Two Roads Diverged in the Middle of the Wood

This summer my family and I returned to the US from our work overseas for a couple months of rest and refreshment. At least that was how we envisioned it when we came back. The past two years have been very successful in terms of our work with minority language groups. However, that progress has cost us greatly as a family. We have struggled to meet the needs of our children as they move into their teenage years. We do not advocate building family life around the goal of making our children happy, but at the same time we do need to be aware of their needs and not sacrifice them on some false altar of ministry.

During our time in Arizona over the past month it became increasingly clear that we needed to make a radical change in order to keep our family healthy. We thought we had another year to work out the next step, but certain needs have pushed that time frame into the immediate present. Because of this we decided that we should relocate to the US for the next few years while our children complete high school. During that time my wife and I will continue our work with minority language groups, but will do so remotely. This will present a number of challenges, but will allow us to provide our children with the support they need during these important years. Living among the people groups also had challenges and the price was paid most heavily by the children. Now we will focus more on them while moving the work ahead on a slower path.

I wrestled a lot with this decision, because we have invested heavily over the past few years to establish our work. At first I felt that the only choice we had was to sacrifice our family by remaining in location and continuing to work as we had been, or to sacrifice the work by leaving the location and focusing on our family. Neither was a desirable option to me. I spoke at length with my pastor about this and he, without pushing me to any decision, challenged me to open my hand and not cling to what I felt was God's plan for me. He told me to let go and let God direct me/us in the next step. I had been paralyzed by fear, fear of the unknown and fear that our needs would not be adequately met if we made any major change. I also feared the impact on my identity. Who would I be if I were not doing the work I enjoy?

Faced with certain realities in our lives at present, the decision became quite apparent and in some sense made itself. But I still had to choose to accept it. I am still working through the impact of this on me personally, on us as a family and on our work and I hope to share some of this journey with my readers in the weeks and month ahead. Some voices argue that we should sacrifice all for the sake of the Good News, including our very family. They point to the lives of great men and women of God in the past who left family behind while pursuing their "ministry" and they hold such people up as models for us to emulate. But I question whether this is truly the "godly" choice. God is teaching me these days that if I listen to him, he can open up new paths that I might not have considered if I clung to my "ministry" at all costs. And in this new path he can continue to teach me and work through me while at the same time caring for the needs of my family. It does require sacrifice and the sacrifice is painful. But it brings blessing, at least I believe it will and have been affirmed in this choice by people I greatly respect and admire.

In the first days of working through this decision I felt great anguish over what it would cost me and the things I would have to leave behind. My focus was on the loss. But after some time God began to turn my focus toward the possibilities and opportunities that lie ahead. It doesn't mean that I won't have to give anything up or make any sacrifices. It doesn't make those sacrifices less painful or easier. But it does help me look ahead with hope and anticipation, rather than remaining stuck in the past or present in grief and sorrow. I wish sometimes that the journey of faith was a nice walk along a manicured path. It's not, because faith requires me to step into the unknown and put complete trust in a God whose ways I do not fully understand--far from it. Growing in faith is painful and exhausting. But it is also joyful and filled with hope. I invite you to continue walking on this journey with me.

Messiness

I awoke this morning thinking, for some reason, about messiness. Perhaps I had this on my mind because our house is a bit messy at the moment. Well, actually it’s always messier than I would prefer it and I have been learning over the years to not worry so much about that. I like to have my world neat and tidy. This includes my physical world and my mental, emotional and spiritual worlds. But as I thought about this I realized that life is messy. Rarely does life cooperate and arrange itself in a nice, orderly manner with no loose ends and unresolved issues.

I’d like faith to be neat and tidy. We often pretend that it is. We write and read books about God that describe him in clear, definite terms, without fuzziness and ambiguity. And by our efforts to describe God we attempt to tame him. But, as C.S. Lewis famously wrote, “he is not a tame lion.” And faith is not a simple thing, all neat and tidy, wrapped up and packaged as a pleasant complete kit that I can purchase off the shelf in my local church or Christian bookstore. Faith is messy. God doesn’t deliver when I want or expect him to. He doesn’t always act as I believe he should. While Jesus Christ may be the same yesterday, today and forever (a statement I would affirm, for those who may doubt), his manner of displaying his personal consistency is remarkably variable. I long for certainty, but in my search for answers I often find only more questions. I envy those for whom faith is a settled, certain thing. For me it is a journey, a quest. I believe, but even after all these years of walking with God I am still seeking, trying to understand and make some sense of this messy thing called the life of faith. I don’t have all the answers. And I don’t have to.

