Tag: The Motivation for Everything Page 2 of 3

I forget that the story of Christmas is a story of humility.

He made himself nothing….being made in human likeness.

God With Us–Emmanuel.  But what did that require?

He emptied himself.  

He humbled himself.

The God who flung planets into space and kept them whirling around and around, the God who made the universe with just a word, the one who could do anything at all–was making himself small.  And coming down….as a baby.  (Sally Lloyd-Jones)

It’s incomprehensible.  I can’t come close to grasping who God is, so how can I begin to understand what he gave up?

The more I become aware of his sacrifice, the more I wonder why I so easily consume the world’s delicacies:  The highest ideal is your own self-fulfillment.  Anything goes as long as you don’t hurt anyone else.

The problem is that self-fulfillment almost always does hurt someone else.  It’s simply not possible to love myself and love others at the same time.  And in trying, I find neither.  

Love, Joy, Peace, Hope–these are the words we find on Christmas cards.  We forget, though, that none of that would have been possible without humility.  Emptiness.  These are not words that are often used at Christmas, yet just as important.

We want the love and the joy, but without the cost.  We want peace and hope, but on our own terms.  It doesn’t work that way.

Of course, God is not a kill-joy.  He is all about joy.  He is the essence of love.  But as we frantically fight after fulfillment, popping pills and climbing the corporate ladder and swiping credit cards and fruitlessly trying to keep our bodies young, we forget that the way of joy and love is found through emptiness.  

God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

So why then do we strive so hard after strength?

When I fail, why should I be bothered by humiliation?  When I am inadequate, why should I try to hide it?  Why should there be shame in weakness?  Being brought low is the path to joy.  Emptying myself for others is the way of true love.  

That baby, lying in the manger, represents a lot of things.  But for me, this year, he is a reminder of humility.   

Blessed are the poor in spirit 

        for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Tanzania’s “Christmas Trees” which burst into bloom every December.

The elderly man with kind eyes approached me after a speaking engagement at one of our supporting churches.  He explained that he had been convicted to diligently pray for his grandchildren.  And then he asked me if I would like him to pray regularly for my children, too.

I was speechless that a stranger would do this.  That he would take the time to approach me, encourage me, and commit to praying for my children.

But there’s more.

There’s the woman in Indiana who only knows me through this blog and sends us money through PayPal to spoil our kids.

There’s the large family who lives in a small house but supports our ministry generously, and I think about how they could live in a bigger house if they weren’t supporting us.

There’s the friend who gave us tickets to the Long Beach Aquarium, with specific instructions that we were to go only with our kids, so that we would have time together “just us.”

I could go on.  Those are just a few examples.

I am one who is lavished with grace.  And I feel so utterly unworthy of it.

This home assignment has been hard for me.  To be honest, it’s been harder than any of the other times we’ve visited home.  I’m not exactly sure why, because everything has gone relatively smoothly, and as you have seen in my pictures, we’ve created lots of wonderful memories.  Maybe it’s because I’ve put down too many roots in Tanzania and it gets harder for me to adjust to America as time goes on.  Or maybe because living out of a suitcase for four months with four kids is a lot harder than when we just had two kids.

But whatever the reason, it brought out ugliness in me that I am ashamed of.  I’ve been grumpy and irritable a lot of the time.  I’ve let anxiety get the best of me way too often.  I’ve had way too many sleepless nights for no fault other than my own untamed emotions.  It stinks to have to look at people you love, and the God you serve, and ask for grace.

Yet that’s what I have received, over and over again.  By family members.  By church friends.  By strangers.

I would have been really good at any kind of legalistic religion.  Following the rules, working hard, doing my duty–all of those things come naturally to me.  Perhaps that’s why serving and giving often come easy for me.  But receiving that which I don’t I deserve?  That’s a whole lot harder.  It’s humbling.  It makes me feel small and unworthy.

