Category: How Americans Think Page 7 of 8

In What’s So Amazing About Grace?, Philip Yancey tells the true story of a prostitute who rented out her two-year-old daughter to men in order to fund her drug addiction. When asked why she didn’t go to a church for help, she exclaimed: “Church! Why would I ever go there? I was already feeling terrible about myself. They’d just make me feel worse.”

Dreadfully ironic, isn’t it? On one hand, there’s the prostitute who is afraid to go to church because of the lack of grace offered her, while on the other hand, the deacon-turned-child-molester is offered a free pass in the name of “grace.”

This is a humiliating time to be an American evangelical Christian. The disgraced missions agency. The disgraced mega-church pastor. The disgraced entire denomination. I’m afraid to read the news and see what’s next. So much muck, covered up for so many years.

Every time, my internal response is horrified disgust. How can people like that call themselves Christians? And I want to do everything I can to disassociate myself with that person or that group or that church. I want to shine up my shoes and put on my kind face and show the world that not all Christians are so reprehensible. Most of us are decent, moral, good people, right? So please, won’t you like us again?

Then I wonder if that attitude is actually the elemental problem.

All my life I have struggled with the desire to be the good girl, to follow the good Christian rules of praying before meals and sticking a fish on my car and moving to deepest darkest Africa. There was this underlying current to the evangelical culture around me that if we all looked really nice and happy all the time, we would attract people to Jesus. So it makes sense that when we discovered that underneath that veneer was a lot of evil and depravity, we anxiously stuffed it under our perfectly vacuumed carpets. We felt a strong need to protect God’s reputation.

It’s ironic that God doesn’t seem to care about his reputation nearly as much as we do. We paste the smiles on, but he has no problem flinging those carpets aside for the world to see. If we won’t deal with our skeletons in the closet, then he’ll let a major news outlet do it for us. Considering the danger of hidden sin, perhaps even the media is a form of his grace.

We are so quick to condemn the Prosperity Gospel–the notion that God wants his people to be continuously healthy and increasingly wealthy–but what if there was an even more sinister Prosperity Gospel infiltrating our churches? A Gospel that says that God’s people would never abuse children, never be mentally ill, never struggle with gender or sexuality, never be narcissistic? Because we’re too good for that. Those kind of problems wouldn’t happen here.

So I’m asking myself this question: How do we, as the American Church, really, truly display God’s glory and his grace? Because looking nice and shiny and perfect on the outside has obviously not worked. One, because those on the outside see right through to the pride that under-girds that image, and two, because (duh) we actually haven’t been as nice and shiny and perfect as we thought we were.

The dictionary defines “disgraced” as having fallen from favor or a position of power or honor; discredited. But what if being disgraced is actually God’s conduit for us to fall into grace?

The answer is right there in front of our faces, and we just keep forgetting it. The gospel acknowledges both the depravity of sin and the riches of mercy. These disgraces in the American church show us how far away we are from understanding real grace. We have no reason to boast and nothing to hide; in the end we are all beggars. Ironically, not unlike the prostitute.

Barbara Duguidwrites, “One reason God allows us to fall flat on our face is so we will not be people who stand before Him taking credit for His good work. We get confused about that. If we are strong and victorious in a certain area of our lives, we start writing books about how everybody can be as good as I am on this topic. But if God lets us fall flat on our face and we’re in the dust, we realize, ‘That wasn’t me. That was God, and left to myself, I’ll be flat on my face.’”

I am a part of the American Church, so I sit here with her in the dust, my reputation tarnished, my deepest secrets laid bare, my good name dragged through the mud. My choice is simple: Will I be the Pharisee, the one who prides myself on not being anything like those terribly disgusting people, and belligerently disassociate myself from having anything to do with them? Or will I be the tax collector who beats his breast and cries, “Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner?”

Only one went home justified that day. (Luke 18:9-14)

When Jesus faced a condemned prostitute, he got down in the dust with her. Maybe if we recognize that we deserve to be down in the dust too, Jesus will meet us there. And maybe, just maybe, the next time that prostitute needs a place of refuge, she’ll come to us. And we can find grace together.

