I woke up in my bright orange North Face mummy sleeping bag to the sound of my iPad playing music beside me. My headphones had fallen out of my ears during the night, but when I rolled over this last time, I could vaguely hear Jon Forman’s “Instead of a Show” playing through the tiny blue skull candy speakers. I listen to him on shuffle-and-repeat when I sleep, sometimes. It was early Sunday morning, the apartment was very warm and stuffy, but I knew that it would be cold outside. I got up as quietly as I could, which honestly isn’t quiet at all on a sleeping pad, and got my shoes and shirt on. I grabbed my iPod and took my headphones out of my iPad, then moved carefully so as to not step on or disturb my teammates, who were sleeping on their sleeping pads and on the couches all around the room. I made it out the door, and this is the part where I made noise, a few people shuffled where they were, but I said sorry really quietly as I closed it behind me.
I walked down the four flights of stairs of the apartment building in Jemo 1, a residential district outside of the city of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and greeted some of the neighbors who were already awake, “Solomno, denenesh?” “Denene? Denenen.” They smiled and shook my hand.
The hymns of the Greek Orthodox Church resonated in the cold air, through and off the walls of the buildings and the streets between them. It was beautiful. More people greeted me, and I them. I had my iPod in my pocket, so I stuck my headphones in after we said our hellos because I realized I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone yet. I had a bunch of stuff on my mind. I walked down the street for a few blocks, then the thoughts came in like a heard of wildebeest being chased by hyenas.
I had the story of Jesus and the money changers in the temple filling up my head space, how He saw that the house of God, a house of worship, had been turned into a marketplace. I desired that my time of fellowship with anyone to be a time of growth in the Lord, laughter, and even reconciliation if need be (this last thought was prep work from the Holy Spirit for my day). I had these thoughts because I want time with others to be a reflection of God’s unchanging glory; not me trying to sell myself, or focused on the things that don’t matter. I thought about how beautiful my team is, and how truly real and honest they are. I thought about the fact that I’m not always real and honest with myself, how that hinders me in life, how I don’t go after what I want, and even to some degree I don’t know what I want. I have a lot of long-term stuff figured out, but occasionally, in the day to day, I have no idea what I’m searching for. Sometimes, like in this case, I am just a smoothie of emotions and desires. I say smoothie because I feel like I’ve gone through a blender.
It’s okay to not know what you want, and it’s okay to not be okay. God is teaching me that. but I still struggle with it. I want to be okay, and I want to have it all together, I just am not, and I just don’t. It’s in my heart to let go of pride and to be bold in my vulnerability; though I don’t exactly know what that looks like. I don’t want this to be a hang up in my life and in my walk with Christ and others.
9 But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)
I also thought about feedback, how I struggle with receiving it when it’s constructive. The justification nerve gets switched on in my head and all I want to do is stand in the right. Sometimes when I get feedback, people will speak of positive stuff, but when the stuff that’s hard to hear comes, I cling to the hard to hear, because I want to fix it, and I don’t want to believe I let people down,
(Thank God that mercy triumphs over judgment, thank God for grace.)
and I forget the encouragement.
(Father, teach me to have grace for myself, and teach me to recall the encouragement that I’ve received.)
Sometimes feedback isn’t true of you, but the right thing to do is receive it, in silence, without justifying yourself, because it’s God who justifies, not us. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ, so we’re good. You and I can lean into Jesus for everything. God is working something good into all situations, and you don’t want to miss what He is doing because you are self-consumed. We need to focus on Jesus in all situations, not ourselves.
Feedback is actually an act of love. People give it to you because they love you and they want to see you succeed. You can only see so much of yourself, and others can see your blind spots. I say this with a heavy heart because I haven’t received feedback well in the past, even recently. By not receiving it with teachability, I was denying the love of others and walking back into slavery. I’ve actually allowed the negative feedback to shape my self esteem, and that’s also slavery and captivity. I woke up thinking I had to redeem myself: slavery. Ultimately, the only opinion of you that matters is God’s opinion of you. The Enemy has us in a bind when we think we are not up to a standard set by another, some men and women will go their entire lives seeking to justify themselves, growing calloused and stern, never stepping into the freedom God offers. It sounds counterintuitive to not speak up in self defense when criticized or rebuked, but it’s freedom, it’s actually a gift, and a reflection of the character of Christ to do so.
Jesus never defended himself.
59 Now the chief priests and the whole council were seeking false testimony against Jesus that they might put him to death, 60 but they found none, though many false witnesses came forward. At last two came forward 61 and said, “This man said, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to rebuild it in three days.'” 62 And the high priest stood up and said, “Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?” 63 But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” Matthew 26:59-63
He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. Isaiah 53:7
To be silent when something does or doesn’t apply to you is actually an incredibly deep, pure, act of love. To relinquish the desire to have the final word is humbling, trust me I know. It also keeps you teachable. Being teachable is better than being cynical. Teachable people expect to learn something. Cynical people think they know everything.