But this morning I realized that messiness is okay, even in matters of faith. Just as I can learn to live without having my living room neat and tidy, I can live with having a faith that still wrestles with questions and even doubts. In fact, such a faith may enable me to flex with the changing context in which I live. My faith, because it is not rigid, does not crumble if one item becomes weak or questioned. This does not mean that there is no foundation to my faith. There is. Faith cannot be just anything I want it to be. I have an object of my faith—Jesus Christ the crucified and risen one. Other elements form the core of my faith as well. But there remains a lot of messiness to it—like a workshop in which a project is on-going. Sometime, at the end of the project, it will all come together into a beautiful finished work of art. But for now it’s messy—and I’m learning to be okay with that.

Solitude

I don't enjoy enough solitude. I realized this recently, prompted particularly by a passage in a book I am reading. I desire solitude, but I don't get enough of it.

In reading the passage I mentioned, I understood that solitude is more than simply having a "quiet time." It is more than spending time in prayer and in God's Book. The authors write:

"Solitude is being completely alone with God away from all human contact for extended periods of time."

Like most people, I find it hard to create such time. Live is full of work that needs to be done. It is full of people who need attention. There seems to be little opportunity and space to get away and be quiet with God. But in fact we can make such time if we choose to. I fill my spare time with noise and activity and distraction, robbing myself of the time I could spend with Him. How much of our modern culture focuses on filling the emptiness around us so that we don't have time to stop, reflect on our lives and listen to Him? We have TV, iPods, internet, and a seemingly endless list of other opportunities to entertain ourselves. I am not saying that we must entirely avoid these. They can serve very useful purposes in our lives. Sometimes even just relaxing and disengaging can be a useful activity. But if you are like me, these things can come to rob my time and energy from things that are more important. It is difficult to hear from God when my attention is being demanded by a myriad of things, most of them louder and flashier than the voice of God.

In addition to all the things we fill our lives with, solitude can be difficult to find because we share our living space with other people. Not everyone has the luxury of a large house with lots of rooms to which a person can escape and be alone. Few of us have a secluded mountain cabin where we can hold our own personal retreats. I live in a home with my wife, two children and a young woman who helps us with our kids' schooling. While we are by no means crowded, personal space is not easy to come by. I also live in a reasonably large city, so when I am outside I am most often surrounded by people. Can I find solitude in such a place? I know I can, but it will require intentional effort. I think of a friend of mine who regularly spends time in an East Asian country. In that city he is surrounded by millions of people, and yet from his blog I know that even there he manages to separate himself at times from the bustle around him and create his own little place of solitude. I can do that here as well. I can get up earlier, when our house is still quiet, and try to find solitude here in the home. Or I can walk down the street to a lovely botanical garden and spend some time there. But I must be intentional if this is going to happen.

Finally, solitude requires that I set aside my agenda. Instead of using these times of solitude to take my laundry list to God, I need to intentionally set those things aside--perhaps in the first minutes of solitude--and allow him to speak to me. That is very hard for me to do--to silence my mind and heart and listen. I am much more comfortable with talking and doing than sitting and listening.

The authors of this passage remind us that Jesus used such times of solitude regularly in order to stay close to his Father and to understand what the Father wanted of him. Jesus could easily have spent his entire day, every day, doing fruitful ministry. Perhaps some modern organizations and donors would fault him for not being more productive. After all, these times of solitude are not producing demonstrable results! But in fact they are essential to maintaining long-term vitality. And if that was true for Jesus, how much more true is it for me?

I am still thinking about how to make time for solitude. I certainly would like to take time each month. Ideally I'd like to do so even more frequently. I don't want indecision to keep me from moving ahead on this and I hope that sometime in the next week I will deliberately and intentionally step away for several hours and enjoy some real solitude.

Stewards of Mystery

My reading this morning came from 1 Cor. 4:1-5. Normally I read from the New Living Translation. After reading from that version as usual this morning I felt a desire to see how other translations handled these verses, because something about the NLT's translation left me curious how much they had interpreted in the process of translating. So I went to the English Standard Version, which is not one I commonly use but to which I find myself referring with increasing frequency. What I found was that in its effort to make sense of the passage, the NLT goes farther than I would in explaining it to the reader. One verse in particular caught my attention for today. In the NLT verse 1 reads:

"So look at Apollos and me as mere servants of Christ who have been put in charge of explaining God's secrets."

