In India, I was visiting Travis's team at a specifically difficult contact. I am really proud if the team, because it was clear that they really developed a heart for the contact, but ministry was difficult for me. The contact did street evangelism with a little sound system, a lot of yelling, and a really violent, arguably abusive style of praying demons out of people. He said it was effective, but I'm not as convinced (not about the need for deliverance, but about the unloving methodology). Once, when I was praying for a man, the pastor came over and interrupted my prayer by grabbing the man by his hair and shaking him, while screaming at him. I was so angry; I had to step away and ask God for His peace. I knew that a revolt wasn't gonna be God's way of redeeming the situation, but I also knew that He wouldn't let things stay the same. I asked Him what to do, and He spoke to me. He reminded me that my job is to preach the Kingdom, to heal the sick, to set the captives free. So, when I was asked to preach a few blocks away, I smiled, knowing that God's goodness was about to transform the situation.We got to the street corner where they wanted me to preach and stood literally in front of a field. All day, we had been surrounded by houses, but here was a field. My faith was tested (as not one person was in sight), but I stood up and called through the microphone, "I HAVE GOOD NEWS! Come quickly if you can hear me!!" Immediately, out of her house at the other end of the field comes an old woman. She made a bee-line to us and stood patiently as I explained the love of God. When I was done, she excitedly explained that she had visited a church and told God that if He was real, she needed Him to send someone to her.Their contact told me that people don't get saved when they do ministry; "we just plant lots of seeds." That's not good enough!! I prayed for salvation. This woman got saved less than an hour later. I encouraged her to go back to the church where she first visited, and begin her walk with Jesus.Needless to say, my faith was electrified. I was ready to go! That night, we had cottage prayer, which was basically the same set up but with the sound system in the little cottage we were ministering in. The team asked if I would preach (they all preached almost once a day, so I was happy to oblige). I asked God what to teach them about, and He put the message of His Presence (from Exodus 33, read my last blog) on my heart. So I shared about how His presence defines us, empowers us, and calls us into intimacy. Nothing else. We enter in by grace, not by works, not by how early or how often we commit ourselves to praying, not by how loud our prayers are. Religion is demolished by His presence. The pastor screamed all the time. God told me to kneel in front of them and speak softly. At first, they didn't know what to do with it. But then God began to minister and I felt His gentle sweet presence come and move. God led me to teach them to soak at the end of the service. I played the song Where I Belong by IHOP, and encouraged them to just rest in the presence. I was sure it wouldn't work, but God is good, and rest filled that place. It was awesome.As I soaked in Him, He gave me two words of knowledge for healing. He told me that there was someone in the room with back pain and someone with leg pain. As I opened my eyes, I could tell that pastor wasn't really convinced of all this grace/rest/gentleness stuff. I had a moment of panic. There were like 8 people in the room. I can't share those words. There's no way. But He told me to go for it. So I announced what God put on my heart. A woman in the middle of the room frantically began waving her arm. She had back pain. Then I heard a commotion from outside; a man yelled and my translator told me that he had leg pain. He had been there the whole time, but was Hindu, so he had to stay outside (I know, I know). I asked the girls on the team to minister to the woman and me and KJ and Travis went outside. The man was healed! Then he went to get his wife, who was also healed of a sickness (fever, headaches, etc.) that had plagued her for several months. Then they brought their son out, who is studying and we got to bless his work and education. Then another man came up who had fever. He was healed too! All of these were Hindus. They all told me that they would come to church that Sunday. I walked back inside and found out that the woman's back was totally healed. There was a joy on her that made me want to cry. God showed up in that place. I glanced at pastor. He looked like he had some thinking to do.
It would have been so easy to write that ministry off, to disengage, to try to withdraw my apparent stamp of approval (by being there, it must look like I agree with the presentation, right?). All those temptations went through my mind, but God's ways are different. When I stopped to ask for His perspective and His gameplan, He showed up and gave me His focus. His focus looks not to the waves, but to our hearts, and He challenges us to respond by ignoring the waves of circumstance and looking into His eyes.
This story sets up what is the third shift Jesus has been walking me through. Great expectations. You see, I think it is easy to settle for less than His perspective. On the race, we learn to have no expectations from the people, ministries, and countries we encounter. No matter what the restaurant promises, or what the picture shows, having big expectations for your food will probably lead to disappointment. No matter when the pastor says he will get there, he will be late (unless he is super early, which is rare, but usually happens every now and then when you don't, well, expect it). Having no expectations is a safeguard against disappointment and offense. Frustration runs high when expectations aren't met, and so we train ourselves not to have them.
This is a really good strategy for interacting with people, especially cross-culturally, but when it spills over into our walk with God, it can be a really detrimental thing. A lot of people have a theology of lack, one that teaches them not to have expectations from God. It seems healthy, easy, and clean; when there are big expectations, there can be big disappointments. Shepherding people through disappointment with God is hard and messy; training them not to get disappointed keeps things simpler. So we teach that God doesn't heal (maybe we were just born into the wrong dispensation, or maybe He can do what He wants, being God, and just chooses not to do so often). Either position leads to the same thing: a Christian life that (while emphasizing character development, community, and church growth) ultimately robs the Gospel of its power, the power of Holy Spirit. On the race, we don't have a theology of lack: we preach that God has all power and wants to pour it out to demonstrate His love for the world. But, at least for me personally, as I trained myself not to expect too much from the transportation, food, accommodations and cultures around me, that began to bleed over into my community; I didn't want to put too much on them. So I began to isolate myself in my heart, and the trust that I hoped to build took a wrong turn. As this continued to develop, I began to do to The Lord what I had done to my community: I robbed Him of the chance to show me how great He is by expecting smallness from Him.
