Location: The apartment in Beijing, China (about 9:30pm on the 20th of February)
Again, no pictures--sorry (I'll try to add some later)!
So you have not heard from me, but I am still alive and enjoying Beijing. As you can imagine, I have a lot to say, but it is more than you want to read. To summarize, it will not surprise you that I cannot stay alone for long in a city of so many people. I made some friends and spent some time with them, and we even got to talk about Jesus. I have returned to the enormous grounds of the Summer Palace three times now; I like it there. And as I was seeking some solitude the first day, I found an island (the lake around it has been drained for the winter) that had a beat-up pavillion on it in the sun, and no other person there. Perfect for a prayerful guy like me on a breezy day! But my theory was right--you cannot be alone for long in such a crowded city. It was not long before a high-school boy came directly to my paradise and asked if he could sit down. I said "yes," and since I was reading about Jesus feeding the 5,000, I told him the story and our friendship began. While I was talking to him, others thought our spot looked nice, and I made more friends. The next day, not far from there, a similar meeting took place. Each morning I ask God to lead me in His plans so that I meet with the people He has waiting for me. See for yourself...God answers prayer!
Not only have I made some new friends and learned a few words in Chinese, but I have had the privilege of giving away two Bibles. God is doing great things in China, and I believe that soon more and more of the local people while realize it!
So I boast in the LORD, because it appears as though He is using me again. However, it is not as easy as it sounds. The first step in this is being humbled. For example, as an obvious foreigner who does not speak the language, it is hard not to get ripped off occasionally. I got ripped off by a street vendor a few days ago, which reminded me of my brother and I getting really suckered in "birdseed sales" a few days prior.
Those of you familiar with China may know that one of the many foods you can buy off the back of a tricycle is what my family affectionately refers to as "birdseed." It is a humongous block of grain and seeds and raisins gummed together by something sticky that makes it like a gigantic cereal bar, cut by a meat cleaver and sold by the kilo. You can already picture my brother and I ordering a small bit and getting way overcharged, but sometimes there is not much you can do about it, especially without knowing the language, and even more especially as a Christian. So that day, we walked away with a colossal bit of snack-brick, having paid way too much but eating our losses and nursing our pride.
My dad has taught me many things, but one I will never forget is his proverb, "Sometimes you eat the bear; sometimes the bear eats you!" We got eaten that day, but fortunately, I like the stuff. (Even if I did not, I would choose to like it, because we paid a lot and walked away with a lot!) However, it was hexed from the beginning.
You see, I knew it would be the perfect snack food for sightseeing, because it was fairly healthy, substantial, and packable. Yet I managed to forget to take it with me a several days in a row, which meant that I would nibble on it back home at night, hoping to remember it the next day. Last night, I came down with a migraine, and did not eat much of a real dinner. To supplement my snacking, I broke off a bit of birdseed, but heard a bit more crunch than usual.
You guessed it! It was not my night, and I went from headache to chipped tooth (so far it has not been anything serious, thanks be to God). Frustrated, I wrapped up my snack for today's adventures, setting it on the table to remember it. It still had the top left, which was the best part (with decorative dried apricots)--saved for last. And this morning, I was working here and getting ready to go, having remembered that I wanted to take my snack, but alas! Yes, housekeeping came in while I was here. I pretended not to care while they cleaned around me, though I already told you I am not comfortable being so royally spoiled. Yet I noticed too late...
The lady stopped dusting the table long enough to pick up my chunk of roughage in its sack, looked at it only long enough to decide it was garbage, and trashed it before I could say anything in any language! Why would you think that food on a dining room table is trash? It was not meant to be, I guess!
But it gets worse. I tried to get to a certain place today, and I talked to the receptionist downstairs to get directions, even though I thought I knew a way. She told me that her way was better, wrote some things in Chinese for me, and sent me on my way. I successfully navigated the metro and the bus, but then the guy I asked on the bus was so helpful that he led me to the wrong place! I love the Chinese people I have met and seen--they really go out of their way to be helpful! However, a downside is that sometimes they are equally "helpful" when they do not understand what you want, and so they help you a lot, in the wrong direction! Then you end up at the wrong place or with the wrong item.
