting place because you can see something new happening all the time. I pass markets, football (soccer) fields, plant nurseries, goats, geese, cows, forests, and a lot of construction happening as Chinese construction crews work with Kenyan crews to continue finishing the big Southern Bypass project. I always like to see the animals made of metal, though. The carpenters and metalworkers who set up shop along Ngong and leave their furniture and art out for the world to see endlessly impress me. Hippos, crocodiles, and giraffes that are very nearly life-size give me pause no matter how many times I see them. They take on different colors as they sit outside in the elements, making the hippopotamus I can even now clearly imagine appear a muddy brown, as if it had just risen from a river.
Today really made me chuckle throughout my commute. I was in a very reflective mood as I left the office, pondering Job 38 which had been posted on Facebook as a devotion earlier, and recalling the lyrics of a hymn which has proven very moving lately. I had to leave early to run an errand and attend a video conference with the LCMS Communications Office. Lost in my thoughts, I was surprised to see a matatu wait on the other side of the road for me to cross when traffic was clear. The conductor was actually pretty friendly throughout the journey. As I continued to think, I noticed his head was outside of the van for much of the journey. He had produced a large stick, rather like a homemade baseball bat, but looking like a bludgeon to me.
The conductor would waggle this stick outside of the matatu, gesturing at passersby and speaking in a combination of sign language with his free hand, waving the stick with his other, and either Swahili or Sheng. Sheng is a version of Swahili, like street Swahili, but it seems to become more difficult to understand the more Swahili I study. He seemed to be bickering with a car that followed us too closely for some time, and this display proved too amusing for me to maintain my contemplative state. I was happy to see the conductor use his cudgel to stop traffic and help a woman leaving a nearby hospital cross the street to board the matatu. Even better was when he shook the stick at two children sitting by the side of the road, staring at the matatu, and shouted "Wee! Wee!" (You! You!) I couldn't hear much else, because everyone on the van started laughing hysterically. I think it would have been enough for me to see someone passing in a noisy van full of people, dangling out the window, brandishing a stick and admonishing children in a tone both brusquely concerned and comedic.
After I made it to the end of the matatu's line, I began to search for a bus that looked mostly full so I wouldn't have to wait long for it to fill. However, five different conductors approached me simultaneously insisting that their buses had the best fare. Luckily, two with a good fare found me first, and I ascertained this price, trying to follow them. The three others tried to direct me to their bus, and I put my hand out, meaning no without saying it, and tried to follow the first two. The other three lagged behind me, and out of nowhere, at least 10-15 voices began chanting "BEBA BEBA BEBA BEBA!" (CARRY CARRY CARRY CARRY!- this is a common thing to hear when you ride public transportation, as conductors call it to potential passengers) louder and faster the closer I got to the bus. I had never seen or heard such a thing and unconsciously quickened my pace as the bus's engine revved threateningly. I am still uncertain whether those voices came from the other passengers on the almost-full bus I boarded, or from the people standing around socializing, eating, and waiting for other transportation at the bus stage.
That bus was the loudest "party bus" I've been on for some time. I sat at the front, right under the blasting amps and the blinking capacitor that apparently promised to boost the music's power. It's not uncommon to board a bus or matatu and find colored fluorescent lights, a crazy sound system, passages of Scripture, pictures of rappers, celebrities, sports teams, and even C.S. Lewis with one of his profound quotes, in one rare instance. The lights and noise really come on at night, around 6:30, and almost feel like a club, but I try to avoid being out that late on the evening commute.
The one upside of the party bus's sound system? The music was actually pretty good. My ears were ringing for about a half-hour after I disembarked and my chest buzzed with the thump of the bass but the remixes weren't bad. The driver chose to capitalize on every avenue of progression available to him, and I seemed to be one of the few passengers up front not bracing for an inevitable impact. The bus shuddered and shot along the shoulders of the road, crushing rocks and churning dust as the driver decided to avoid the traffic on the road proper. Even better, I know this stretch of road well enough to know that it goes pretty straight, and the buses do, too. Imagine my surprise when it seemed we were making an impromptu turn! No, we were only cutting through a petrol station, not to fill up, but to dodge more traffic on Ngong Road. And at high speed, of course.
When the bus dropped me off, I found that I had fallen into step with a young Kenyan boy heading the same direction, snacking on a banana. "Howahyou?" he said, with a twinkle in his bright eyes. I said "I am good, and you?" "I am good, too," he responded, and I complimented him on his English. We chatted just a little bit, and I unintentionally walked ahead of him with my longer stride. I heard his voice from behind, and said "sema" (speak, or say- in this case, what he had just said). He said "buy something for me!" I chuckled and said that I was sorry, I didn't have any change, which I didn't. "What about your banana, your ndizi?" I reminded him. He looked at it, shoved the rest of the fruit in his mouth, and discarded the peel on the path, as most people do with leftovers or trash. He looked up at me with a smile, and I laughed again. I wished this "little brother" siku njema (good day) and bid him adieu as I reached my apartment complex.
That all occurred hours ago, and yet I can still hear them honking on Ngong Road out there, and it's well past sunset now. Honking is called "hooting" in Kenya, and with the modified horns found on many buses and matatus (seemingly to make them so obnoxious you can't ignore them), sometimes they do sound like a flock of owls hooting, or a trump of trumpeters blowing for all they're worth. An aside- clearly a group of trumpeters is not called a trump, but a group of owls is called a parliament. That's knowledge for you!
I would feel deeply remiss if I did not include some Scriptural reflection in this recollection. What always amazes me is how I have been taken care of and provided for in Africa, even when I seem to feel so alone. If I am sick, if I have found myself in a strange place with no one I know, if I wonder how a day will work out, or when feeling overcome by circumstances far outside of my control, things just work out. I can't explain it, even when they occur through instances as approachable as, say, getting some good news, or someone whom I need to see strolling just around the corner. I am a Christian man, and I gave up believing in coincidences a long time ago. I have seen too many "coincidences" and too much "good luck" in my brief, brief life to think that my life, small and pitiful as it may be, could warrant so much simply by "fortuitous movements of the heavenly bodies", "freak accidents", or even it just being "the ups and downs of life". I call them miracles, plain and simple. Some people will disagree with me, and that's their prerogative. But I like to think about how many things "work out" in a day so that I can be healthy, reasonably happy, and make it to and from work in one piece, looking forward to a restful night's sleep at the end of the day.
As people go, I am not popular, I am not a "Time's Most Influential" or "Forbes 400" kind of person. But every day, I have food to eat and a place to sleep. As if that wasn't enough, I am forgiven daily, constantly, because that's how often I need it. I have the Holy Word of the One Living God that I am blessed and privileged to carry with me every day, so that when I need to be astounded, humbled, forgiven, reassured, and moved in the depths of my wretched sinful heart back to the hope that exists only in Christ Jesus, I can open it. Any time, any place.
While I don't drive a Lamborghini (I don't really want to) and my name doesn't roll down in movie credits, I am blessed. It is enough for me to know what I deserve- eternal damnation- and to think that God loved me so much that He humbled Himself to the point of becoming human and dying in an excruciating, embarrassing way, to rise again to life having overcome sin, death, and the devil...for me. For you. For all of us. To utterly remove the stain of our sins, to renounce the power of Satan. To make the true wages we have earned from toiling in original sin, death, not the end. One of my favorite passages states this, that regardless of what we deserve, we have been given a much better deal by Him who had no need to visit us with such mercy: reconciliation- our debts settled.