” we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up. 2 If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. 3 But if anyone loves God, he is known by God. 1 Corinthians 8:1-3
1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. 3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. Romans 12:1-3.
I began my run and listened to random music- Blink 182, Paramore, Fallout Boy, owl city etc.(A little bit of Phil Collins and Billy Joel found their way in there, too, not exactly fast music, but they make me happy) When I run my head clears up, I feel better, I don’t think. As I was running, I appreciated and observed the community around me: people playing soccer in the street, young hosts and hostesses sweeping up broken glass and bottle caps at the bars from the night before, fathers and mothers walking hand in hand with their children, women hanging up laundry, puppies wrestling with each other.
I slowed down because a Heineken bottle cap got stuck in the soul of my shoe. Annoying, it’s not even a good beer. I pulled out my headphones for a moment to reach down and got the cap out of my shoe.
I came to an intersection, I stood at a crossroads. Remember, I was struggling with feedback, and the desire to be right, which meant in some form I was accusing other people of being wrong, blaming them for my mistakes, and projecting my weaknesses onto them. This is not a good place to be as a Christ follower. Something needed to happen to me to get my head on straight. A man approached me, very loudly, quickly, and aggressively.
He was literally screaming.
He introduced himself, shook and kissed my hand, and I shook and kissed his hand, because he put it in my face for me to do so, not out of my own choosing. He was very intoxicated, and very physical with me. His name: Yohannas. the Ethiopian version of my name. Once our introductions were out of the way, Yohannas looked at me square in the face and said, “The only person you have to blame is yourself,” as he poked me in the chest. This conversation and moment was an incredible gift from God, perfectly timed. It was as if God was jabbing me with his pointer finger, telling me to get my heart right. Here was a man, with very limited English ability, with the potential to say anything, telling me exactly what I needed to hear, with no understanding that I was struggling with that very issue. I’m pretty sure it was the gift of tongues. He pulled on my arm and continued speaking to me but I didn’t understand. I flicked the bottle cap into bushes as I said my goodbyes to this incredible, intoxicated Ethiopian man with my name.
I left that crossroads moving in a different direction.
A cup of coffee, a couple packed taxis through Addis, and a few hours later, I made it to church. The pastor was preaching about reconciliation. He said that the enemy of the ministry of reconciliation is the ministry of being right. You can be so right that you’re wrong. The cousin of the ministry of being right is the ministry of accusation. The more right you are, the more accusations follow. These ministries both have a common father: Satan. The name “Satan” means accuser, or adversary. Trust me when I say, your little petty, self justifying, accusing, right position will grow to defile many, because it is not of God. God builds up, Satan destroys. I may have been a morning madman for a moment, but I am a redeemed son of God for eternity.
I need to be real, I don’t want to hide this,
We have the Holy Spirit living inside us,
We have everything we need for a life victorious.
So why do so many things so easily divide us? We are called to be righteous,
Not right-ish,
And right now I feel like God is looking at a big pile of Ishmaels and not Isaacs.
Don’t let who you really are be decided by the enemy walling up your hope with brick.
Be open. Be open; don’t let yourself get closed up so quick.
Because just as much as you might have wanted to keep others out of it, you are trapped in it just as thick.
It makes me sick, feeling like a walking contradiction,
Knowing how that almost-conviction just never seems to stick.
Why does my anger well up so quick?
When I should be out there making amends
Since I’m a minister of reconciliation,
I just hurl sticks and stones at my friends,
I sense my own limitations.
Feeling like a reject all alone
Though with God, I’m never really on my own.
Feeling like the dividend,
The sum of some equation I was never meant to be in: Like a Daniel in a lion’s den.
Like my light is a fading, flickering filament.
Feeling like a has-been. But then
I’m conveniently overlooking all of my own sins, my own offenses,
Projecting on others my weaknesses, building all of these selfish defenses,
based on the foundation of two-faced pretenses with the illusion
that I’ve been running the greatest of distances,
But never really getting that far.
With the sensational count of insurmountable instances
of pride’s deception abounding around my heart.
Leaving me confounded and scarred. I say “I just don’t want to hear it”
Letting those barriers surrounding my spirit, get all calloused and hard.
“my stuff is mine, so I won’t let you near it”
Becomes a banner for witnesses and thieves alike in my front yard.
Here’s my heart, and I think I forgot to put up my guard.”
Please don’t wait another day. If you need to get right with someone go do it. Don’t let these things rot your bones. The longer you wait the harder your heart will be and the harder it will have to beat for you to beat the struggle. I’m changed, because God is making me more and more like Jesus every day. I pray for more moments like this where He reorients my heart to His, because He is all that matters in this life. There is none who can stand beside.
26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified. 31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
Romans 8:26-31