Magic Charms and Contingency Plans

By Amy Medina

On September 16, 2017

In How Africans Think, How Americans Think, Life in Tanzania

A few nights ago, Mama F came to me terrorized, begging and screaming for a certain plant in our backyard.

I’ve lived in Tanzania for almost 14 years now, but there are still stories that blow me away.

I have a good friend, Allison (name changed), who has lived here as long as Gil and I have. I don’t get to see her often, as she and her husband live several hours away in a remote village in Tanzania. We may be living in the same country, but her life is very different from mine. While visiting us this week, Allison told me this incredible story.

For a long time now, Allison had been sharing the gospel with Mama F, one of her neighbors. And just a couple weeks ago, Mama F declared faith in Christ and started attending a Bible study led by Allison and her team. They all praised God for this, not knowing that the story was just beginning….

This is how Allison tells it:

“A few nights ago, Mama F came to me terrorized, begging and screaming for a certain plant in our backyard. Of course, I let her in to grab the unknown plant she named. I soon saw that something had taken hold of her precious four-year-old daughter. She was writhing and gurgling, clenched in her mother’s arms, and foaming at the mouth.

Hearing Mama F’s cries, other neighbor women were coming to aid and we all followed as she ran back to her house while smearing my basil plant all over little F’s head. The father had run for the witchdoctor to buy emergency witchcraft to ward off the attack. Mama F
would not accept my westernized offer to take them to the hospital.

We women entered into her home, trying to be of help in any way we
could. One woman shook and rubbed a live chicken over little F — spraying who knows what all over her. Another brought a pouch with herbs to burn and handfuls of a certain type of dirt to make a mud mixture to smear over her disrobed body. Mama F frantically gulped a liquid from a cup and spewed it onto her daughter. Then she placed knives under her armpits and behind her neck, wrapped F in banana leaves and tied a new black cloth charm around F’s wrist to join the others that fruitlessly encircled her body already. The ladies began to burn the weeds gathered so that smoke filled the room. All the while, F was writhing and foaming, enveloped in darkness.

A long time ago, the Lord compelled me into these neighbors’ lives and now–as I walked that night with these women I love who were so fear stricken, so
desperate to save this child in the only ways they knew of– I prayed silently and out loud for His Light to shine in the living nightmare. Then He enabled me to speak simple, childlike words in this dark chaos of fear and despair. ‘God is able to help and heal F. This witchcraft will not work. May I pray for her in Jesus’ name? May I hold her in my arms and pray for God’s healing? I can ask for help from Almighty, Holy God because I believe Jesus shed his blood to pay for my sin so I am forgiven. Please let me pray for her.’

Miraculously they agreed!

But I knew there was more needing to be said. ‘Mama F, because God is holy and only He deserves glory, you have to stop this witchcraft. He wants you to see it is by His power and grace alone that F is healed. Please remove the
knives, the leaves…’

Miraculously they agreed and placed her in my arms!

I squatted down on the dirt floor, holding that precious, terrorized little
girl in my arms and I prayed. As I prayed, I felt the conviction of the
Holy Spirit that this was not just a physical need for healing, but
spiritual. So, in Jesus name, I prayed against the powers of darkness
over this little one. In Jesus’ name, I rebuked satan and told him to
leave. In Jesus’ name, I entrusted F into God’s arms of healing and
protection.

And God heard and answered! As I prayed, the convulsions and foaming and gurgling ceased and F laid peacefully in my arms. I heard the women’s voices declare, ‘Wow! The prayer is working! God Heals! Jesus Heals! God hears the prayers of Christians! Let’s go find more Christians to pray for her!’ So we returned to my house where my teammates had been waiting and they too surrounded F with prayer and praise to God for her healing. And with F still in my arms exhausted, but at peace, my teammates and I lingered with our neighbors in our front yard and on our front porch, praising God for His healing in word, prayer, and song.”

But the story is still not over. Allison sat in my kitchen Wednesday evening, telling me what had just happened the night before.

She continued: “Mama F had attended the ladies prayer group in our home again and gave praise to Jesus for his healing in her child. Then a few days later F came to our home to play, wearing her charm necklace again.

I spoke to her Mom that God does not share His glory with another and F does not need the charms for her health and protection when we cry out to the one true God through Jesus Christ. She agreed, but the necklace charm remained. I also shared that with believing in Jesus Christ as her Savior, she is now a daughter of the King and she herself can ask her Father God for anything in His Name! There is no need to fear, nor appease the forces of darkness. But the necklace remained.