"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person-though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation." (Romans 5:6-11)
Sometimes, it seems to me that a stubborn man has to go far and see much before he realizes what was in front of him all along. After two people (at least) have jokingly reminded me of the story of Jonah while in Africa (oddly enough, for the same reason), I am working to be more like Isaiah and praying that God doesn't need to send a monstrous fish to keep me with the program:
"And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Then I said, "Here am I! Send me."" (Isaiah 6:8)
I have figured out that, on the very best of days, a commute from my apartment in the greater Nairobi area to Karen, where The LCMS East Africa Office is (still technically part of Nairobi), takes about 45 minutes. It averages 30 minutes down Ngong Road-assuming that the driver and conductor don't wait for 15-20 minutes trying to pick up more passengers so that they can have a totally full bus-and 15 minutes down Langata Road to our office.
Ngong Road is a really interesting place because you can see something new happening all the time. I pass markets, football (soccer) fields, plant nurseries, goats, geese, cows, forests, and a lot of construction happening as Chinese construction crews work with Kenyan crews to continue finishing the big Southern Bypass project. I always like to see the animals made of metal, though. The carpenters and metalworkers who set up shop along Ngong and leave their furniture and art out for the world to see endlessly impress me. Hippos, crocodiles, and giraffes that are very nearly life-size give me pause no matter how many times I see them. They take on different colors as they sit outside in the elements, making the hippopotamus I can even now clearly imagine appear a muddy brown, as if it had just risen from a river.
Today really made me chuckle throughout my commute. I was in a very reflective mood as I left the office, pondering Job 38 which had been posted on Facebook as a devotion earlier, and recalling the lyrics of a hymn which has proven very moving lately. I had to leave early to run an errand and attend a video conference with the LCMS Communications Office. Lost in my thoughts, I was surprised to see a matatu wait on the other side of the road for me to cross when traffic was clear. The conductor was actually pretty friendly throughout the journey. As I continued to think, I noticed his head was outside of the van for much of the journey. He had produced a large stick, rather like a homemade baseball bat, but looking like a bludgeon to me.
The conductor would waggle this stick outside of the matatu, gesturing at passersby and speaking in a combination of sign language with his free hand, waving the stick with his other, and either Swahili or Sheng. Sheng is a version of Swahili, like street Swahili, but it seems to become more difficult to understand the more Swahili I study. He seemed to be bickering with a car that followed us too closely for some time, and this display proved too amusing for me to maintain my contemplative state. I was happy to see the conductor use his cudgel to stop traffic and help a woman leaving a nearby hospital cross the street to board the matatu. Even better was when he shook the stick at two children sitting by the side of the road, staring at the matatu, and shouted "Wee! Wee!" (You! You!) I couldn't hear much else, because everyone on the van started laughing hysterically. I think it would have been enough for me to see someone passing in a noisy van full of people, dangling out the window, brandishing a stick and admonishing children in a tone both brusquely concerned and comedic.
After I made it to the end of the matatu's line, I began to search for a bus that looked mostly full so I wouldn't have to wait long for it to fill. However, five different conductors approached me simultaneously insisting that their buses had the best fare. Luckily, two with a good fare found me first, and I ascertained this price, trying to follow them. The three others tried to direct me to their bus, and I put my hand out, meaning no without saying it, and tried to follow the first two. The other three lagged behind me, and out of nowhere, at least 10-15 voices began chanting "BEBA BEBA BEBA BEBA!" (CARRY CARRY CARRY CARRY!- this is a common thing to hear when you ride public transportation, as conductors call it to potential passengers) louder and faster the closer I got to the bus. I had never seen or heard such a thing and unconsciously quickened my pace as the bus's engine revved threateningly. I am still uncertain whether those voices came from the other passengers on the almost-full bus I boarded, or from the people standing around socializing, eating, and waiting for other transportation at the bus stage.
That bus was the loudest "party bus" I've been on for some time. I sat at the front, right under the blasting amps and the blinking capacitor that apparently promised to boost the music's power. It's not uncommon to board a bus or matatu and find colored fluorescent lights, a crazy sound system, passages of Scripture, pictures of rappers, celebrities, sports teams, and even C.S. Lewis with one of his profound quotes, in one rare instance. The lights and noise really come on at night, around 6:30, and almost feel like a club, but I try to avoid being out that late on the evening commute.
The one upside of the party bus's sound system? The music was actually pretty good. My ears were ringing for about a half-hour after I disembarked and my chest buzzed with the thump of the bass but the remixes weren't bad. The driver chose to capitalize on every avenue of progression available to him, and I seemed to be one of the few passengers up front not bracing for an inevitable impact. The bus shuddered and shot along the shoulders of the road, crushing rocks and churning dust as the driver decided to avoid the traffic on the road proper. Even better, I know this stretch of road well enough to know that it goes pretty straight, and the buses do, too. Imagine my surprise when it seemed we were making an impromptu turn! No, we were only cutting through a petrol station, not to fill up, but to dodge more traffic on Ngong Road. And at high speed, of course.
When the bus dropped me off, I found that I had fallen into step with a young Kenyan boy heading the same direction, snacking on a banana. "Howahyou?" he said, with a twinkle in his bright eyes. I said "I am good, and you?" "I am good, too," he responded, and I complimented him on his English. We chatted just a little bit, and I unintentionally walked ahead of him with my longer stride. I heard his voice from behind, and said "sema" (speak, or say- in this case, what he had just said). He said "buy something for me!" I chuckled and said that I was sorry, I didn't have any change, which I didn't. "What about your banana, your ndizi?" I reminded him. He looked at it, shoved the rest of the fruit in his mouth, and discarded the peel on the path, as most people do with leftovers or trash. He looked up at me with a smile, and I laughed again. I wished this "little brother" siku njema (good day) and bid him adieu as I reached my apartment complex.
That all occurred hours ago, and yet I can still hear them honking on Ngong Road out there, and it's well past sunset now. Honking is called "hooting" in Kenya, and with the modified horns found on many buses and matatus (seemingly to make them so obnoxious you can't ignore them), sometimes they do sound like a flock of owls hooting, or a trump of trumpeters blowing for all they're worth. An aside- clearly a group of trumpeters is not called a trump, but a group of owls is called a parliament. That's knowledge for you!
I would feel deeply remiss if I did not include some Scriptural reflection in this recollection. What always amazes me is how I have been taken care of and provided for in Africa, even when I seem to feel so alone. If I am sick, if I have found myself in a strange place with no one I know, if I wonder how a day will work out, or when feeling overcome by circumstances far outside of my control, things just work out. I can't explain it, even when they occur through instances as approachable as, say, getting some good news, or someone whom I need to see strolling just around the corner. I am a Christian man, and I gave up believing in coincidences a long time ago. I have seen too many "coincidences" and too much "good luck" in my brief, brief life to think that my life, small and pitiful as it may be, could warrant so much simply by "fortuitous movements of the heavenly bodies", "freak accidents", or even it just being "the ups and downs of life". I call them miracles, plain and simple. Some people will disagree with me, and that's their prerogative. But I like to think about how many things "work out" in a day so that I can be healthy, reasonably happy, and make it to and from work in one piece, looking forward to a restful night's sleep at the end of the day.
As people go, I am not popular, I am not a "Time's Most Influential" or "Forbes 400" kind of person. But every day, I have food to eat and a place to sleep. As if that wasn't enough, I am forgiven daily, constantly, because that's how often I need it. I have the Holy Word of the One Living God that I am blessed and privileged to carry with me every day, so that when I need to be astounded, humbled, forgiven, reassured, and moved in the depths of my wretched sinful heart back to the hope that exists only in Christ Jesus, I can open it. Any time, any place.
