The other day, I met a joyful, charismatic young man named Yao. He is 41 years old and has been in George Town (Penang) for 1 year. He is from a city in Malaysia just outside of Kuala Lumpur where he obtained his degree in mechanical engineering and started his own business upon graduation.
His small business began to flourish and expanded to the point where he was very wealthy. He drove a Porsche, belonged to a country club, lived in a big house, and traveled all around the world. By all accounts, he had everything.
Then, during the recession, his business began to flounder. One day while he was out for a walk, he was hit by a car and broke his hip & three bones in his back. Shortly thereafter, he discovered he had stomach cancer. Bankruptcy soon followed. He had lost everything.
He informed me that he owes the bank 2,000,000 Malaysian ringgit (or roughly $500,000 USD). Because of his health and cancer treatment, he has been unable to work. He is living without a home in Penang. He is currently undergoing weekly cancer treatment at the government hospital and still experiences severe residual back and knee pain, which explains the limp in his gait and his use of a cane. I met him at Kawan, which is a community center run by YWAM Penang that provides the homeless of Penang with a place to come for meals, fellowship and rest. This was Yao’s first time at Kawan.
Yao and I spent a couple hours chatting about various things: medicine, business, architecture, basketball (like me, he loves the NBA), but mainly about life. Much of my time was spent in deep fascination as I listened to Yao’s story and marveled at his wisdom, peace, joy, and outlook on life.
“It took me losing everything to really discover what life is all about. I thought life was about wealth. Life is not about wealth. I am so much happier now than I was when I was wealthy. Formerly, I was under so much stress, so much fear. I lived in fear of losing. Then I lost. When you have nothing to lose, there is nothing to fear.”
The way Yao viewed life was incredibly refreshing to hear – but also convicting. Here is a man, who in many ways fit the bill of what I aspire to. The dichotomy of my being lies in the fact that a significant portion of me is so driven by the aesthetic, by wealth, by power, by success – by driving a Porsche to the country club.
But a larger portion of me is driven by the innate desire to recklessly follow Jesus and let him lead our life. To live a life of abandonment and surrender. A life that means something at the end of it. A life in pursuit of rich relationships, rich experiences & ultimately rich intimacy with Jesus. A life that is not driven by the pursuit of positioning myself for “success”, but driven by the pursuit of de-positioning myself and letting Jesus lead.
“He must become greater, I must become less.” John 3:30
How often do I actually mean (let alone live out) the verse that I have permanently tattooed on my left forearm? Is my life defined by humility, generosity & trust? Or pride, consumption & control?
Matthew 10:39 reads, “If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it.”
Yao has solved the riddle to life. “I had to lose everything in life to find it.” His life defies logic.
Here is an extremely intelligent and successful man who literally lost everything. A man who went from driving a Porsche to the country club to using his walking cane to get to the homeless shelter.
And he is happier for it?
When viewed through the lens that the world gives us, some things don’t make sense. Kind of like Jesus.