As I came through that week in India, God told me that smallness isn't good enough anymore. He has great plans for us, but lack (which I believe is rooted in fear and mistrust) keeps us from experiencing the fullness of Joy. "Give me the chance," He asked of me, "to show you how good I am." He wanted me to let His goodness pass before my eyes. I was excited. This excitement brought me into Thailand.
Thailand, manistry, was really wonderful. I loved the time I had with the other guys and I loved our contact. But towards the end of the month, I realized that I missed it. I missed the great expectations that Papa wanted to set before me. The schemes of the enemy, to distract and divide, kept us from walking in the fullness of community, ministry, and intimacy with Him. I felt that warfare brooding under the surface all month long, but didn't see how bad it was until the end. Let me paint you a picture.
We had pretty basic living conditions last month, and a lot of the time, we didn't have the water to bathe. There were also these diseased biting flies. About a week after we got there, I started getting infections. Just little skin infections, no big deal. It was happening to a lot of us. Cuts went from bad to worse though, and my friend joe was hospitalized. I thought I was okay, because I was medicating the cuts and keeping them covered. I even took a round of antibiotics that the doctor prescribed. Things were clearing up, but then this last week, over a month after the first infections started, my glands started swelling and it turned out that the infection reached my tonsils. I had a fever for several days and spent almost a whole day throwing up. All that from a little infection.
Song of Solomon 2:15 says "Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom." This last month was like that. God had big things, good things. We enjoyed a lot of them, but some little foxes, some small infections, slipped in unnoticed and took some of the best fruits. It was still one of my favorite months of the race, but I look back with regret, knowing that it could have been greater. And then I realize that settling for foxes and infections is a side effect of low expectations (and I become thankful for Daddy's heart to redeem and teach me from the good and bad things). When we know that God had greatness for us, but we don't fight for that greatness, we settle. Settling really suggests that we don't feel that the prize is worth the fight. But if we know how great the prize is and don't go for it, it must be that we feel either unworthy of the prize or too small to take on the giant in the way, setting low expectations of ourselves. I realize that when we focus on the waves, that smallness returns, and we must "look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God."
So here is where all that leads in my head: we try to protect ourselves by setting the bar low, but in the process we hurt ourselves and our relationships with others. We learn not to trust our community to help us carry our burdens, we learn not to expect God to move through us, and we learn not to expect Him to speak to us and have good gifts for us. All for the sake of safeguarding against disappointment. Its disappointing, huh? What if we are supposed to have high expectations? Not so much of African buses, Moldovan hostels and Indian clinics, but of God and the people surrounding us. What if we are meant to be vulnerable and hopeful all the time, hurt and disappointed some of the time, but amazed by His power and provision the rest of the time?
Do you love them more than God does? That question was posed to me a few nights ago at the Penang House of Prayer where a team from Bethel church in California was ministering. Am I more compassionate than God? Do I want to see them saved, healed, or set free more than Jesus does? The question is absurd, but how often is my mindset one of lack, and my prayer one that begs Him as though He doesn't care? You see, great expectations aren't just good for my personal walk with God. If I don't take risks for Him, I miss the opportunity to lay ahold of the Kingdom He is establishing here. I miss the chance to see someone saved, healed, delivered, or filled with love, joy, peace, and the rest.
When we first got to Malaysia, my friend Ashley spoke to the squad about risky living, and about how our Father never really wanted us to take the safe road. John Wimber used to say that faith is spelled R-I-S-K, and I couldn't agree more. But in order to take risks, there has to be an expectation that the risk is worth it. Take the activity of cliff jumping. No one jumps of a cliff without expectations; yes, it's a risk, but the expectation is that the rush is worth the risk and that there is water at the bottom. Will it be deep enough? What if I miss? Those are all risk factors, but there has to be an expectation of pleasure to make the risk worth it. It was for the joy set before Him that Jesus endured the cross. There was joy that made the pain endurable. I want to focus on the Father and what He is doing and saying so that I take the risks that are worth the reward. I want to go for it and really believe Him to do what He says He does. I want to expect Him to do do them through me. That's what made that day in India so incredible. I went out on a limb, I jumped off the cliff, but seeing His power and love minister to those beautiful people made it all worth it.
God has spoken to me a lot about Malaysia. I came to this country excited but scared. What if it didn't live up to the expectations I had for it. But then it hit me, that's the point; that is risky living, that is what this journey is all about. So maybe I will fall on my face or maybe I will fly, but I'm gonna believe God for bigger things this month than I did before, and I'm gonna see Him work in ways that I didn't think was possible. He is renewing my mind, He is drawing me closer, He is taking me deeper. I am believing again and I have great expectations for what He has up His sleeve.