While I don't drive a Lamborghini (I don't really want to) and my name doesn't roll down in movie credits, I am blessed. It is enough for me to know what I deserve- eternal damnation- and to think that God loved me so much that He humbled Himself to the point of becoming human and dying in an excruciating, embarrassing way, to rise again to life having overcome sin, death, and the devil...for me. For you. For all of us. To utterly remove the stain of our sins, to renounce the power of Satan. To make the true wages we have earned from toiling in original sin, death, not the end. One of my favorite passages states this, that regardless of what we deserve, we have been given a much better deal by Him who had no need to visit us with such mercy: reconciliation- our debts settled.
"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person-though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation." (Romans 5:6-11)
Sometimes, it seems to me that a stubborn man has to go far and see much before he realizes what was in front of him all along. After two people (at least) have jokingly reminded me of the story of Jonah while in Africa (oddly enough, for the same reason), I am working to be more like Isaiah and praying that God doesn't need to send a monstrous fish to keep me with the program:
"And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Then I said, "Here am I! Send me."" (Isaiah 6:8)
Monday, June 23, 2014
Discerning.
My coffee hadn't started working this morning (still hasn't, ~10:28 a.m.) and I stared dumbly at two buses that blew by, realizing I could have taken either. Just my route, just my "luck". I don't believe in luck or coincidence in any aspect of my life, so no worries. I trudged along in the mud, trying to shuffle the Merrell boots that have become an ever-popular part of my expat wardrobe around the numerous puddles.
After minimal waiting, a matatu shot up with the conductor waving a sign for Route 111 in my face, asking where I was headed. "Karen? Karen?" "Yep," I smiled, and had no sooner set one foot on the step of the van than it reentered traffic with a lurch. About 30 feet after this, a pleasantly disturbing scraping rattled along from the matatu's undercarriage. In another hundred feet, given that the clatter hadn't ceased, the conductor and driver exchanged a meaningful glance and slowed the van to a stop near the shoulder of the road. They both got out, had a look around the car's perimeter, and thumped the undercarriage a few times. I almost asked if they wanted to borrow the torch (flashlight) I always keep in my backpack, but they had already returned and started the drive. The rattling, scraping ruckus continued. I had to work hard to repress a smile that somehow seemed to teeter on the edge of laughter and tears. I buried my nose in my Bible.
Many exchanges of passengers later, as we were all sitting cozy and cuddled on the various benches, seats, and absence of seats that comprise the innards of that beloved African transportation, the matatu, "We Are The World" came on the radio. I was shocked to hear a man sitting behind me, soulfully following the lyrics until the song's end. Still wondering if I might die from some careening piece of wreckage launched from the van's undercarriage in a fiery explosion of mayhem and uncertainty, I added another question to my morning retinue, a rollover from the previous night, from the previous week, from the previous month, from longer than I have been deployed to Africa: who am I? Seriously, who am I? What am I even doing?
Now, I don't mean that in a bad way. Not at all. I have really enjoyed my time in Kenya and other parts of Africa, and it is easier to reflect on as I watch my passport fill with visas and stamps. Next month, on the 22nd, I believe, I will commemorate one-quarter of my term of service in Kenya as a GEO missionary and the communication specialist for Africa complete. I have many mixed feelings about this.
Lately I have thought about what lies outside the office in Karen. What is vocation? Where is it? Is it in my little office, overlooking the fields of the workers and caretakers at the Scripture Mission compound? Is it lost somewhere in various emails and an endless array of "projects" (what a nebulous word!) that I work just as earnestly to plan as I do to complete them? Perhaps if I get enough done, I will really know some day.
Is it perhaps in the villages, when I feel privileged to take part in home visits to share the Word of God, or perhaps even a message? Is it in providing human care and Christ's mercy to those who attend medical clinics, speaking the Gospel to them, telling them not to worry or be afraid in the limited Swahili that I am trying to grow?
Escapism has lost its luster lately. When fiction can't take you away, or movies still thoughts of the future for no longer than their duration, the questions still remain. The big things. I have been thinking of a desk somewhere, maybe piled with textbooks and essays, dominated by my study Bible that thankfully continues to acquire bookmarks, dogeared pages, and notes in the margins.
Part of leaving was running away, yes. Running away to force myself to do the growing up that I was certain needed to happen, leaving things behind that I couldn't control in hopes that they would improve in some small way, thanks to my absence. Most of my leaving was hoping to find answers, answers to questions that have sat on my heart since high school, and looking to find God on the edge of the uncertain and the uncomfortable.
I will never forget six years ago when the thought entered my mind, when the seed was planted. When I confronted my first collegiate difficulties, then unaware I would overcome them, I had glibly blurted out what I thought was a suitable substitute to my mother, with whom I conferred over the phone. You know, something for just in case that whole college thing didn't work out. Something I thought I might be able to do. It really just came out of nowhere, like an instinctual response. "Well," she replied to my suggestion, "you'll still have to earn your bachelor's degree first." I lost myself in my undergraduate work and the ups and downs of entering adulthood somewhat eased by the rails and bumpers of undergraduate university life.
A few months before I graduated, I remember still, I was standing near Lamberton Hall on Lehigh University's Asa Packer Campus, contemplating the new growth of leaves that would come soon with spring. I can't remember if I said it audibly or so loudly in my head that I should have said it for the world: "I don't want to do this for the rest of my life. I should have been a teacher, or a counselor, or a pastor." I bit my tongue and put the thoughts away like I had done freshman year.
So much for that degree, so much for the advising of my faculty mentors, so much for the support and investment and expectations of my parents and family, so much for sense and planning, I thought. It got even better when I hadn't found a job or internship to follow up the achievement of my degree after a year of looking and tailoring my resume at the advice of a friend who warned me not to wait for God to dump a wonderful job in my lap. That summer, I learned what it was to beat my head against a wall, harder than I was told I had done as a child, only this time my forehead bore no bruises. Job applications came and went, most companies not even deigning to grace me with a reply that I hadn't met their lofty standards. I had some interviews, too. Some went well, and I decided no, I couldn't see myself in that office for more than three months. Some could have gone better. Still, I was just there. I remember the compliments and encouragement I received during this time, but they only made me feel more inadequate, because if the problem wasn't professional in nature, it had to be personal.
I took a retail job to start paying my student loans, noticing that as frustrating as my place of employ and my coworkers could be, the customers, the people whom I served, never failed to make my days. Even as what felt like the futility of hawking paper goods and wrapping gifts to the utmost of my limited wrapping skills began to weigh on my shoulders and my mind, nestling into my muscles as tension and disappointment with myself, people were talking to me.
At church they would ask "Have you ever considered ministry? Have you ever thought of being a pastor? Have you ever thought of seminary?" These things I held in my heart and mind, choosing to reply "I mean, yeah, I've thought of them before, sure," but justifying why I hadn't followed up on them only to myself. They had just wanted to make sure I had pondered such options, these people said, because they thought I could do those things and would be good at them. A woman who has known me since before birth, as she has happily reminded me, whom I consider to be both an adoptive grandmother and godparent, approached me one morning after worship, saying that she had something to tell me. She said she woke up in the middle of the night with a thought in her mind, just before this morning, and didn't know why but felt strongly compelled to ask me if I had ever considered ministry as a career choice. I almost didn't know what to say. Again, "yes, I've considered it," but this really left me surprised.
