Gospel proclamation will be foundational to any spiritually thriving group of worshippers. I am a firm believer of this. And while I would never force one particular method upon someone, I am a strong proponent of going from Creation to Christ. What a beautiful picture we have from the Father of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration, the perfect end to His perfect plan. This is a major goal of mine: to be able to present this story in Arabic. I want so badly for people to see the big picture of God's goodness, faithfulness, and eternal plan culminating in both, not either/or, mercy and justice.
So when I write that my greatest experience, to date, in North Africa was not built on the Creation to Cross story it might come as a surprise. At the very least, it shocked me like that electric fence I was in too much of a hurry to notice (true story). In lieu of using my usual story, I inadvertently stumbled into what I never considered an option: the Nietzsche to Christ model.
On a normal day, in a normal restaurant, under normal circumstances I sat waiting for my lunch. After sharing the usual small talk and joking around with friends, I had settled in at my small table on the second floor. And as was my custom, I began to read. And what book was I reading when my friend reappeared? None other than Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality.
Now why is it that I still expect God to do the expected? For some reason I simply refuse to believe that God does big things without consulting me first. Here I am always wanting him to stay true to my plans and provisions when His have been made long before. I smugly wait for him to use all my confounding theological and philosophical arguments, thinking for some reason that they've never been thrown down in an argument before. I suppose, at the very least, I expect him to give me a heads up before he does something that rocks my whole world.
But, of course, God waited for His moment. And His moment wasn't as I read Tolstoy with his winsome development and portrayal of the human character marked by its sundry deficiencies. It wasn't while I read Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov with its vast and deep panorama of redemption. Nor in the midst of Newbigin's treatise on applying the gospel to postmodernism did God open the door. He waited for Nietzsche, the guy who claimed He was dead! The anti-God, anti-Christianity, anti-metaphysical, even, philosopher who inadvertently contributed to the rise of Nazism.
"Hey! You're food's ready. What is that you're reading?" He approached me, surprisingly curious.
"Oh, its just a book on philosophy," I said indicating the book he now held in his hands investigating, "I was just doing some studying."
"What does this man say?" he asked.
Attempting to dismiss the conversation, I briefly explained some of Nietzsche's major points on how to evaluate and assign meaning to morality. "He is just talking a lot about how we can decide what is good and bad," I concluded, hoping to move away from the technical language that philosophy would inevitably entail.
And then he asked the question that marked the conversational turning point: "Don't you know what is good and bad?"
Still not fully realizing the opportunity presented to me, I quickly scanned the room. Finding that my friend and I were alone, I answered hesitantly, "Well, I know what God says is right and wrong through the Kitab M'qudus (Holy Book), but its good to read those who don't believe like me so I can understand how the world thinks. But I believe and trust the Kitab M'qudus. And you have the Qu'ran to tell this as well, right?" I watched him hoping for further interest, but expecting yet another verbal lashing about how there is no one but Muhammad and the Bible is ridiculous and changed and wrong and full of lies, etc, etc, etc.
"The Kitab M'qudus?," he answered slowly, then more directly, "Well there is the Qu'ran, but I have the New Testament."
My eyes did the talking for me, "WHAT!?" Any remnant of passivity and nonchalance dripped from my face as I turned pale. As though I had drifted off, I attempted to refix my gaze and restore my mouth from its gaping state. Any attempt to suppress this immense upheaval of emotion was met with miserable failure. Awkwardly, I turned my wide, beaming eyes to the floor, diminished an aggressive grin to a sort of half-smirk, and brought my voice down a pitch or two, "Did you say New Testament???"
He could barely contain his own smile at my total lack of inhibition, but resting his index finger on his pursed lips gave me a long ssssshhhhhhh. In a whisper, I reiterated, "Wait, did you just say New Testament?," fully expecting him at any moment to burst out laughing and start off on another joke.
But this would not be the case, his solemn confirmation was cold, clean water bringing refreshment to my long, arduous journey through the desert, "Yes, my wife and I both read and study the New Testament."
"BROTHER!," I whisper-yelled as my face erupted with all the emotion I was working so hard to maintain. My face showed everything from the mile-long smile of joy all the way across the spectrum to tear-filled eyes that couldn't explain to me from which emotional well they had sprung. I was totally perplexed with a wave of various and conflicting emotions.
With a deep, humble smile, he responded with a genuine, but emphatic "Yes."
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Losing Hope (Or, The Emergence of Grace Anew)
"Joy inexpressible and full of glory." What could renew joy, and with such vigor? What could spur the writer to glide over his page afresh as a newly inspired artist returns to the easel from a long hiatus? And yet, with words brimming over at the edge of release, what could render any attempt at clarity meaningless? What could indwell in me a true and beautiful, yea violent, desire to pursue prayer all the more fervently? To incline me to cry out for each individual with whom I cross paths? And reveal my complete unworthiness? My inadequacy? My own lack of faith? My own redemption, even?
Oh, amazing grace it is! Sweet to the taste. Never ending. All satisfying. Grace that is fresher and truer than simple words uttered at a dinner table. Wider and deeper and beyond any legitimate attempts at expression, the Father's wealth of goodness falls on a desperate people. Cold and clean and crisp, his river satisfies the entire man. Washes clean the entire man. Purifies and renews God's man. Grace for His people; grace which He has lavished upon us. And I, like the unworthy apostle John, can only express to you what I have seen and heard, what I myself have witnessed, experienced, even imbibed.
