Hey Folks, I still need $2500 by June 15th to continue on the race. Please prayerfully consider giving. That said, this blog is not a call to give. It is simply the outpour of my ever-changing heart. Please read, comment, and share.
My Life: The Tragedy
[A Beautiful Exchange]
Since launching with the World Race in January, I have found it difficult to share my thoughts and experiences since being on the field. I have a hard enough time putting my experiences into words to my team or family, let alone pen said experiences into a blog for friends and strangers to read.
I have seen poverty and suffering which are exceedingly more affecting than can be conveyed in pictures or words. I have witnessed brokenness and abandonment exchanged for redemption and fellowship. I have had every expectation of my life shattered and watched as God chose to pick up the pieces. I have witnessed hate exchanged for love, slavery for freedom, sin for sanctification, fear for hope, and existence for life.
and then I realized…
this all happened WITHOUT me.
There is a Greek word, anagnorisis, which perfectly describes my situation. It is a word rarely remembered and almost never used outside of literary theory (again, who knew my degree would be useful). Anagnorisis refers to the moment in the plot of a tragedy in which the protagonist is made aware of his or her true identity–where he or she discovers the true nature of his or her situation.
So why the english lesson? Because I am the protagonist, and my life was a tragedy. I am tempted to share my full testimony with you, because in honesty there is healing. In honesty there is redemption. Yet, in order to avoid a master’s level dissertation of my failures I shall simply say that before January 4th 2014 I was living for only myself.
I exchanged truth for convenience.
I exchanged value for compromise.
I exchanged love for lust.
I exchanged rest for a buzz.
I exchanged hard work for ill-gotten gain.
I exchanged purpose for self-service.
I exchanged growth for pride.
I exchanged fulfillment for emptiness.
I exchanged life for a cheap imitation.
So where is the hope in such despair? Make no mistake, these revelations did not come easy, and they were not of myself. So then, how did it happen?
As I walked into the small airport in Kathmandu to take a private chartered flight to Mt. Everest (a gift provided by my loving parents), I watched as a red sun rose slowly above the fog slightly before 6AM. My heart quickened with anticipation to check off a bucket list item that had remained perched upon the top since childhood.
As I boarded the plane and sat in a worn leather seat, I looked out the window as the plane’s steel propellors chortled and sputtered to life. Then with a roar we raced down the tarmac and into the chill thin air of the Himalayan mountains. High above the clouds stood snowcapped walls of granite reaching into the sky. The sun broke through the pillow of white and bathed the horizon in warm red and orange hues, and in the distance I saw it: Mt. Everest — the roof of the world.
The summit sat high in the air, betwixt the monolithic Annapurna range, though, it reached alone–insurmountably majestic and beautiful.
I viewed from the cockpit a moment so equally real and surreal I knew not how to process it. I had seen the mountain, the representation of all I thought I could never accomplish. I had left my life to failure and ruin, and yet as the plane turned back to Kathmandu and Mt. Everest faded into the horizon I sat in my seat a different man.
Why was I so emotionally responding to the effectuation of a life’s dream? Because in that moment, God spoke. He said “Look where I have taken you in your faithfulness. Say yes, and I will show you the world. Your failure is gone. Your past is gone. Your sin is no more. In me, you are complete.” Oswald Chambers writes:
“What our Lord wants us to present to him is not goodness, nor honesty, nor endeavor, but real solid sin; that is all he can take from us. And what does he give in exchange for our sin? Real, solid righteousness.”
So since I said yes to God and no to myself what has He done?
He exchanged convenience for the Truth
He exchanged compromises for value.
He exchanged lust for love
He exchanged addiction for rest.
He exchanged self-service for purpose
He exchanged pride for growth
He exchanged arrogance for wisdom
He exchanged emptiness for fulfillment
He exchanged existence for life.
He exchanged slavery for sonship
and sin for sanctification.
So in spite of myself, God chose in his benevolence to call me a son, an heir to the inheritance of Christ, and all I had to do was say yes.