I ended up leaving that retail job to be a substitute teacher for a semester at my old high school, wondering why I had continually forgotten to listen to my parents on that suggestion. Just before starting subbing, I went on a missions trip to Chinandega, Nicaragua to supervise outdoor games for vacation Bible schools that a group from my Southeastern District would be sharing with Lutheran congregations in five villages. Feeling out of place with my limited Spanish, I was surprised to hear the father of three with whom I was running the games comment on how well he thought I worked with the kids and how they listened to me, regardless of our language barrier. More than a few people in this country overseas from my home asked me if I was a pastor, or what year I was in seminary.
Enough was enough, and I finally dumped this shaky burden on my pastor, with whom I was glad to be sharing a room on the trip. He tallied up the number of times I'd heard such comments, suggestions, and questions, and offered up that God was talking to me. Me being me, I argued with him. "Pastor Brian," I started, "I can see what you're saying, but God doesn't talk to me. God talks to OTHER people. I'm just doing the best I can here. I have no idea what business God would have talking to me, of all people." He told me to keep my mind, my eyes, and my ears open.We kept up the conversation with regular meetings when we returned to the States, and he maintained the growing tally. We further discussed this, and he finally found the excuse I had held on to for so long: "Pastor Brian, I'm not good enough." "Of course, you're not," he smiled. "That's why we have Jesus. It's not about being good enough, because if it was, you never would be." That changed things a bit.
Pastor Brian encouraged me to pursue this opportunity to serve as a missionary with the LCMS, and we agreed it would be a good way to better discern a career in ministry while using some skills from my bachelor's degree. It all fell pretty smoothly into place from there. There's a story (isn't there always, though), but the telling's not for this time.
As I fight what I would call the wisdom of man, mainly my own, distractions, my constant failings and battle to repent, and the daily burden of living life overseas, I'm working at staying in the Word, praying honestly, faithfully, and humbly, and searching for signs of the future. I have not been disappointed so far. The signs have been there, showing themselves through circumstances and people I never would have predicted. I am trying not to be like Gideon, asking God for just one more reason, just one more, and trying not to be like Peter, so zealous that I overestimate my own usefulness and abilities.
Humbly and gratefully, I ask for prayers. I ask for support. I took a stand in writing this because it's very personal to me, and because I take my career and serving others very seriously. I wanted to hold this in until I was more than halfway through serving my term, but I simply can't contain it anymore. I don't like to speculate wildly or vapidly, and yet that's all I feel I am capable of, given how little I know or how little I feel I am capable of while I continue to forge ahead in sharing the Gospel cross-culturally.
After minimal waiting, a matatu shot up with the conductor waving a sign for Route 111 in my face, asking where I was headed. "Karen? Karen?" "Yep," I smiled, and had no sooner set one foot on the step of the van than it reentered traffic with a lurch. About 30 feet after this, a pleasantly disturbing scraping rattled along from the matatu's undercarriage. In another hundred feet, given that the clatter hadn't ceased, the conductor and driver exchanged a meaningful glance and slowed the van to a stop near the shoulder of the road. They both got out, had a look around the car's perimeter, and thumped the undercarriage a few times. I almost asked if they wanted to borrow the torch (flashlight) I always keep in my backpack, but they had already returned and started the drive. The rattling, scraping ruckus continued. I had to work hard to repress a smile that somehow seemed to teeter on the edge of laughter and tears. I buried my nose in my Bible.
Many exchanges of passengers later, as we were all sitting cozy and cuddled on the various benches, seats, and absence of seats that comprise the innards of that beloved African transportation, the matatu, "We Are The World" came on the radio. I was shocked to hear a man sitting behind me, soulfully following the lyrics until the song's end. Still wondering if I might die from some careening piece of wreckage launched from the van's undercarriage in a fiery explosion of mayhem and uncertainty, I added another question to my morning retinue, a rollover from the previous night, from the previous week, from the previous month, from longer than I have been deployed to Africa: who am I? Seriously, who am I? What am I even doing?
Now, I don't mean that in a bad way. Not at all. I have really enjoyed my time in Kenya and other parts of Africa, and it is easier to reflect on as I watch my passport fill with visas and stamps. Next month, on the 22nd, I believe, I will commemorate one-quarter of my term of service in Kenya as a GEO missionary and the communication specialist for Africa complete. I have many mixed feelings about this.
Lately I have thought about what lies outside the office in Karen. What is vocation? Where is it? Is it in my little office, overlooking the fields of the workers and caretakers at the Scripture Mission compound? Is it lost somewhere in various emails and an endless array of "projects" (what a nebulous word!) that I work just as earnestly to plan as I do to complete them? Perhaps if I get enough done, I will really know some day.
Is it perhaps in the villages, when I feel privileged to take part in home visits to share the Word of God, or perhaps even a message? Is it in providing human care and Christ's mercy to those who attend medical clinics, speaking the Gospel to them, telling them not to worry or be afraid in the limited Swahili that I am trying to grow?
Escapism has lost its luster lately. When fiction can't take you away, or movies still thoughts of the future for no longer than their duration, the questions still remain. The big things. I have been thinking of a desk somewhere, maybe piled with textbooks and essays, dominated by my study Bible that thankfully continues to acquire bookmarks, dogeared pages, and notes in the margins.
Part of leaving was running away, yes. Running away to force myself to do the growing up that I was certain needed to happen, leaving things behind that I couldn't control in hopes that they would improve in some small way, thanks to my absence. Most of my leaving was hoping to find answers, answers to questions that have sat on my heart since high school, and looking to find God on the edge of the uncertain and the uncomfortable.
I will never forget six years ago when the thought entered my mind, when the seed was planted. When I confronted my first collegiate difficulties, then unaware I would overcome them, I had glibly blurted out what I thought was a suitable substitute to my mother, with whom I conferred over the phone. You know, something for just in case that whole college thing didn't work out. Something I thought I might be able to do. It really just came out of nowhere, like an instinctual response. "Well," she replied to my suggestion, "you'll still have to earn your bachelor's degree first." I lost myself in my undergraduate work and the ups and downs of entering adulthood somewhat eased by the rails and bumpers of undergraduate university life.
A few months before I graduated, I remember still, I was standing near Lamberton Hall on Lehigh University's Asa Packer Campus, contemplating the new growth of leaves that would come soon with spring. I can't remember if I said it audibly or so loudly in my head that I should have said it for the world: "I don't want to do this for the rest of my life. I should have been a teacher, or a counselor, or a pastor." I bit my tongue and put the thoughts away like I had done freshman year.
So much for that degree, so much for the advising of my faculty mentors, so much for the support and investment and expectations of my parents and family, so much for sense and planning, I thought. It got even better when I hadn't found a job or internship to follow up the achievement of my degree after a year of looking and tailoring my resume at the advice of a friend who warned me not to wait for God to dump a wonderful job in my lap. That summer, I learned what it was to beat my head against a wall, harder than I was told I had done as a child, only this time my forehead bore no bruises. Job applications came and went, most companies not even deigning to grace me with a reply that I hadn't met their lofty standards. I had some interviews, too. Some went well, and I decided no, I couldn't see myself in that office for more than three months. Some could have gone better. Still, I was just there. I remember the compliments and encouragement I received during this time, but they only made me feel more inadequate, because if the problem wasn't professional in nature, it had to be personal.
I took a retail job to start paying my student loans, noticing that as frustrating as my place of employ and my coworkers could be, the customers, the people whom I served, never failed to make my days. Even as what felt like the futility of hawking paper goods and wrapping gifts to the utmost of my limited wrapping skills began to weigh on my shoulders and my mind, nestling into my muscles as tension and disappointment with myself, people were talking to me.