Tuesday evening, the terrors came again to F. Since we were here in Dar when the attack came on, little F’s family sought the help of our team (Tanzanian and American) who together prayed and read Scripture over her, but this time she was not responding and they agreed to take her to the clinic in the neighboring village.

When I received word of this, I asked if she was still wearing any charms. And she was still wearing her charm necklace. My husband called Baba F and exhorted him to remove the charms as God will not share His glory with another. Meanwhile the doctor was not able to help F and so they brought F to our local evangelist where they cut off her charm necklace and began to pray for her again. She was immediately restored to normal!”

Glory be to God!

It is, indeed, truly a remarkable story–especially for those of us who assume that this kind of thing ended in the New Testament. But it would be a shame for those of us from westernized cultures, who scoff at magic charms and witchdoctors, to think that God isn’t trying to teach us the same lessons that he was teaching little F’s family.

He wants the glory alone.

And his glory is never evident in contingency plans.

I’ve thought about this constantly since I heard Allison’s story. How often do I have a contingency plan? How often do I say the words that God is faithful and God is good, but in the back of my mind, have my own little plan of what I’ll do if God doesn’t show up?

Sure, I say I believe in heaven and that it’s forever and that life here is only a shadow of what’s to come. But really, I want to enjoy that shadow with as much comfort as I can muster and as much pleasure as I can hold onto–just in case heaven doesn’t come.

Sure, I know that God is the rightful king and sovereign over the universe. But I’d also really like to be under a government that is just, safe, powerful, and holds to all of my values–and I’m distressed if I don’t get that.

Sure, I believe that God is the source of all peace and healing. But my first instinct in times of pain or sickness or fear is to turn to doctors and medicine, not to prayer.

Sure, I believe that Scripture tells me that God will provide for all my needs. But I want that savings account to be steady and that income to be regular, just in case.

I know there’s a balance here, because I need to be wise and prudent and God’s gifts to me include homes and medicine and savings accounts. But where is the source of my trust? Am I really trusting in God, or in my contingency plans?

And sometimes, God might just be waiting for us to cut off the magic charm. Because He will not share His glory with another.

The Story of Reality

By Amy Medina

On May 25, 2017

In Book Recommendations, How Americans Think

This story is not a fairy tale, but rather it is the Story all fairy tales are really about. Indeed, almost every tale ever written is an echo of this story embedded deep within our hearts. Yet this story is not a tale at all since the Story is true.

As I read The Story of Reality, I kept thinking, “Where has this book been all my life?”

Every religion tells a story of reality. Every philosophy and every individual outlook on life is a take on the way someone thinks the world actually is. There is no escaping it.

I’ve looked for a book like this for years. I can remember sitting on the floor of the Christian bookstore (back when Christian bookstores were a thing), scanning through dozens of books, trying to find one suitable to give to a non-Christian friend. I wanted something that explained Christianity in a compelling, winsome way, but wasn’t overly academic or complicated. I was looking for this book. I guess I never found it until now because it was just published in January.

Gregory Koukl’s The Story of Reality: How the World Began, How it Ends, and Everything Important that Happens In Between is kind of a worldview book, but not really. It’s kind of an apologetics book (a defense of Christianity), but not really. It’s kind of like a fascinating conversation with a really smart, really kind, Christian friend. That’s what it feels like.

There is a saying that has been helpful in some ways but I think is misleading in this regard. The saying goes, ‘God has a wonderful plan for your life.’ From what I understand now, that perspective is in the wrong order. The Story is not so much about God’s plan for your life as it is about your life for God’s plan. Let that sink in. God’s purposes are central, not yours. Once you are completely clear on this fact, many things are going to change for you.

This book is extremely readable and entirely enjoyable. It’s only 200 pages. It’s non-fiction, but written like a story, in a conversational, highly understandable, relational tone. It’s easy enough for a 14-year-old to understand, yet profound enough for a deep-thinking adult to contemplate.

Now, I realize that the idea that God is in charge is bothersome to many people, but what is the alternative? If someone is not in charge, then no one is in charge, and that seems to be a big part of our complaint about the world to begin with.

