This will come off as abrasive, and pessimistic, and disillusioned, and heaven forbid condemning. But it's not.
Guys, we're useless. We're so useless.
I don't know what took me so long to realize it, and why nobody told me this before we left, or maybe they did and I just wasn't listening – but what are we doing here?? We're so useless.
And I don't mean useless in a self-pitying way; I mean it in a wake-yourself-up, this is my emboldened rallying cry for assessment and evaluation in an oddly liberating worshipful way. It's actually great.
We came here to do something, or at least to get away from something, and in the attempt we try to feel like we're helping, because somewhere we learned that being a Christian meant that people had to be impressed with you. And yet we walk around dirt roads with pity in our eyes and the shallowest slice of compassion in our hearts, an exceptional patience to meet peoples' glances and a quickness to greet people, as if our tolerance for dirty black babies past their limited vocabulary of "good morning how are you" is enough to qualify us as 'missionaries'. Like everything I'd ever thought about 'Africa', as if it was one neighborhood, and a poor sympathy-inspiring one at that, could be confirmed in a couple small grimy faces. And I don't know why it took me so long to realize, or maybe I just wanted to keep on pretending I was doing soooomething, but this. is. pointless.
How arrogant was I, to come to places and think they needed me. How foolish are we, that we think our momentary self-satisfation in our fleeting presence in a place we didn't know or care existed 10 minutes before, is enough to merit the phrase "God called me here". Why has it took me so long to call it like it is.
I, am selfish, extraoooordinarily selfish, and I don't have the first clue.
How stupid was I, to think that an 11 month program was the answer to all my problems let alone the whole world's?? How foolish am I, to leave every month with a pat on the back, arriving in the next place with hardly a clue where I am, thinking I'm in a position to give, let alone give something someone needs? How many questions went through my head, before the one I'm finally able to ask right now blew up my life – how can you, YOU, singularly made, uniquely gifted you, fill a gap that no one else can fill? And how could I have been so blind to the work the world actually requires, the solution and dedication and intentionality and love and care and brazen unpitying HONESTY this place actually needs, in my haste to just feel like I'm part of the solution, no matter what or who it costs?
I'm spinning in circles, and it's enough to make me up and go home, only excepting that I can't figure out where I am, and regardless, I know I'd feel just as useless there as well. But who are we, to throw 11 months at a problem and expect it to be enough to call it a day? Who am I, to think I'm a problem ever capable of being solved, let alone to think I can be the world's biggest solution? Who am I, to even think I merit being able to see the World as a problem?
And somehow, nothing makes sense, but everything has meaning. In the midst of my useless uselessness, the meaning of purpose is somehow not negated. I don't even like saying 'we need to be broken so God can use us', because it's too easy to skip right to the part of being used, rather than knowing we're useless. And I can't help thinking that everything Ive learned about my identity, would have been so much more usefull if I'd have known from the start how useless I truly am.
Don't go on the World Race – the whole point of it is to learn that you're completely useless, and then that anything's permissable, that the I AM WILL DO what He WILL DO. Any other purpose is a shortcut to something shallow, something incomplete. Know the Lord, more than you ever dreamed He was possible of being known. Look at your life, and look long and hard, and know, more than anything, how useless you are. And then look at your skills, your experiences and your passions, your struggles and your abilities and your culture and your advantages and your capacities, and ask yourself, what am I qualified to do, what am I in a position to love, how am I possibly able to contribute – in ways that other people, esPECially national people, are not able, or not currently willing, to do, love, or contribute. Then move somewhere, somewhere hard, somewhere you've never even heard of before. And live there for years, knowing the Lord, and coming to know others the way you have come to be Known. And the whole time have the mindset and sole purpose to work yourself out of a job, that someone who lives where you moved can fill the position you were needed to fill, or that better yet, the need will be satiated. And don't ever think there's an end date, that 11 months is all it takes. It will cost you everything. But it would have saved me an awful lot of time, if I had known back then what I do now.
I hesitate to write this blog, because I know the responses I'll get. "Danny, the Lord has you right where He wants you. You ARE making a difference in peoples' lives, even if you can't see it. Look how much you've grown and what He's taught you, don't doubt His plan." And I implore you now to please refrain from doing so. God's sovereignty and His purpose are things I know that I know better than just about anybody, and it's not in that vein that I need to learn more about them. Usefulness was never the point, at least not for us, at least not now. As I said at the beginning, this uselessness isn't a uselessness that has come in a burden of self-pity and frustration. Well, maybe frustration. But it has also brought with it a surprising amount of liberation, of clarity, and of joy. I feel things now, things that I've had such a hard time feeling for the last six months. I hear singing and my heart sings with a fire I'd almost forgotten could be real. And sitting outside venting to two of my best friends in the world, I was struck almost to tears at how beautiful some plain old green African hills can look, in the midst of all this beautiful uselessness.
Wake up, and let's figure this out. Effectiveness, accountability, sustainability – let's stop farting around, and actually start asking ourselves what's working and what isn't, what's useful and what isn't, what's the point and what isn't. And let's come to terms with how useless and broken and sinful we are, and let's know more than anything what that means, and let's not move from there until He moves us. The American church has SO much to learn about God, and about the world, and about missions, what it really truly will take. And I know it will be a long process to get us there, but I'd like to think we can start making progress, start learning what we should know before we leave rather than after. That we can stop abusing missions as a process to learn only a little more about ourselves, and start redefining missions as it was always meant to be defined, as it's still needing to be used.
Somehow in this uselessness comes celebration. There comes appreciation, and thanksgiving, and purpose, even more than I knew before, despite how little I know about that purpose. But I know that the Lord lets nothing go to waste, and I know He has big things to teach me, and I know that this is one of them. And I know, as with everything, that this lesson isn't just for me.
And I love it here, and I wouldn't change it, even now, knowing full well at the same time just how useless and meaningful it is.
Love,
Danny