At church they would ask "Have you ever considered ministry? Have you ever thought of being a pastor? Have you ever thought of seminary?" These things I held in my heart and mind, choosing to reply "I mean, yeah, I've thought of them before, sure," but justifying why I hadn't followed up on them only to myself. They had just wanted to make sure I had pondered such options, these people said, because they thought I could do those things and would be good at them. A woman who has known me since before birth, as she has happily reminded me, whom I consider to be both an adoptive grandmother and godparent, approached me one morning after worship, saying that she had something to tell me. She said she woke up in the middle of the night with a thought in her mind, just before this morning, and didn't know why but felt strongly compelled to ask me if I had ever considered ministry as a career choice. I almost didn't know what to say. Again, "yes, I've considered it," but this really left me surprised.
I ended up leaving that retail job to be a substitute teacher for a semester at my old high school, wondering why I had continually forgotten to listen to my parents on that suggestion. Just before starting subbing, I went on a missions trip to Chinandega, Nicaragua to supervise outdoor games for vacation Bible schools that a group from my Southeastern District would be sharing with Lutheran congregations in five villages. Feeling out of place with my limited Spanish, I was surprised to hear the father of three with whom I was running the games comment on how well he thought I worked with the kids and how they listened to me, regardless of our language barrier. More than a few people in this country overseas from my home asked me if I was a pastor, or what year I was in seminary.
Enough was enough, and I finally dumped this shaky burden on my pastor, with whom I was glad to be sharing a room on the trip. He tallied up the number of times I'd heard such comments, suggestions, and questions, and offered up that God was talking to me. Me being me, I argued with him. "Pastor Brian," I started, "I can see what you're saying, but God doesn't talk to me. God talks to OTHER people. I'm just doing the best I can here. I have no idea what business God would have talking to me, of all people." He told me to keep my mind, my eyes, and my ears open.We kept up the conversation with regular meetings when we returned to the States, and he maintained the growing tally. We further discussed this, and he finally found the excuse I had held on to for so long: "Pastor Brian, I'm not good enough." "Of course, you're not," he smiled. "That's why we have Jesus. It's not about being good enough, because if it was, you never would be." That changed things a bit.
Pastor Brian encouraged me to pursue this opportunity to serve as a missionary with the LCMS, and we agreed it would be a good way to better discern a career in ministry while using some skills from my bachelor's degree. It all fell pretty smoothly into place from there. There's a story (isn't there always, though), but the telling's not for this time.
As I fight what I would call the wisdom of man, mainly my own, distractions, my constant failings and battle to repent, and the daily burden of living life overseas, I'm working at staying in the Word, praying honestly, faithfully, and humbly, and searching for signs of the future. I have not been disappointed so far. The signs have been there, showing themselves through circumstances and people I never would have predicted. I am trying not to be like Gideon, asking God for just one more reason, just one more, and trying not to be like Peter, so zealous that I overestimate my own usefulness and abilities.
Humbly and gratefully, I ask for prayers. I ask for support. I took a stand in writing this because it's very personal to me, and because I take my career and serving others very seriously. I wanted to hold this in until I was more than halfway through serving my term, but I simply can't contain it anymore. I don't like to speculate wildly or vapidly, and yet that's all I feel I am capable of, given how little I know or how little I feel I am capable of while I continue to forge ahead in sharing the Gospel cross-culturally.
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Searching for excuses
I walk a lot of places in Nairobi, and throughout Africa, actually. I don't have a car, which makes me happy. I like to walk, which makes me happy. These circumstances give me a lot of chances to talk to passersby on the street, even to just say "good morning," or "how are you?", usually in Swahili more than English. This also makes me happy. Sometimes it takes me four cups of coffee in the morning to feel like I'm functioning, but I do enjoy these greetings and moments. Needless to say, I'm pretty happy.
Oftentimes on my typical walk to run errands, I encounter street boys who ask me for money in English or Swahili. I was taught to say no when asked for money. I have learned that at least some of the boys who engage in this behavior do have families and parents who care, but they do not want to follow the rules or the way things work in their homes. Because of this, they choose a lifestyle that they feel affords them more freedom.
A few weeks ago, I was on my way to get groceries. I legitimately had no money in my pockets, and felt like a kid running errands for his dad. A young boy with a smudged face and torn clothes waited for me at the other exit of the gas station I was walking through. He looked me in the eyes and asked for money in Swahili. "Hapana ndugu," I told him. "No, little brother." He could have been my little brother, even younger. However, I also felt moved to tell him that I had no food. I thought about this on the way to get my groceries.
I really like apples. I guess I'll eat any kind, but my favorite are Granny Smith apples. I like how they can be both tart and sweet at the same time, and they seem a little crisper to me than other apples. They're even better when they've had some time in a refrigerator. I usually get most of my groceries at Nakumatt, which in my mind is like a Kenyan Wal-Mart. They have food, home supplies, furniture, you name it.
I walked into Nakumatt, scanning my paper shopping list on the handle of my cart and enjoying the domestic normalcy of it all. I arrived at the produce and found I apparently had a hankering for apples, and yes- Granny Smiths were in stock! Did they cost a bit more? Well, yes, but there's no compromising quality, and I wouldn't settle for one of those red pretenders. I grabbed only a few to be weighed by the produce associate, trying to be conscious of cost, and headed to the checkout.
My bags were pretty heavy, which was unfortunate, given that I still had a bit to walk before I got to my apartment. In re-situating them, I saw my bag of apples and got one ready, just in case I met that boy again.
He was right where I left him, and he looked me square in the eye. I held out the apple and looked back at him, asking in Swahili if he wanted it. He nodded and paused and stared at me and said "thank you." I think I was a little surprised I was in that situation to begin with, and forgot to tell him "Jesus loves you," realizing I should learn how to say it in Swahili. Just in case.
I recently came back from a productive, exciting, and enlightening evangelization and pastoral leadership training trip in Kapenguria, Kenya, and some of the surrounding villages. Unexpectedly, I learned that "Yesu anakupenda" means "Jesus loves you" in Swahili, and thought it would be a good thing to hold on to. When I came back last Wednesday, I remembered I had cleaned out much of my perishable food before I left, to minimize any unhappy fridge surprises.
As I came back from Nakumatt laden with groceries and an even bigger bag of apples, seven, I think, a group of street boys milled around me. "Change?" they asked me. "Hapana," I said, putting down my bags. They looked at me for a second, surprised, while I fished out my bag of apples. I picked one up, and looked back, asking if they wanted one. "Yes," they all said in unison, staring up at me. I put the first apple in a boy's hand, and the other five found homes just as quickly.
This time, I was ready. "Yesu anakupenda. Unajua yeye?" I said, not caring about grammar, because Jesus indeed loves them, and they understood, nodding and answering yes, they did know him. "Yesu anakupenda, ndugu," I said, looking at one of the boys. "Asante sana," the boy said, thanking me. "Karibu sana, karibuni sana," I responded, welcoming all of them.
As I walked back, I smiled, happy to do that thing for them, and laughing as another street boy ran to the group from across the road, eager to see or share in what they had been given. I had totally forgotten that I had taken an apple from the bag earlier, in expectation of seeing that one boy from before near the gas station again. It's sitting on my counter right now, and I will eat it at some point, that one unexpected leftover. When I found it in my groceries, it was like being surprised with a gift after thinking I had shared all my apples with the boys.