From now on, this is the book I will give to a friend who has an interest in Christianity. This is a book I will read aloud with my kids when they are young teenagers–allowing us lots of time for all the conversations it will spark. But this is not a book just for inquirers into Christianity. It’s for any Christian who wants a shot of adrenaline, a reminder of who we are and why we are here and what we are living for. This book truly is a gift to God’s Church, and I hope that you’ll look for ways to use it in your circle of influence.

First, trouble, hardship, difficulty, pain, suffering, conflict, tragedy, evil–they are all part of the Story. It is the reason there is any Story at all. The Story not only explains the evil people do; it predicts it. Our world is exactly the kind of world we’d expect it to be if the Story were true and not just religious wishful thinking.

Second–and more important–our Story is not over yet. Evil did not catch God by surprise.

We Americans Are Far Too Easily Pleased

By Amy Medina

On May 10, 2017

In How Americans Think

I am a cheating American. I don’t deserve your sympathy.

When we’re in the States, Gil and I often comment at how much easier it is to live the Christian life when we are overseas. There’s something about being outside of our own culture that takes away much of the temptation to acquire more, to be more, and to over-indulge. You have no idea
what a blessed relief it is to be free from the constant barrage of television commercials, billboards, and the incessant push to buy more, more, more. There is something incredibly humbling in forging deep friendships with people who (materially) have so much less than we do, yet have relentless faith. And the times when we do go without electricity or safety or convenience have taught us much about contentment and perseverance. I wouldn’t trade that for anything.

But even if I have had the benefit of living a good portion of my life in a different country, at the end of the day, I still am American. Sure, I can reap the advantages of learning and growing from other cultures, but I still have my blue passport and my health insurance and my 18 pieces of luggage that I will lug back to Tanzania. Yep, 18 pieces, people. Sure, I can tell you that a lot of it is for HOPAC and other ministry purposes, but that’s still 900 pounds of Americanism that I will carry over the ocean. No, don’t elevate me for what I have given up. I am a cheater. I get the best of both worlds.

packing at the end of our home assignment in 2014

I have a love-hate relationship with America. I love all that’s good—all that I see that
sets America apart from so many countries in the world—but yet I hate what it
breeds. I love Costco, but then I read
that America has over 3 million self-storage units at 58,000 facilities. I love Target, but then I
remember that the markets of Dar es Salaam are bursting with hundreds of tons
of America’s cast-off clothes. Americans have 44 billion dollars sitting around in unused gift cards. (The entire GDP of Tanzania is $45 billion). But what do we buy
our friends who have everything? Gift
cards.

American cast-offs

Why is it that we Americans can have so much—and yet so
often take all those gifts and throw them down the toilet?

Freedom leads to debauchery.

Prosperity morphs into greed.

Beauty turns into idolatry.

Convenience feeds laziness.

Opportunity transforms into pride.

Abundance becomes addiction.

Gil and I keep having the same conversation these days: How does an American truly live the Christian life? What should that look like? When the temptation of excess is not only close by, but encouraged and celebrated?

When even good things, like food and sports and entertainment are so
close to our fingertips at every hour of the day that it becomes practically
impossible to turn them down? When binging is no longer only associated with just food or alcohol, but also entertainment? How do we enjoy the good
gifts God has given us, like prosperity, opportunity, and beauty, yet keep
those things from turning into greed and idolatry? The line is so incredibly thin and so difficult to determine. Sure, it’s easy to say, “American Christians are too materialistic,” but then when it comes down to deciding how much is too much, who knows the answer?

There’s got to be a way, isn’t there? Can we find a way to take advantage of our prosperity, of our abundance and comfort and convenience, and yet use it for the glory of God? Can we enjoy the gifts God has given us, and yet still live a life of self-denial? Can we allow the beauty of America to sink into our souls and make us better people, yet steadfastly refuse to be satisfied in anything but Jesus?

I don’t know the answer, but I know it starts by asking the questions. Every single day. And not allowing ourselves to be truly dazzled by anything except the cross of Christ.

It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. (C.S. Lewis)

God Doesn’t Owe Me the American Dream

By Amy Medina

On June 24, 2016

In How Americans Think

I may have spent half my life on the African continent, but I still have the American dream.