But in the ESV we read:

"This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God."

I can see how the NLT translators reached their version from what I read in the ESV, but I'm uncomfortable with the way they have handled it, particularly the final phrase. According the the NLT, Paul and Apollos (and arguably, by extension, contemporary preachers or teachers) have been put in charge of explaining God's secrets. I understand that to mean that when they have done their work, those who hear them will have understanding of things they don't currently understand. But the ESV's translation strikes me in a different way. If Paul and Apollos are stewards of the mysteries of God, it could mean that they are to protect these mysteries, to care for them well, to make sure they are not diminished or harmed or lost. To steward something does not inherently mean to explain it. In fact stewardship doesn't inherently have anything to do with explanation.

I wonder if the difference has to do with our Western Protestant inclination to unpack everything theological. We are uncomfortable with mystery. We struggle to write systematic theologies that account for all of God's nature and his work and we argue over issues like human freedom and divine sovereignty because we in our human minds can't reconcile the two. It is, in that sense, a mystery. If I take the NLT's translation here my job is to try to explain that mystery--to make it understandable and acceptable to our rational minds. But if I take the ESV's translation (at least my understanding of it), our job is simply to steward that mystery--to make sure that it is not lost or distorted (such as by emphasizing one aspect at the expense of another).

My thinking on this is likely affected by my current reading of Philip Yancey's book Reaching for the Invisible God. He writes:

"Over time, I have grown more comfortable with mystery rather than certainty. God does not twist arms and never forces us into a corner with faith in himself as the only exit. We can never present the Final Proof, to ourselves or to anyone else. We will always, with Pascal, see 'too much to deny and too little to be sure...'."

I for one am much more comfortable being a steward of the mysteries of God rather than feeling that I have to explain God's secrets, most of which I don't fully understand myself.

How to Use a Tax Return

This week I ticked an annual milestone off of my to-do list. My taxes are completed and filed, thanks in no small part to the help of one acquaintance who does the hard work for me (and in the process significantly reduces my stress levels. Thanks, Don!) This year we will be getting a return, which has prompted some thinking on my part. What should I do with this returned money? I've already tithed on it, so in one sense my conscience can be clear if I use it on our own needs and desires. I do know that I will use part of it to eliminate some debt that we accumulated due to some funding shortfalls last year. But what to do with the remainder of it?

Part of me feels that I should be a wise steward and set it aside for future needs. I already can foresee several expenses coming up this year that it might be helpful to have some money set aside for, not to mention those unplanned expenses that inevitably arise. Perhaps I should even put it into a longer-term account for retirement or long-term needs. That might be what a financial manager would tell me. These may both be very legitimate choices.

Or I could use the money to buy some things that would be nice for our family, things that we don't necessarily need but which we've been dreaming of. Would it be wrong to treat ourselves to something special? Or I could simply use it for something that would be helpful, but not essential, like replacing my 4-year-old computer.

Or what if we took this money and used it for something greater, something that would serve the purposes of God's kingdom? Some friends of ours are hosting an event on Facebook called The Barnabas Offering, encouraging people to give their tax returns to people serving God cross-culturally. I think that's a great idea. I know many such people who have really struggled recently with their funding decreasing due to the economic challenges in the US and globally. Or I could give it to an organization like Compassion or World Vision and help make a difference in the lives of poor families and children around the world. I could give it to families and individuals I know personally who face real financial need (not need induced by living beyond their means.) The reality is there are so many good possibilities that it's hard to choose.

It seems clear that the choice between spending it on unnecessary items for myself or my family or investing it in God's kingdom is a clear and easy one. But what about setting it aside as a wise steward for future needs? Is that a better choice than investing it now in real needs around the world? Part of me says that the wise steward should prepare for the future and, having some surplus now, I should set it aside for the future. But does this demonstrate a lack of faith in God's ability and willingness to supply my future needs? By doing this am I saying that I'd better take care of myself because I don't know if God will do it?

The truth is I don't know what the future holds. Maybe I would put this money in the bank only to see the bank fail and my money be lost (well, there's FDIC and all that, so theoretically I wouldn't lose it) or I could invest it, but then the investment might lose value rather than gain it. It seems secure to set it aside for the future, but that security is in fact very elusive and fragile. I might invest it for my retirement only to find that I never reach that age due to Christ's return or His calling me home sooner.