Now I find myself trying to think of food I can carry, should I run into any little or big brothers on my walks and commutes. Writing this made me sing a song we sang in chapel in grade school based on Matthew 25:35-40, called "Whatsoever You Do." I was able to share unexpected food, prayers, and the Gospel with a few other people this past week, too, and I wonder where God will guide me in this new week.
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Just a bird
Not hearing or seeing, I must have walked by the bird at first. Moving down the stairs of my apartment complex, I was thinking about meeting a friend for breakfast and actually singing "Three Little Birds" by Bob Marley. I went to bed with it stuck in my head, woke up with it, sang it in the shower, and hummed it while shaving. I didn't realize the oddness of this until I realized I had to get the bird out.
It wasn't "just a sparrow," like so many people think of birds. I have not seen many "just sparrows" in Africa so far, but I'm sure they are around. They're probably just more industrious than their loitering distant cousins, those rotund pigeons that I have not seen in Africa. I recall getting a glimpse of green on its busy breast, and even white and black played across its wings. It was a healthy bird, a good-sized creature, and I was even more disappointed for this to see it trapped inside my stairwell.
I knew, of course, how it got trapped. The wall facing the courtyard of my apartment complex is basically a four-story wall of glass windows. The gate at the bottom is unlocked first thing in the morning, and who can blame a bird for flying in to my top floor? Flying up- it's what birds do.
When I found this bird, it was huddled in the corner on the floor. It began to fly when it saw me. I hesitated for a second, weighing the choices we always have: to free it, or leave it? I have had the feeling that time can always wait for people and animals because they won't be around forever for a while. In my heart, though, I know I am still a Westerner, and raised in a time-oriented schedule, not an event-oriented schedule like much of Africa.
At about the time I got close to it and started to imagine it pecking at my hands in some Hitchcockian fashion (why would I have to touch it or pick it up? my alibi is zero caffeine), it begin to fly and throw itself against the windows. When I opened a window, it decided the best direction to go was away from the window. I decided, in turn, to take the simple approach.
I am so glad no one was in the stairwell to see me lifting my hands over my head, trying to take up as much of the open space in the stairwell as possible. I figured that if I looked that big and threatening, the bird would surely be intimidated and move away and we could avoid any unpleasant avian altercations. This time, the bird caught my vibes and began to fly downstairs a level at a time, trying to keep ahead of this skinny man with his arms outstretched like a goon. I'm not sure if that's really why it flew away, because my degree isn't in Advanced Bird Logic.The gate was thankfully unlocked at the ground floor, and the bird seemed to fly away. I marveled at how easy it was when we seemed to finally understand each other. At about this point, I chuckled about the Bob Marley song and thought about the kinds of breakfast food I could order with guacamole.
After I ate breakfast and had some time out, I came back to my apartment and started writing this blog. "What a great day," I thought. "Here we are: I woke up today, enjoyed some time with a friend and a good breakfast, and I saved a bird. It's far and away a good day!" I then stepped out again to run an errand. Upon returning within an hour again to my apartment, I was startled to find some kind of rustling or shuffling up a few levels in the stairwell. I walked slowly, craning and focusing on discerning the source of this odd noise. as I climbed. The groundskeeper mopping? No, he had already been here, as the floor in the stairwell was wet and now free from the bird droppings of this morning. I purged the thought of a shadowy assailant lurking in wait for me at my landing as I reached my floor (why have I ever doubted my imagination?).
I was startled to see what I am 97.2% sure was the same ruddy bird perched on the landing's railing. I got myself situated and offloaded from my errand, and muttered under my breath about that bird. I was sure I had pegged the blighter because of that inescapable patch of green on its chest. Now, as I came out to shepherd the bird yet again, I noticed it had a cheeky little crest atop its head that I hadn't noticed before. Writing this now, I am inclined to think of my own hair and my penchant for the color green. After the bird flew downstairs again, seeming to dance on the line of impudence and disobedience, I thought about what I would do with this blog post now.
A question and allegory briefly crept into my head as I hoped the bird had finally flown away downstairs to its freedom. Why would that bird come back to be trapped again? It seemed as though it had come back purposefully, willingly. I imagined myself as that bird, and if God had been in my position. I am beyond glad that our God "is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love," and that His ways are not our ways (Joel 2:13 ESV; Isaiah 55:8 ESV). "'For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts,'" He declares through the mouth of the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 55:9 ESV). But there is more. Further, respectively: "'Yet even now,' declares the Lord, 'return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments,'" and "let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon." (Joel 2:12-13a ESV; Isaiah 55:7 ESV)
I love that, the image of rending hearts, not garments. However, birds don't know any better, and I was left with the constant realization that I will be again trapped in sin and come back seeking freedom offered by my Creator again and again. Clothes can be bought at many places, in many styles, and for a variety of prices, but there is only one way to rend and bring about a new heart. That is through confession and the absolution offered by God. We are to always seek His face and His will in our lives. Christ is the bridge between our unworthy deeds and the rightfully high standards maintained by God the Father in the Law, and during Holy Week and Good Friday, we are especially able to appreciate His total fulfillment of the Law and prophecies which we were never able to fully obey or understand.
Dear Heavenly Father,
as I ponder the humble and almighty sacrifice of Christ, Your Son, I give thanks that He did what I cannot. He lived a perfect life, fulfilled every precept of Your Law, and atoned for all sin. Help me this day and every day to rend my heart, not my garments, and so leave the Old Adam and the sins that seem to cling to me behind me, seeking You so that I may diminish and Christ increase within me. I ask this in the name of Your Son, my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
It wasn't "just a sparrow," like so many people think of birds. I have not seen many "just sparrows" in Africa so far, but I'm sure they are around. They're probably just more industrious than their loitering distant cousins, those rotund pigeons that I have not seen in Africa. I recall getting a glimpse of green on its busy breast, and even white and black played across its wings. It was a healthy bird, a good-sized creature, and I was even more disappointed for this to see it trapped inside my stairwell.
I knew, of course, how it got trapped. The wall facing the courtyard of my apartment complex is basically a four-story wall of glass windows. The gate at the bottom is unlocked first thing in the morning, and who can blame a bird for flying in to my top floor? Flying up- it's what birds do.
When I found this bird, it was huddled in the corner on the floor. It began to fly when it saw me. I hesitated for a second, weighing the choices we always have: to free it, or leave it? I have had the feeling that time can always wait for people and animals because they won't be around forever for a while. In my heart, though, I know I am still a Westerner, and raised in a time-oriented schedule, not an event-oriented schedule like much of Africa.
At about the time I got close to it and started to imagine it pecking at my hands in some Hitchcockian fashion (why would I have to touch it or pick it up? my alibi is zero caffeine), it begin to fly and throw itself against the windows. When I opened a window, it decided the best direction to go was away from the window. I decided, in turn, to take the simple approach.
I am so glad no one was in the stairwell to see me lifting my hands over my head, trying to take up as much of the open space in the stairwell as possible. I figured that if I looked that big and threatening, the bird would surely be intimidated and move away and we could avoid any unpleasant avian altercations. This time, the bird caught my vibes and began to fly downstairs a level at a time, trying to keep ahead of this skinny man with his arms outstretched like a goon. I'm not sure if that's really why it flew away, because my degree isn't in Advanced Bird Logic.The gate was thankfully unlocked at the ground floor, and the bird seemed to fly away. I marveled at how easy it was when we seemed to finally understand each other. At about this point, I chuckled about the Bob Marley song and thought about the kinds of breakfast food I could order with guacamole.
