Aswe cross the 40-day mark until our return to the good ol’ U.S. Of A.
(which is CRAZY), I’ve come to a realization about coming home: I will
most likely be a little bit annoying for a while. Now, I’m sure God will
somehow use these fumbling lips to share some of the amazing stuff he
has done this year, but I think enough of me will come out to annoy you a
bit. So…sorry. Let me explain a bit.
During the last couple
weeks we’ve been joined here at our ministry in Romania by a couple
different youth groups from Texas. Overall I’ve really enjoyed our brief
time with them, talking about missions, life back in the states, the
question mark we call the future, and everything else, and just being
able to communicate with Americans, which is always a bit refreshing on
the race. However, it was in these conversations that this darkness of
my annoyance potential began to reveal itself.
You
see, not many people travel around the world for a year. Not many
people leave home for a year and live out of a backpack. Not many people
experience most of the things we’ve experienced on this trip. Now, in
these conversations, these facts tend to come up, in varying contexts.
There have been too many instances in hearing a statement from one of
these fresh-out-of-the-states Texans, most often an observation of the
different culture or some other difficulty or frustration, and my
knee-jerk reaction was to relish this opportunity for comparison.
A critique of the driving or road conditions here in Romania is greeted
by my references to the much worse dirt roads of Africa and reckless
drivers of Asia that we so valiantly endured. A side comment on the
unfamiliar Romanian pizza toppings is scoffed off in reference to our
white rice diets and our exaggerated near-starvation of Nepal. Clearly,
they can’t even approach our experiences, and I get to retain my
position securely above you.
I recall Bonhoeffer’s “Life Together,” where he considers the instance when “The disciples came to Jesus and asked, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?'” Bonhoeffer insisted that “no Christian community ever comes together without this argument appearing as a seed of discord.”
I see in these instances the same question dwelling in my heart,
aspiring for greatness before the Lord in comparison to my fellow
brothers and sisters and the rest of the world, and that same seed of
discord attempting to take root. There’s an ugliness within that wants His glory, by whatever means necessary.
“For
who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did
not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you
did not?”
I guess the solution is the same as those disciples coming before Jesus: “whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
I don’t know exactly what it’s going to take to cultivate this
humility, to embrace the reality that I am merely an undeserving and
ungrateful recipient. All I’ve experienced was by His leading, all I’ve endured was by His strength, all I’ve been given has been by His blessing.
None of it ought to be perverted as though it were my own, and to come
away from this trip considering myself greater before the Lord or any
man would be an utter perversion of grace, and a genuine waste of
anything this year was intended to be. I pray and stand in faith that it
won’t be so.
So…sorry in advance. I invite your honesty for my
annoyance…I clearly don’t need or deserve the glory it’s attempting
to garner. And you probably don’t really care about hearing about white
rice for the 37th time as much I didn’t like eating it the 37th time.