So I guess that’s why receiving undeserved grace reveals my pride.  I actually am small and unworthy, no matter my accomplishments.  Is that why I often lose the significance of God’s grace in my life?  Because I want to prove myself worthy?  Because I want to convince myself that there actually is something in me that deserves it?  My pride would like to think that.  

So then I fall again, and I grasp helplessly around for a fingerhold on the ledge of grace.  God grants it to me through a kind man wanting to pray for my children or a generous gift from a friend.  But those are just reminders, glimpses, of the grace he has given me through his Son.  Because that grace is astonishing indeed.

We were mingling in the courtyard after church.  I was trying to keep track of my kids and was slightly distracted when the woman approached me.

I spent the first few moments trying to figure out if I knew her, since I’m still desperately trying to put names with faces at this church.  But when I realized she was only using Swahili with me, I figured I had never met her, since almost everyone at this church speaks English.  I shook her hand and smiled.

I’m looking for work, she told me.  Please, I’m looking for work.  I need to pay my son’s school fees. He’s in Form 4.  Do you have any work for me?  I can take care of your children.  I can wash your clothes.  I can sweep your house.   She spoke quickly and eagerly.

I gave her a sad smile.  I’m so sorry, I said.  I don’t have any work for you.  I already have someone who works for me.  I will pray that God helps you, I said.

Please, she said.  Tell me if you know someone who needs work.  I need to pay my son’s school fees.

Okay, I said.  I’ll let you know if I find someone.

But I knew I wouldn’t.  Because I’m already trying to help someone else find work.  Because I get this request all the time.  Because there’s 40% unemployment in this city.

I am so tired.

Meaningless! Utterly Meaningless!  Everything is meaningless!  What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun? (Ecclesiastes 1:2)

I realized last week, as more people read my blog than ever before, that my most popular posts have criticized short-term missions, revealed the ugly flaws of missionaries, and torn apart international adoption.

Great.

I was one of those idealists in college.  You know the type–with their flushed cheeks and sparkly eyes, passion in their voices, volunteering for all sorts of noble causes.  I was going to change the world.  I never wavered in my ambitions, and I signed on to become a full-time missionary when I was all of 21 years old.

I think of all my confidence in so many solutions that I was sure were the answer.   And here I am at 39.  Fourteen years as a missionary in three different ministries.  Yet sometimes I feel like all I have seen is various forms of brokenness….in the problems, of course, but also in what I thought were the solutions.  And in myself.

All streams flow into the sea, yet the sea is never full.  (Ecc. 1:7)

In the last few months, we’ve been devastated by massive brokenness in our mission leadership and in our Tanzanian church leadership.  We cry; we question; we rage.  We keep going, but it feels like everyone around me is limping.

All things are wearisome, more than one can say. (Ecc. 1:8)

I am just so tired.

I could choose to deny the reality of this brokenness.  I could watch a lot of television and eat a lot of chocolate and choose to turn my back on this reality.  I could try that, if I avoided the news and stayed at home all day.  Yet all I have to do is go to church and I meet a woman who can’t afford to send her son to school.

Or I could descend into despair.  Many do, and it beckons me.  Sometimes the temptation is strong.

Or I could look to this Sunday.

I can look–once again–to my confidence that Jesus existed, that I can trust what the Bible says about him, that he really did enter into our madness to bring us hope.  I can remind myself that his death and resurrection really were the pinnacle of history, the axis around which everything else revolves, and the assurance that all really will be made right some day.

Jesus really is the only reason I have hope.  Without him, this world is just some cruel joke, some accidental freak of nature that will, eventually, disintegrate back into nothingness.  Why try to fight it?  Without him, denial or despair are my only options.

I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race.  He has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.  (Ecc. 3:10-11)

Because of Sunday, I can have hope that he makes all things beautiful:  failed missionary efforts, corrupt adoption, desperate mothers in poverty.  I can have hope that eternity does exist, that God does know what he is doing, and that one day, it will all make sense.  I can get up in the morning and know that everything I do has purpose, that my small story is part of one grand story, and that this tragedy most certainly will have a happy ending.