After I ate breakfast and had some time out, I came back to my apartment and started writing this blog. "What a great day," I thought. "Here we are: I woke up today, enjoyed some time with a friend and a good breakfast, and I saved a bird. It's far and away a good day!" I then stepped out again to run an errand. Upon returning within an hour again to my apartment, I was startled to find some kind of rustling or shuffling up a few levels in the stairwell. I walked slowly, craning and focusing on discerning the source of this odd noise. as I climbed. The groundskeeper mopping? No, he had already been here, as the floor in the stairwell was wet and now free from the bird droppings of this morning. I purged the thought of a shadowy assailant lurking in wait for me at my landing as I reached my floor (why have I ever doubted my imagination?).
I was startled to see what I am 97.2% sure was the same ruddy bird perched on the landing's railing. I got myself situated and offloaded from my errand, and muttered under my breath about that bird. I was sure I had pegged the blighter because of that inescapable patch of green on its chest. Now, as I came out to shepherd the bird yet again, I noticed it had a cheeky little crest atop its head that I hadn't noticed before. Writing this now, I am inclined to think of my own hair and my penchant for the color green. After the bird flew downstairs again, seeming to dance on the line of impudence and disobedience, I thought about what I would do with this blog post now.
A question and allegory briefly crept into my head as I hoped the bird had finally flown away downstairs to its freedom. Why would that bird come back to be trapped again? It seemed as though it had come back purposefully, willingly. I imagined myself as that bird, and if God had been in my position. I am beyond glad that our God "is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love," and that His ways are not our ways (Joel 2:13 ESV; Isaiah 55:8 ESV). "'For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts,'" He declares through the mouth of the prophet Isaiah (Isaiah 55:9 ESV). But there is more. Further, respectively: "'Yet even now,' declares the Lord, 'return to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments,'" and "let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that He may have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon." (Joel 2:12-13a ESV; Isaiah 55:7 ESV)
I love that, the image of rending hearts, not garments. However, birds don't know any better, and I was left with the constant realization that I will be again trapped in sin and come back seeking freedom offered by my Creator again and again. Clothes can be bought at many places, in many styles, and for a variety of prices, but there is only one way to rend and bring about a new heart. That is through confession and the absolution offered by God. We are to always seek His face and His will in our lives. Christ is the bridge between our unworthy deeds and the rightfully high standards maintained by God the Father in the Law, and during Holy Week and Good Friday, we are especially able to appreciate His total fulfillment of the Law and prophecies which we were never able to fully obey or understand.
Dear Heavenly Father,
as I ponder the humble and almighty sacrifice of Christ, Your Son, I give thanks that He did what I cannot. He lived a perfect life, fulfilled every precept of Your Law, and atoned for all sin. Help me this day and every day to rend my heart, not my garments, and so leave the Old Adam and the sins that seem to cling to me behind me, seeking You so that I may diminish and Christ increase within me. I ask this in the name of Your Son, my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
That's why.
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."
I still haven't seen all of that movie, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," but it stuck with me enough that it was what I remembered while I looked through the past eight years of my pictures on Facebook. It's like a time capsule in plain sight, holding memories, friendships, feelings, and even dreams from back then. I like to do that every once in a while, just look back. It's usually embarrassing, but it reminds me God has a plan when I think of how far I have come and how far I still have to go. Whoever thought I would have gone to Lehigh University and been an RA? That I would have acted in high school? That I would have changed so much and in some ways not have changed at all? I still can't believe a lot of that, and I still can't believe I'm in Africa, and it's Holy Week. I did a lot of reflecting on my life, my mistakes, and my need for a Savior today.
That horrid question "why" used to be the motivator for my life, so much so that I was told by my fourth grade elementary school teacher that I would never be able to attend the United States Naval Academy. She reminded my mother that midshipmen need to follow orders, and if I was asked to make my bed so tightly that a quarter could bounce off the sheets, I would ask "why?" and be punished. Now whether such a condition at the Academy is true or not, I don't know. Perhaps someone who has been there and done that will vindicate my beloved teacher. That being said, "why" made me look askance at everything I did, said, and thought. That doesn't leave a lot of room for the enjoyment of life, for actually living.
Somewhere, and I can point to those wheres, God gave me a little nudge out of the door, like Gandalf said he gave to Bilbo in "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring." Actually, He gave me a lot of little nudges. Change scared me pretty badly, because it meant something new, something hard, starting over, finding new friends, learning new ways of doing things-newness. As I sit and reflect while writing this, I realize I had been fighting God the whole time. Sometimes it was overt, sometimes it was subtle, and I feel bad looking back on those times when I did it without realizing it. The worrying, the stressing, the agonizing over picking the "right" words, the "right" decisions. If what is "right" becomes a point of contention between you and yourself, it's good to take a step back and get the second opinion that should have been first in God's Word.
Somewhere, I decided to stop sweating the little stuff. Somewhere, I was emboldened by the Holy Spirit to start pushing the big stuff-to dare to do the things that I didn't think I could do, to explore and grow in my faith, to take chances, to learn to live without fear. As stated by H. Jackson Brown, Jr. in his book "P.S. I Love You" but commonly misattributed to Mark Twain, I began to "throw off the bowlines" and "sail away from the safe harbor." When I started doing that, I found that "why" wasn't the all-important guiding point. "Because" took its place as justification, and if I ever needed to shut down a "why," I could take it to God in prayer and find it in the Word.
God gave me the best "because" of all. Perhaps you are familiar with it, as it's quite well-known. Most of us know it by heart, and I unfortunately thought it was overused when I was younger, perhaps from memory verses in Sunday School. I want to come back to that "because" in a minute.
In the meantime, it's good to reflect back on a life because it reminds you who you are, who you really are. To step outside of your comfort zone, to examine your robes washed clean and white, washed daily. God says through the prophet Isaiah "Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before My eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause." (Isaiah 1:16-17) Now, I don't know about you, but I know I can't remove the evil of my deeds from before God's eyes. I was born a sinful being into a fallen world, cursed before my time. This week, though, this Holy Week, the holiest of all weeks, sets the record straight. A man, a real, living, breathing, human being, comprised both fully of God and fully of man in ways that I cannot and will not ever truly understand, had to die for me and you. I mean, He didn't need to die. He could have chosen not to. And why wouldn't He? He died in a hard way, in a mean way, no peaceful drifting away in sleep or even quickly, being taken by surprise violence. No, He died on the cross because He chose to, because the only action that would amend our filthy records was the cleansing blood of a man who made the really right decisions, a life beyond mortal comparison and mortal comprehension, impossible for humanity. Only a man who could die, and only God who gets all things right, who makes all things new, who is perfect, could fulfill our transgressions.
The apostle Paul writes in his letter to the Romans thus: "For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person-though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation." (Romans 5:6-11)
"Weak." "Ungodly." Those are strong words. This a strong time of the church year when we are reminded of the breadth and depth of our iniquities. A deed of love stronger than our original sin, the wrongs brought into the world at its inception by Adam, was performed to erase them. Just like that. The burden taken from our shoulders to Christ's. All sin that was committed, is committed, and will be committed was taken by Him, as by a father who sees his child carrying a box too big for him. Perhaps the child wants to prove himself to his father, and struggles to trudge ahead on his own, seeking parental acknowledgement. Perhaps the child carries something in the box that he does not want his father to see, only too like a child to forget that his father is taller than he and sees everything contained in that box. Maybe even the child does not want to loosen his grip on that box because it is "his" box, and he knows its contents with both a revulsion and a sense of familiarity. To release it to his father would surely be doom, that others might know his faults and weaknesses.
