Dot-Dot-Dot

Being committed to Christ is the re-orientation of an entire life.  It is not a Sunday commitment, a retirement plan, a hobby, or a part of a whole.  It is the whole.  It is everything.  There are deep parts of us that love the idea of such a makeover.  We get a sense of real rest.  Indeed, God planted this desire in us.  But, the idea of giving our entire life to anything is pretty scary and unfamiliar.  A life that is not devoted to me, but to someone else is about as foreign as would be rolling out a red carpet and a special entrance to board the least-sophisticated, lowest-mile, three-carry-on-bag travelers onto an airplane first.  Unheard of.  I mean, unless it’s opposite day.   

Jesus once encountered a man who, without being asked, said: “I will follow you Lord; but first let me go back and say goodby to my family.”  In response, Jesus said: “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”  (Luke 10:61-62)  Many of us, when presented with the Gospel would say, and have said,  “I will follow you Lord.”  It is quite easy to say.  We often then say, though, “but first let me . . .”  I know this “dot-dot-dot” very well.  I bet you do too.

I will follow you Lord, but first let me … see a clear sign that what your word says is true, that your promises will hold up.  Let me know that if I buy what you’re selling, it won’t, in the end, be for naught.  

I will follow you Lord, but first let me … grasp fully how the whole thing works.  There are so many books out there, I don’t know where to start.  The Bible is really thick and I don’t understand so much of it.  I want to understand every detail first so I can defend my decision if asked.

I will follow you Lord, but first let me … know that my friends and family will not think I’m weird, and will still accept me.  I want to be liked and admired and if I commit my life to you, I’m afraid I will lose friends.  My family won’t understand.  The people I’m trying to impress may find me less impressive.  

I will follow you Lord, but first let me … visualize what my life will look like if I do.  What are you really asking of me?  I know your Word says I must live like you did (1 John 2:6), but the way you lived seems a little uncomfortable to me.  You had no home.  Your people rejected you.  You were spit upon, crowned with thorns, beaten and laughed at.  Your path was constantly interrupted by those who lived unworthy lives, did bad things, and suffered from disgusting diseases.  You were nailed to a cross and killed.  I have plans, Lord.  This would get in the way, I think. 

I will follow you Lord, but first let me … explain to you that I’ve got things under control.  My finances are in order, my health is good, my family is thriving, I’m moving up in my job, and my golf game has really come a long way.  

 I will follow you Lord, but first let me … tell you that I can’t abide any more rules and instructions to follow.  Each year at work, I get an employee handbook and although for the most part these are pretty easy to follow, I have to remember and follow them.  There are speed limits, tax requirements, bills to pay.  If you add on another set of rules, I just don’t think I can do it.  I know the Ten Commandments and I have failed them over and over and over and over.  And I have tried really hard, but I keep getting tripped up, often by the same ones and there seems to be no end to the resulting frustration.

I will follow you Lord, but first let me … help you to understand that I can’t get ahead in this world if I am not fully devoted to getting ahead right now.  I know you said you were here and experienced the world, but I think it was different for you.  After all, you are God, and it just had to have been a little different.  I am climbing a ladder, you see, and there are people just at my heels.  If I stop, they will surpass me and I won’t get the promotion or the raise or the praise or the offer to speak.  Without those things, I will be nothing.

I will follow you Lord, but first let me … get a few things straightened out, you know, clean myself up a bit.  I still do some sinful things.  I’m just on the verge of overcoming them, I just need a little more time.  

I will follow you Lord and let me confess to you that

I see what you’ve done in my life, the times when there is just no other explanation for my deliverance but you; I look at my children and know that there is something more here than the effort I’m putting in.

I don’t know how it all works, but you have shown me enough for me to believe, and in fact, sometimes when I’m alone, I can actually feel you inside me.

Sometimes living just for me feels a little narrow and I get tired of myself and all the consuming and doing.  When I do things for others, it actually feels pretty good.

I’m a little tired of trying to keep up and often look for a place to be alone and sit still, you know, to just be.  The things I'm seeking happiness in don't seem like they're helping.  I just want more and more of them.

On the outside, there is much comfort, but to be honest, there is restlessness in me and some uncertainty about what this has all been about.

I’m not so sure I’m in control.  I look around and see things fall apart in other people’s lives and know that I’m next.  I know that my finances, as safe as I may try to keep them, are subject to things I just don’t control.  And recently, a friend was diagnosed with breast cancer.  But she was really successful and healthy.  My family has had some disputes lately and things are a little rocky when certain issues are raised.

I think I need some help.  I keep sinning and can’t seem to stop no matter how hard I try.  I think I might need some help to get it all straightened out.  And I have done some things that I would give anything to let go of and be forgiven of because they have become so heavy. 

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  (Matt 11:28-30)

No more dot-dot-dot.  

God Is Here

At church, our worship leader said, “God is here,” and I began to cry.   I repeated this phrase to myself.  God is here.  God is here.  I wiped the tears, feeling the deep truth of this suddenly and unexpectedly.

Then, as a body, we sang “Holy, holy, holy.” The tears continued.  I looked around, wondering if it was just me, so touched in this moment.  Those around me did their own adjusting to His presence.  Couples moved closer to one another.  A mother wrapped her arm around the teenage, rebellious son.  God is here. 

I listened to words about the kingdom of God and our lives within it and a rush of perspective moved through me, over and under and around.  What is real is that God is here.  