As we draw near to the Lenten season, this question weighs quite strongly on my mind. What would Jesus have me do? How would he have me use this resource? While I am waiting for the IRS to process my return, I'm going to be praying about this and asking Him to direct me and give me clarity and wisdom. And I'd be glad to hear your thoughts as well.

Being Wealthy

I have never really considered myself to be wealthy. By American standards, I'm not particularly so. I admit that I'm also not truly poor. I have food on my table consistently and can replace my old clothes with new ones as needed. But I also don't have ability or the means to spend money freely on unnecessary things. I don't remodel my home because I'm tired of the old style and I don't have to have the latest techno gadget. Nor could I afford it even if I wanted it.

On Sunday our home group was discussing 1 Timothy 6:6-11 and 17-19. Someone commented that most of us tend to read these verses and think of others whom we know, people whom we considered to be really wealthy. These verses are directed at those people, not at us. Most of us, at least Americans, don't really think of ourselves as wealthy. We're just average people, just getting by, right? I would include myself in that category. As I said, I don't consider myself wealthy.

But the truth is that we need to read these verses with ourselves in mind, for we are the wealthy of the earth. If you are reading this blog, it means you have access to the internet, which already puts you among the elite of the globe. (Yes, I realize that internet access is rapidly expanding, but it still remains a luxury of those who have some measure of wealth in order to afford that access.) We Americans, along with all other Western and economically-advanced nations, are wealthy, even those of us who don't think we are. So when we read a verse that says "Teach those who are rich in this world not to be proud..." we need to think first and foremost of ourselves.

"But," you may protest, "I'm really not that wealthy." Compared to the majority of the world's people you are. I have friends around the world who struggle to get by on $200-300 a month and consider themselves fortunate if they can make that much. For the math challenged, that comes to $2400-3600 ANNUALLY. Most Americans make more than that in a month. Admittedly the cost of living differs from one place to another, but I can assure you that it is tough to live on $200 a month anywhere. And there are certainly people making much less than that--a lot of them. (For lots of details on this, check out this website.)

So stop and think about what Paul writes to Timothy and then think about your own use of the wealth God has given you. Ultimately we are accountable to him for the wealth he has given us. I for one want to strive increasingly to live according to Paul's admonition in verse 18, that I would use my money to do good, to be generous to those in need and to readily share with others. I want to stop trying to excuse myself on the basis that "I'm not wealthy" because, in fact, I really am.

Reflections on Philippians 2:4

I've been reading through Philippians the last couple months, taking it slowly so that I can reflect on each section. The past week I've been meditating on the first few verses of chapter two. I came to verse four, which in the NLT reads: "Don't think only about your own affairs, but be interested in others, too, and what they are doing." This verse prompted a lot of thinking.

First of all it challenged me to examine my own behavior. Do I think about the needs of those around me? Do I consider what is happening in their lives and how I might show the love of God through some act of service or a well-spoken word? Although I see progress in this area, I have to admit that I still have a long way to go in this area. I all-too-easily focus on my own affairs and get caught up in my own agenda. In doing so I miss opportunities to serve those around me. I miss hearing God's voice directing me to pay attention to the needs of others. So for me the challenge is to learn to actively look at the lives of those around me and to take concern for their needs and affairs, as this verse exhorts us.

Reflecting further though, I began to wonder whether there are any limits on this exhortation. Should we be interested in the affairs of everyone around us? Do we need to be responding to every need that presents itself or that we are aware of? This seems to me to be an unrealistic expectation. I know of people who say yes to nearly every request made of them, for various reasons. These people, while well-intentioned, often end up being overwhelmed, frazzled and eventually burned out. That doesn't strike me as a healthy lifestyle either and while it may seem spiritually commendable, it isn't sustainable.

So what does God ask of us? He obviously wants us to think of the needs of others as well as our own needs. He wants us to respond in love to the needs of those around us. My present understanding of this recognizes that we must use spiritual wisdom to know where the boundaries are. While being aware of and concerned for the needs of others, it may not always be that I am the one God would have meet those needs. Just because something is a good thing to do doesn't mean that I'm the one that should do it. On the other hand I obviously cannot and should not be self-absorbed, spending all my time, energy and other resources only on myself. To discern how God wants me to respond to a given situation, I need to be in communication with him. I also need to be aware of what is happening in the lives of those around me. If I am not paying attention, I may miss an opportunity where God wants to use me. If I am not walking closely with God, I will not hear his voice directing me. Both elements are necessary. If both are in place, then I can live consistently with God's desire that I look out both for my own needs and those of others.