We sometimes don’t notice that we are lacking in heart when we have an overabundance.
Last month in Malawi, we faced the new challenge of missing things I view as an expectation in the United States.
At home, I expect a running tap with drinkable, clean water instead of carrying giant jugs of water home every week. I expect there to be electrical power all day without fault instead of power that is unreliable and could be off for over 24 hours. I expect to sit on an actual toilet instead of squat outside in an outhouse when using the restroom. I expect to have a shower that I simply turn the knob one way or the other for unlimited cold or hot water instead of using one bucket of cold water I carried from the water pump.
I expect to drive myself to a nearby store instead of 2 hours both ways in a squeezed public mini bus to get groceries so we have food to eat for our meals. I expect to sleep without a mosquito net because there’s rarely any insects when I sleep at home.
Janele Tating’s photo.
The little things, the ones I start viewing as a given disappeared last month. Without a choice, I was stripped of basic comforts. It’s different when you have the head knowledge that a country lives with spotty electrical power or relies on an unclean water pump versus experiencing it for yourself.
The givens are back but I’m not in America. In Zimbabwe, Africa our ministry is still a rural setting but we have been blessed with meals our ministry hosts provide for us and a flushing toilet for example. Honestly, when we first got here I was overwhelmed. There was a small fear rising that I would forget, that my mind would be scrubbed clean and would misplace the authenticity discovered in the raw and at times challenging living in Malawi.
I was tempted to indulge here in Zim.
I started to forget because suddenly I was gifted access to comforts. They began to be normalized again.
Instead of being overjoyed about it, I felt concern. I didn’t want to lose what Malawi gave in its lack but utter fullness at the same time. The more clutter we have, the more difficult it is to sift through the dirt to find the golden meaningfulness and simple humanity and connection.
It’s not that a toilet was clutter or like a million-dollar prize but the transition from Malawi to Zimbabwe emphasized the realization that we can drown and become deaf to life when we allow ourselves to be swallowed by our comforts. Or we only seek God in the small, insignificant things when we are forced to because they were pried out of our fingers.
I desire to choose to give over my personal comforts I see as expected and deserved due to the culture I grew up in. I want to choose to place them into God’s hands knowing I don’t have any more right to them than others.
I want to see the comforts and convenience closing in on me and choose to recognize that there’s a gift there. It – comfy mattress, abundant food, personal cars, swimming pools, money, etc – can separate me from a meaningful life if I choose to indulge in them and overlook the blessing they carry.
Refuse to see lacking as weakness or inferior. I’ve met people completely content and joyful without my or your givens. Their given is simply Christ.