I walked in a daze to the bookstore to find a book that includes a map of where Jesus was teaching as described in Luke’s gospel.  My daughter and I read it together every night – one night she reads and the next I read.  But, we really need a map.  Where is the Sea of Galilee? Where is Capernaum?  And where are these places in relation to Bethlehem and Nazareth?  She asks me these things as we read and I just don’t know.  I find a book with maps and pictures, broken down by each book of the Bible.  At the beginning of the section on Luke, there is a map of the Sea of Galilee, Capernaum, Bethlehem, and Nazareth.  Tears formed in the backs of my eyes and my throat ached slightly as happened.  These are real places.  I ran my finger over the map, stunned.  God is here.  

I sat at a high table reading and waiting for my daughter to return from her weekend retreat with the junior-high ministry.  I watched people come and go, mostly in groups of two or three.  They held things – coffee, Bibles, journals, bags, purses, children, hands, tragedies, triumphs, hurts, healings.  They talked about the afternoon game and their favorite coffee flavor.  God is here.

My daughter’s purple suitcase sat sandwiched between two others with a little green tag with her name.  I pulled it out, “This one is mine.”  The yellow buses pulled up and kids poured out.  “Where is mine?”  I saw her small-group leader and searched the sea of faces for the one I knew so well, the one I saw take its first gasp of air.  And there was the face!  My breath caught in my throat and tears rushed in again.  I shouted her name over the noise and she turned, knowing my voice.  She smiled and ran to me.  I smelled her hair and felt her fingers and knew again.  God is here.  

On the way home, she told me of some verses in the Bible she had discovered.  She told me that she underlined them and read them during her “solo time.”   When I asked her which was most meaningful to her, she said it came from Matthew 6.  And from the back seat, she read it slowly as if for the first time:

Our Father in heaven,
may your name be kept holy.
May your Kingdom come soon.
May your will be done on earth,
as it is in heaven.
Give us today the food we need,
and forgive us our sins,
as we have forgiven those who
sin against us.
And don’t let us yield to
temptation,
but rescue us from the evil one.

God is here.  Yes, God is here.  

If It Is God Asking, What Else Can You Do?

In just over a month, I leave for Livingstone, Zambia to set up church on the side of the road for long-haul truck drivers who wait to cross the Zambezi River for up to six days because at the point that connects Zambia and Botswana, there is no bridge.  This is a crazy assignment.  I have met one long-haul trucker in my life.  I am a white woman mother lawyer writer from the Midwestern United States.   What sense does this make?  Not much.  And yet, I have no choice in the matter.  Really.   

See if it makes any more sense once you know the background:  In September 2010, I went with a team to Ndola and Lusaka, Zambia to teach pastors.  (If you want to read more about that, see entries 9/13-9/28 here: Trip)  While there, we had an opportunity to go to Livingstone, which is at the southern tip of Zambia, on the border of Zambia and Botswana.  (See Map)  

As we got close to the border, I noticed that there were between 50 and 60 long-haul trucks lined up on the side of the road.

When I asked about this, I was informed that there is no bridge across the Zambezi and so trucks line up and wait to get taken across on a ferry one truck at a time.  What?  Yes, these truckers wait 5-6 days on average to get across the River on this ferry: 

Something took root in me at that moment.  Why doesn’t someone build a bridge?  How much would it cost?  How many additional days are these truck drivers away from their families because they have to wait here?  Doesn’t the stuff they are hauling spoil?  Does it get to where it needs to go on time?  What happens at night when loneliness sets in for these truck drivers?  What about their families back home?  Can they survive for the weeks that these drivers are away?  How are the drivers spending their time as they sit and wait?  Are they eating?

I could not let this go.  And I began to see this little border crossing as a microcosm of what was wrong on a much broader scale – a lack of infrastructure was causing all kinds of social problems: a breakdown in the family, sexual promiscuity, loneliness, the spread of HIV/AIDS, hunger, and despair.  I wasn’t sure if I was right about this, but it is what I began to see.  For the rest of the trip, I talked to anyone and everyone who would listen about the fact that there was no bridge and what could be done, what was being done.  I prayed about it just about every day.  I learned that Zambian presidents had been promising to build a bridge across the Zambezi in Livingstone for 60 years.  And yet, in 2010, there was no bridge. 

Now, keep in mind that during my visit to Zambia, I also learned about HIV/AIDS projects that care for dying people and their families, orphans who cannot afford school uniforms to go to school, huge villages that have no access to clean water, and more.  These things started to feel to me like they had their cause in something else – like the absence of infrastructure, the absence of bridges.   

Just days after I got back to the U.S., I told a colleague of mine that I felt strongly that God was calling me to form a church on the side of the road for the truck drivers.  My colleague said: “Don’t do that.  Build the bridge.”  For months after that conversation, I researched bridges and what was being done to build a bridge.  Turns out that much is being done and it is a very complicated process because it involves the sign-off of three countries – Zambia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe.  The project will cost $100 million and all sorts of engineering, social, and economic studies have been done.  In fact, the proposed bridge looks amazing. 

So, a bridge will be built.  Problem solved, no more long waits, no more loneliness, hunger, despair, right?  That is not the sense I got.  A steel bridge, no matter how spectacular, will not relieve the loneliness and despair, the thirst of the soul.  Something even more fundamental is needed: the One who gives living water.  (John 4:10)  Otherwise, the thirst will return somewhere else, sometime else, with someone else.  (John 4:14)

And so, I will meet a team of Zambians there and we will set up on the side of the road, serve food, sing music, and preach the gospel to truck drivers in Zambia and Botswana.  This is the call, and I have no choice.  What a privilege!  Have I ever felt more purpose, more fulfilled, more loved?  As Dietrich Bonhoeffer explained the immediate response of Levi when Jesus called him to follow in Mark 2:14, when “the cause behind the immediate following of call by response is Jesus Christ himself,” we follow at once. (Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship at 57)  Or, as a close friend said to me as I described to him a feeling that this project seemed out there and that no one really understood why I was doing this: “If it is God asking, what else can you do?”  Indeed.