Thailand, Cambodia and South Africa. Three places I wasn’t sure I’d ever get to see again. But here I am on a bus from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth. A fact that verifies in so many ways that I might make plans but it’s God that directs my steps.
On this particular bus, they are sharing the gospel through prayer and the movies they show – a rare and beautiful thing for the gang and drug ridden country of South Africa. On TV right now is a movie about Rich Mullins and the truth about his life and the pain and anger that filled it. He was a well known Christian musician and wrote “Our God is an awesome God.” What I didn’t know is that he was a hellion. He wrote songs about truth but he would get drunk to numb the pain of life when he wasn’t on stage. Sounds pretty hypocritical right? It’s real though. More real than people pretending they are always perfect. Why do we try so hard to maintain the image? Is it because we are so wrapped up in comparison and want to know that we’re okay; that we’re at least better than the person standing next to us?
Just because Rich Mullins sung on a stage doesn’t mean he automatically became perfect. The fact that David took another man’s wife for his own pleasure didn’t change God’s view of him as a man after His own heart. Just because I travel around sharing God’s love doesn’t mean I don’t follow lusts of my own.
A long bus ride is an impressively good place to think about life and God and all the complications of it. The complicated part I struggle to see is that it’s actually not that complicated at all. The ragamuffin guy on the movie suggested that the one question Jesus would ask us after we leave this place is, “Did you believe that I loved you?” That seems pretty uncomplicated to me. But how easy is it to really believe how much we are loved by Him when our concept of Him is narrowed to the humanistic view we keep Him locked within?
Much of my time in South Africa has been spent trying to understand things like God’s plan and why it plays out the way it does.
Two years ago, I was in Cape Town on my own World Race and I met a certain Muslim taxi driver. Some would say he’s sassy and rude but that’s not the person I know. I know him as the guy who often came to pick us up from ministry with ice cream in hand. The guy who would ask me to drive around with him so he could have someone to talk to. The guy who works hard so he can give his kids the world and the guy who tells me to only go where it’s “snowing” because he wants me to be safe. He and I have had hours of conversation about our beliefs and the difference between them. He is convinced they are so similar that they are basically the same. The thing is, I can’t force him to understand that Jesus and the sacrifice He made out of love for us on the cross, is the only thing that is able to bring irreversible freedom. It brings freedom because the only motive is love. Love is what makes the world go round because it’s who Jesus is and He and His Father made the world.
Two things that people have and will always fight for are love and freedom. They are two things we all crave.
Knowing this, I can’t understand why people choose to reject the love Christ has for us. The wild, bold and extravagant love only offered by Jesus, the Son of God. Throughout my travels, I’ve met so many people who hold on to different belief systems. There’s an incredibly selfless person I know in Spain who believes everything happens by chance, a man in Malaysia who believes everything is a god, and another in Asia who devotes herself in worship to a god made of stone.
In the frustration of knowing, feeling and living in freedom and love and not being able to make others understand and walk in the same thing, I think I’m beginning to understand just a taste of where God’s frustration and wrath comes from. He stands and offers a gift, His son, accompanied by an abundant, hope-filled life and so many people choose to let Him stand there as if He held a gift of no value. It’s crazy. I can’t help but think there is something I could be doing or saying differently that would help people accept the truth.
Maybe if I dare you. No one can turn down a good dare right?
In fact, just a few short months ago in Thailand, I willingly peed my pants in the middle of the street because of a dare. Four of us did. We got out of our taxi, put our packs on, looked at each other and peed. One of the weirdest things I’ve ever done.
So, maybe you and I are the same. Maybe you can’t turn down a dare either.
I dare you to trust that He loves you… just as you are, not as you should be. I dare you to ask yourself if you are really free. I dare you to choose to believe you are loved and that God is pursuing you, whether you realize it or not.