So after spending a long day in the smog, I decided to treat myself to dinner. (And yes, by the way, it is still common to hear fireworks being set off for last week's New Year...) I stopped into a Chinese-only-speaking restaurant and pointed to pictures on the menu. Of course, what looked like a dish of some sort of noddles and sauce turned out to be a large quantity of mushroom soup, filled with Noah's Ark's version of every kind of fungi known to man! Or in my case, not known to man! To go with it, I ordered what turned out to be a basket of sweet roles filled with tasteless cheese. To make matters worse, my soup was set on a burner on the table, and I could not extinguish the flame, and it was too hot to eat! Eventually I figured out a system (notice it was a system, surely not the right system), and I polished off the fungus and the buns, leaving a little broth in the pot and a lot on the tablecloth!
As I looked at myself in the elevator mirror on the way back up to the apartment, having been greeted and bowed to as doors were opened for me and my hands full of groceries, I chuckled and thought, I look like a middle-aged man with a boring life...
Do you ever wonder how God leads a guy like me all over the world and even manages to use him sometimes for His glory? I do!
So with a stomach stuffed with fungus, nostrils caked with smog, and a tooth chipped by trashed birdseed, I send you greetings from China. I also encourage you to live fearlessly today, because the bear ate me, and I am sure his appetite cannot be big enough for you, too!
I hope you can hear my tone. Yes, a lot of rotten stuff happened, but it was a good day, and I am smiling. The bear ate me, but God has the final victory, and I boast in Him! Even if it was not what I was expecting, I thank Him for the fungus in my stomach, the air in my lungs, the now healthy nostrils, and the food that chipped my tooth. I know too many people who do not have food or health to be thankful for, so I will thank my LORD in every circumstance! I bless you in His Name, the Name of Jesus!
This blog is your opportunity to travel with me wherever I am in the world, during both the mundane and exciting moments of life that I humbly recognize as holy. As I bare my life to you, may your reading take you beyond my words to the Word, beyond my life to the Life, beyond the chaos to the Truth, and beyond teachings to the Teacher--the Rabboni. I promise it will be an adventure, and by the end, may you, too, truly know the Way!
A Rose From Home
My Story (As prepared for my church congregation this spring--2009)
I have a story to tell you. I am the main character, but the story is not about me. I have traveled several parts of the world, but my adventure has been closer to home. I am twenty-six years old. My story begins like many of yours…
I grew up going to church. I had been born into a family who labeled themselves “Christian,” in a country that labels itself “Christian.” Every Sunday found me attending a worship service and Sunday school in a mainline denomination church. I served as an acolyte, attended Vacation Bible School, helped my dad count and record the offering money, sang in the youth choir, was a leader in the youth group, and occasionally served as liturgist. Baptized as an infant, I was confirmed at the age of twelve, thus becoming an “official” member of the church. Then, hurt by the church, my family left to find another.
Have you ever been hurt by the Church?
After months of searching, we settled into a very large independent church. Things were different there, and I was quickly welcomed and at home among new friends that truly had a passion for Jesus. The Word of God was taught boldly from the pulpit, and I was introduced to a missions-aware lifestyle. So it was with regret that I said goodbye only a couple of years later to move with my family to another church. I purposely remained aloof, not wanting to make new friendships before I left for college a year later. Besides, I was loosing my faith—or so I thought—and I didn’t want anyone to know. I was asking scary questions like “Is there really a God?” and, if so, “Is He the Christian God?” and “Would I be Christian if I had been born in another part of the world?”
Have you ever asked yourself unsettling questions about what you believe?
So I headed into college under a cloud of confusion that only worsened for the next two years. Though I didn’t know what I believed anymore, I continued to go to church every Sunday, and to help lead worship in chapel. Most importantly, even during this questioning, I continued my morning habit of daily study of the Bible. I had begun at age twelve, reading at first a chapter per day, then ten minutes each morning, then an half-hour, and so on. So, only by the grace of the very God I doubted, I remained anchored in His Word and in His community, though I felt like a fake most of the time. Since then I have learned that “fake” is the worst insult the world can give us; that is why the label of “hypocrite” is so offensive.
Have you ever felt like a fake?