I want to come back to my best "because," though. "Why, why have you made me wait this long," you might ask? I really believe it is the best "because" not because it's mine, but because it was given to me by the best.
Jesus told Nicodemus "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him." (John 3:16-17)
That's why. It's really so good, it's the "because" to end all questions. As the apostle John tells us in Revelation, Christ says "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." (Revelation 22:12-13) Christ finished our sins started by Adam at the Creation, and He has begun our new lives in Him as the final answer to all questions and uncertainty. He is the promised and awaited Savior foretold by God's prophets and necessitated by our sinful human nature. Friday is the day we fulfill our Lenten journeys and meditations in His death, and await His joyous resurrection and victory over death for all of us.
It is a good time to think about our boxes. Do we still clutch them? If so, why? Why, when we have a Father who wants more than anything for us to relinquish them to Him so that He can put them far behind us? Why, when He wants to guide us ahead in His peace and on His paths of "steadfast love and faithfulness?" (Philippians 4:7, Psalm 25:4, 10) Why carry our own boxes of unrighteousness-filled sin when we could instead walk with Christ? Why let "sin reign in our mortal bodies" and be ruled by law when we can be governed by grace, as Paul says? (Romans 6:12-14) Why, when we could listen to Christ when He tells us "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light"? (Matthew 11:28-30)
During this Holy Week, I ask myself why indeed would I hold on to such a thing as my box, and give thanks that I do not have to.
I still haven't seen all of that movie, "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," but it stuck with me enough that it was what I remembered while I looked through the past eight years of my pictures on Facebook. It's like a time capsule in plain sight, holding memories, friendships, feelings, and even dreams from back then. I like to do that every once in a while, just look back. It's usually embarrassing, but it reminds me God has a plan when I think of how far I have come and how far I still have to go. Whoever thought I would have gone to Lehigh University and been an RA? That I would have acted in high school? That I would have changed so much and in some ways not have changed at all? I still can't believe a lot of that, and I still can't believe I'm in Africa, and it's Holy Week. I did a lot of reflecting on my life, my mistakes, and my need for a Savior today.
That horrid question "why" used to be the motivator for my life, so much so that I was told by my fourth grade elementary school teacher that I would never be able to attend the United States Naval Academy. She reminded my mother that midshipmen need to follow orders, and if I was asked to make my bed so tightly that a quarter could bounce off the sheets, I would ask "why?" and be punished. Now whether such a condition at the Academy is true or not, I don't know. Perhaps someone who has been there and done that will vindicate my beloved teacher. That being said, "why" made me look askance at everything I did, said, and thought. That doesn't leave a lot of room for the enjoyment of life, for actually living.
Somewhere, and I can point to those wheres, God gave me a little nudge out of the door, like Gandalf said he gave to Bilbo in "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring." Actually, He gave me a lot of little nudges. Change scared me pretty badly, because it meant something new, something hard, starting over, finding new friends, learning new ways of doing things-newness. As I sit and reflect while writing this, I realize I had been fighting God the whole time. Sometimes it was overt, sometimes it was subtle, and I feel bad looking back on those times when I did it without realizing it. The worrying, the stressing, the agonizing over picking the "right" words, the "right" decisions. If what is "right" becomes a point of contention between you and yourself, it's good to take a step back and get the second opinion that should have been first in God's Word.
Somewhere, I decided to stop sweating the little stuff. Somewhere, I was emboldened by the Holy Spirit to start pushing the big stuff-to dare to do the things that I didn't think I could do, to explore and grow in my faith, to take chances, to learn to live without fear. As stated by H. Jackson Brown, Jr. in his book "P.S. I Love You" but commonly misattributed to Mark Twain, I began to "throw off the bowlines" and "sail away from the safe harbor." When I started doing that, I found that "why" wasn't the all-important guiding point. "Because" took its place as justification, and if I ever needed to shut down a "why," I could take it to God in prayer and find it in the Word.
God gave me the best "because" of all. Perhaps you are familiar with it, as it's quite well-known. Most of us know it by heart, and I unfortunately thought it was overused when I was younger, perhaps from memory verses in Sunday School. I want to come back to that "because" in a minute.
In the meantime, it's good to reflect back on a life because it reminds you who you are, who you really are. To step outside of your comfort zone, to examine your robes washed clean and white, washed daily. God says through the prophet Isaiah "Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before My eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause." (Isaiah 1:16-17) Now, I don't know about you, but I know I can't remove the evil of my deeds from before God's eyes. I was born a sinful being into a fallen world, cursed before my time. This week, though, this Holy Week, the holiest of all weeks, sets the record straight. A man, a real, living, breathing, human being, comprised both fully of God and fully of man in ways that I cannot and will not ever truly understand, had to die for me and you. I mean, He didn't need to die. He could have chosen not to. And why wouldn't He? He died in a hard way, in a mean way, no peaceful drifting away in sleep or even quickly, being taken by surprise violence. No, He died on the cross because He chose to, because the only action that would amend our filthy records was the cleansing blood of a man who made the really right decisions, a life beyond mortal comparison and mortal comprehension, impossible for humanity. Only a man who could die, and only God who gets all things right, who makes all things new, who is perfect, could fulfill our transgressions.
The apostle Paul writes in his letter to the Romans thus: "For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person-though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die-but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by His life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation." (Romans 5:6-11)
"Weak." "Ungodly." Those are strong words. This a strong time of the church year when we are reminded of the breadth and depth of our iniquities. A deed of love stronger than our original sin, the wrongs brought into the world at its inception by Adam, was performed to erase them. Just like that. The burden taken from our shoulders to Christ's. All sin that was committed, is committed, and will be committed was taken by Him, as by a father who sees his child carrying a box too big for him. Perhaps the child wants to prove himself to his father, and struggles to trudge ahead on his own, seeking parental acknowledgement. Perhaps the child carries something in the box that he does not want his father to see, only too like a child to forget that his father is taller than he and sees everything contained in that box. Maybe even the child does not want to loosen his grip on that box because it is "his" box, and he knows its contents with both a revulsion and a sense of familiarity. To release it to his father would surely be doom, that others might know his faults and weaknesses.
I want to come back to my best "because," though. "Why, why have you made me wait this long," you might ask? I really believe it is the best "because" not because it's mine, but because it was given to me by the best.
Jesus told Nicodemus "For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him." (John 3:16-17)
That's why. It's really so good, it's the "because" to end all questions. As the apostle John tells us in Revelation, Christ says "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end." (Revelation 22:12-13) Christ finished our sins started by Adam at the Creation, and He has begun our new lives in Him as the final answer to all questions and uncertainty. He is the promised and awaited Savior foretold by God's prophets and necessitated by our sinful human nature. Friday is the day we fulfill our Lenten journeys and meditations in His death, and await His joyous resurrection and victory over death for all of us.
It is a good time to think about our boxes. Do we still clutch them? If so, why? Why, when we have a Father who wants more than anything for us to relinquish them to Him so that He can put them far behind us? Why, when He wants to guide us ahead in His peace and on His paths of "steadfast love and faithfulness?" (Philippians 4:7, Psalm 25:4, 10) Why carry our own boxes of unrighteousness-filled sin when we could instead walk with Christ? Why let "sin reign in our mortal bodies" and be ruled by law when we can be governed by grace, as Paul says? (Romans 6:12-14) Why, when we could listen to Christ when He tells us "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light"? (Matthew 11:28-30)
During this Holy Week, I ask myself why indeed would I hold on to such a thing as my box, and give thanks that I do not have to.
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