For 10 months I have lived in Africa, forced to a crawl under the weight of Islamic reign. With an iron fist, it rules the culture, the people, the speech, and, five times each day, the air. This darkness pervades and ruthlessly invades. A deep, cold darkness. Darkness that, at its peak, can impress upon its observer a quality of endlessness. Amidst night's stagnant climax, an impenetrable shadow smothers the land as a cloak, the faintest hint of light a seeming impossibility. A giant which bears over me, he gawks and mocks and laughs at my minuscule attempts to shine and uncover his face.
But the Light has come into the world. And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehends it not. Today I met a man who has stepped into this Light. No, I met him 10 months ago. For 10 months I have known this man. For 10 months I have talked with this man. Stopped by his work to see this man. Laughed and done business with this man. Fostered a friendship with this man. And yet this man, he was nothing more than another face to me.
One more small fish piddling in a sea of faces I had resigned myself to never seeing again after this life. People for whom I learned to have no hope. A people who taught me that God does not work. A people who have convinced me that darkness casts out the light as effortlessly as the police write up deportation papers. I was nearly convinced that darkness could effectively stomp out the light with the intimidation and torture tactics of the religious FBI.
The change has been slow and gradual, almost unnoticed by me. The enemy, he twists the truth. He hides from me the facts. He binds me, renders me useless. If only I could be set free! What can I do, I ask, to be set free? What can I change to be set free? What habits can I develop, patterns may I employ, what can I do, I ask? I seek to do, to change, to renew myself. But in one fell swoop, he has done it all. Apart from me, my plans, my strategies. He comes to me in grace. And with one utterly unexpected conversation, my world is once again turned on its head.
Finally I am not just talking about grace. For once, I am not limited to the cheap regurgitation of the phrases and teachings received from Sunday school, Theology 5100, or the latest John Piper sermon. This is not the grace that I have talked about. This grace has confronted me head-on. Grace that God reserves for the fiery trial. That bright and glorious fire that melts away everything displeasing. Grace He won't simply let me know about, no, grace I know, personally, in my own life, to a greater degree every day. It exudes from this smile I cannot wipe from my face, this joy I cannot contain, and these tears that I cannot explain. Tears that will not be held back. Tears that for 10 months were building to despair and hopelessness. But grace has come to me and my friend at just the right time. Grace is the air that I breathe. It is the sun that shines on me when I find myself lost again in the cold. It is the praise that comes to my lips when I am at my lowest low.
What has grace done for me? It has produced joy. Cultivated hope. Invigorated faith. Spurred love. Dealt with sin. Overcome the darkness. And come as the Overwhelming Conqueror.
No land is too dark, no people too hopeless for grace.
Oh, amazing grace it is! Sweet to the taste. Never ending. All satisfying. Grace that is fresher and truer than simple words uttered at a dinner table. Wider and deeper and beyond any legitimate attempts at expression, the Father's wealth of goodness falls on a desperate people. Cold and clean and crisp, his river satisfies the entire man. Washes clean the entire man. Purifies and renews God's man. Grace for His people; grace which He has lavished upon us. And I, like the unworthy apostle John, can only express to you what I have seen and heard, what I myself have witnessed, experienced, even imbibed.
For 10 months I have lived in Africa, forced to a crawl under the weight of Islamic reign. With an iron fist, it rules the culture, the people, the speech, and, five times each day, the air. This darkness pervades and ruthlessly invades. A deep, cold darkness. Darkness that, at its peak, can impress upon its observer a quality of endlessness. Amidst night's stagnant climax, an impenetrable shadow smothers the land as a cloak, the faintest hint of light a seeming impossibility. A giant which bears over me, he gawks and mocks and laughs at my minuscule attempts to shine and uncover his face.
But the Light has come into the world. And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehends it not. Today I met a man who has stepped into this Light. No, I met him 10 months ago. For 10 months I have known this man. For 10 months I have talked with this man. Stopped by his work to see this man. Laughed and done business with this man. Fostered a friendship with this man. And yet this man, he was nothing more than another face to me.
One more small fish piddling in a sea of faces I had resigned myself to never seeing again after this life. People for whom I learned to have no hope. A people who taught me that God does not work. A people who have convinced me that darkness casts out the light as effortlessly as the police write up deportation papers. I was nearly convinced that darkness could effectively stomp out the light with the intimidation and torture tactics of the religious FBI.
The change has been slow and gradual, almost unnoticed by me. The enemy, he twists the truth. He hides from me the facts. He binds me, renders me useless. If only I could be set free! What can I do, I ask, to be set free? What can I change to be set free? What habits can I develop, patterns may I employ, what can I do, I ask? I seek to do, to change, to renew myself. But in one fell swoop, he has done it all. Apart from me, my plans, my strategies. He comes to me in grace. And with one utterly unexpected conversation, my world is once again turned on its head.
Finally I am not just talking about grace. For once, I am not limited to the cheap regurgitation of the phrases and teachings received from Sunday school, Theology 5100, or the latest John Piper sermon. This is not the grace that I have talked about. This grace has confronted me head-on. Grace that God reserves for the fiery trial. That bright and glorious fire that melts away everything displeasing. Grace He won't simply let me know about, no, grace I know, personally, in my own life, to a greater degree every day. It exudes from this smile I cannot wipe from my face, this joy I cannot contain, and these tears that I cannot explain. Tears that will not be held back. Tears that for 10 months were building to despair and hopelessness. But grace has come to me and my friend at just the right time. Grace is the air that I breathe. It is the sun that shines on me when I find myself lost again in the cold. It is the praise that comes to my lips when I am at my lowest low.
What has grace done for me? It has produced joy. Cultivated hope. Invigorated faith. Spurred love. Dealt with sin. Overcome the darkness. And come as the Overwhelming Conqueror.
No land is too dark, no people too hopeless for grace.
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