It usually comes to me when I am most frustrated with my life here; when I’ve just about had it with the heat or the bugs or the roads. That’s when my imagination activates, and I picture myself in a quiet American neighborhood, lined with big trees that change with the seasons. I own my own house; everyone speaks my language; my children ride bikes in the street without fear; I can go to the store and actually find what I need. And life is peaceful, and safe, and predictable.

The images flit around my consciousness; I rarely stopped to really think about it. But I recently realized that deep down, I have always assumed that would be my life someday. That somehow, that sort of life should always be the goal.

I may have lived in Africa for 18 years, but I am still very American.

I was astonished to realize that unconsciously, I believed that the American dream is owed to me. That God wants it for me. That because he loves me, therefore I will someday receive the Good Life. Almost as if it’s a given. An assumption.

What a lie.

Sometimes I think it’s easy for American Christians to see everything tragic that is happening Out There, and make the assumption that God could never let that happen to us. That happens to other people, to other nations. Not to Americans. Not to American Christians. As if we are somehow set apart, special, blessed.

I spent my childhood in Liberia, so I still read updates about Liberia and Ebola. The media has mostly moved on, but Liberia has not. Today I read, “The poverty that made the 2014 epidemic possible appears to have deepened. Although the country has fallen out of the headlines….another outbreak is likely.” And this on top of crushing poverty, farms destroyed, and very little way forward. “Come down to the ground and ask the survivors themselves whether they are getting the relief,” said [an Ebola survivor], “Life after Ebola is worse than the Ebola virus itself.”

I read recently about Venezuela, with country-wide food shortages; thousands of stores with empty shelves, and families waiting in line for hours for rations. And then there’s Syria. And Iraq. And North Korea. And countless others.

I know with much certainly that Christians exist in all these countries. Those chosen and loved and saved by God, who desperately seek after him. Yet he allows a pastor to lose his wife and children to Ebola. He allows the Syrian Christian family to be forced to leave their home, their business, their country and become refugees at the complete mercy of others. He allows the North Korean Christian to be turned over to the torture camps by the betrayal of his own son.

And I think: Why do I assume this won’t happen to me, to my country? Sure, I know I am not immune from cancer, from accidents, from tragedy. But do I really think that God holds America in a special category; that he won’t allow it’s destruction, that he won’t allow my financial ruin, that he will always ensure my country’s safety?

Why do I think that? Why do I assume that he owes me a peaceful American dream-life, when he doesn’t grant it to almost any other Christian anywhere in the world?

Americans are optimistic people, and we are goal-oriented. Everything always works out for us, right? We highly value personal peace and prosperity, and we will do almost anything to gain it or keep it. But sometimes, American Christians have taken that American mentality and mixed it in with our Christianity. I absorbed this even though I spent half my life overseas. Yet how can it be true for Americans, and not true for the Christians in Liberia, or Venezuela, or Syria?

I’ve forced my American dream into my consciousness, cut it apart, and analyzed it with Scripture. God does not owe American Christians anything. He does not owe me a savings account or health insurance. He does not guarantee that my children will have the opportunity to go to college and become prosperous citizens. He does not promise religious freedom, or pleasant vacations, or safety on American streets. He doesn’t even promise that America will continue to exist as we know it.

Hey, if God has allowed you a beautiful house on a tree-lined street, 2.5 children, and religious freedom, fantastic. Use it all to his glory. Maybe that will be my life someday too. But it’s not an expectation. I’m not going to assume that America, or the government, or God will make my dreams come true. Everything I have already been given (which is a lot), I want to hold with an open hand. My hope is in Christ, my destination is heaven, and nothing in this life is guaranteed. Today I have it; tomorrow I might not. He gives and takes away.

Does that scare you? It scares me. But it shouldn’t. If Christians all over the world have put their trust in God when running for their lives, or suffering under an oppressive government, or a disease is ravaging their community, then we can too. Maybe we need to pay better attention to how they do it.

Category: How Americans Think Page 7 of 8

Sitting in the Dust with the Disgraced American Church

Magic Charms and Contingency Plans

The Story of Reality

We Americans Are Far Too Easily Pleased

God Doesn’t Owe Me the American Dream