Six weeks with missionaries in South Africa followed by a year in France began to teach me what life with God is all about. I began rebuilding my faith, this time it belonged to me, in contrast to me borrowing the faith of my parents, church, or anyone else. In my parent’s basement in 2003, on either Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve, I invited Jesus to live in me; perhaps I had done so before, but I didn’t recall—but since 2003, I have never forgotten that moment. Unfortunately, nothing changed. I continued to do my best to act like a Christian, as I had done for so long.
Have you ever found yourself “doing your best” to be a good person, or to act like a Christian?
Though I did not realize it at the time, I was quenching the Spirit, even though I had welcomed Him into my life. During the next few years, the LORD continued to nurture me, and slowly things began to change. Several tough months in Idaho birthed my prayer-life. I spent three years being humbled in a job that was my informal seminary training. In 2007, a short stint in Mexico helped me to see things as they were, and not long afterward, I was baptized by immersion. No baptism of any kind can save a lost soul—only Jesus can do that. However, this baptism was an important covenant between me and God, symbolizing not only my death and resurrection with Jesus and my public profession of faith, but it also my life change, the beginning of my bearing fruit. “For each tree is known by its own fruit…”according to Luke 6:44. During the past year and a half, the LORD has provided me with an informal pastoral internship in my church, teaching me every aspect of discipleship. Simultaneously, I have been studying unceasing prayer and worship. I am now very different than I was five years ago.
In the Book of Acts (which tells the story of the earliest years of the Church) every time a person decided to follow Christ, two things took place—though not always in the same order. Each person experienced a life change, which I call the “baptism of repentance,” as well as the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which I call the “baptism of the Spirit.” Looking back, I realize that the Holy Spirit was living in me in 2003, but it wasn’t until I surrendered everything to God, as represented by my immersion, that I allowed the Spirit to have His way in me and transform my life. “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now life in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. (Galatians 2:20)”
Have you invited Jesus to live in you? Have you allowed the Spirit to transform your life?
I tell you this story for two reasons. First, I tell this story in order to boast in the LORD! May God our Father get all praise and glory forever! Second, I tell this story because it is relevant to you. Likely you have heard that I am leaving the country: I have let my light shine before you; please let your light shine within the Church, too! This congregation is in revival, and as each of you allows the Spirit to revive you, the entire Church will be revived and utterly transformed, to the glory of the Most High God. And for His glory is the reason He created us; the reason He sent His only Son to reveal Himself to us; the reason He became Sin for us and died for us on the cross—while we were still sinners; and the reason that He conquered death and offered us eternal life with Him.
It will cost you a lot—in fact, it will cost you everything, your very life. But if you have never surrendered your life to Christ Jesus, if you have never invited Him to send His Spirit into you and to transform your life, then do it right now. Just let go of everything to which you are desperately clinging; stop trying to do it yourself! This is the very reason you are still breathing in this physical life—God has been delaying His judgment of this sinful world because He is waiting for you—2 Peter 3:9 says He wants none to perish!
If you have already invited the Spirit into your life, then live like it! Bear fruit! Anyone and everyone who meets you or knows you or sees you or hears you should know immediately and clearly that Jesus the Christ lives in you and loves them! That is how stark the contrast should be between your life and the world around you!
Have you immersed yourself in God’s Word and in prayer in the last twenty-four hours?
If you call yourself a follower of Christ, then there is no excuse for not communing with Him daily! Anchor yourself in the Word! God has revealed Himself to us through His Son, Jesus Christ, and the Bible is a complete and accurate record of that revelation. And prayer is humbly letting Him love us. Let Him love you! God doesn’t need us, but He wants us! God doesn’t need us to live for Him—He wants to live in and through us! Let us love and fellowship with one another, even when you disagree! Pray for each other—the names in the church directory are a great place to start! Church, we are not only the Body of Christ, but we are the Bride of Christ. We have allowed ourselves to get bedraggled and stained—now let us stand to the glory of God! Let’s let Him purify us, restore us, and love us!
My dear Brothers and Sisters, if you have ever once been blessed by God our Father at work in me, then I urge you, please, take seriously His desire to love and work in you, beyond anything you can ask or imagine! I have told you the beginning of my story—may it end in glory to the Father, in the Name of Jesus, by way of His Spirit.
Now, what is your story?