It's been interesting being in Puerto Rico the past few days. It's pretty much like being back in the states to be honest. There are freeways with actual vehicles instead of crowded dirt roads filled with tuk tuks and motorbikes. You can drink the tap water and not die. Many people speak English so you can order what you want to eat instead of pointing and giving hand motions. Dogs are on leashes or caged up and not roaming the streets everywhere you go. There are sidewalks. You can flush the toilet paper. Hot water actually comes out of showers. There is electricity 24/7 so you don't have to rush and charge your electronics. Water is in bottles and not plastic bags. You dont have to guess what kind of meat you're eating. It's just the little things that make a difference.
I'll be home soon, and that reality is really weird. I honestly forget sometimes what life was like when I wasn't on the race. What did I do all day? I've been waking up everyday ready to love and serve people, ready to hear what's on God's heart for the day, ready to help out a brother in sister in some way, ready to encounter poverty and have conversations in broken English. I've been waking up everyday for 10 months ready to walk out my faith.. and that does something to you after a while. You start to look a little more like Jesus, and that's the good news. So as I've been experiencing and living this lifestyle for a while I've gained a few new perspectives on a few things. I'd love to share some of those with you guys.
Here is the first one:
1.) Joy is always possible.
The thing about joy that is tricky for so many people is that it isn’t just a switch that you can turn on and expect it to remain on until you turn it off. It’s actually a mindset, a lifestyle, a choice that is cultivated everyday in small mundane things. You actually have to get up and fight for it in hard situations because of it’s value. You will fight for anything that is valuable right? It’s the same with joy. If you wait for circumstances to determine your joy, you’ll be under a cloud of negativity most of your life. Even for the most optimistic people out there. We live in a culture that permits and even encourages complaining. I’ve realized these past 10 months that this life is hard. Most of the time our circumstances are hard and they open doors to complain. Serving cross culturally promotes a LOT of complaining.
Everyday there is something to grumble about. I think back to the times in Swaziland when the water would stop, or in Ethiopia when I would use random scraps of paper from outside as toilet paper, or in the Philippines when rats would so casually run over me as I was trying to sleep, or when my sleeping pad popped on the sharp springs and I slept on cardboard (that my good buddy Gio brought me from the dumpster outside when he found out my mattress popped) instead. Or the times where you just want to take a nice warm shower at the end of a long tiring day but instead have to go fetch freezing cold water from outside in a bucket. I also think about the injustices that permeate every country. Seeing kids roaming the streets for food daily, husbands brutally beating their wives as others look on, people walking around with broken legs and infected wounds but no way to be treated. It’s easy to see this world through the lens of hopelessness and negativity. Here is my point.. Joy is one of the most valuable pieces of treasure that Christ died for. He died so that we can put negativity to death and he rose so that we can pick up hope and joy instead. Joy is now a choice and it is cultivated by the power of the Spirit. It’s cultivated in the small things though. If I can’t rejoice in sleeping on cardboard after my mattress pops, how will I rejoice in the real trials and sufferings that God has promised will take place on this earth.
In any circumstance we’ve been given the power, with Christ inside of us, to choose heaven’s perspective and not adopt the perspective of current circumstances. We so deeply need to live with heaven’s perspective first or we will be devoured by discouragement. With the Holy Spirit now taking up residence in us, we are now enabled to determine the atmosphere, not the other way around. But how do we practically do that? As my squad mentor told me once….
We do that with a deep, deep sense of gratitude.
We simply thank God for what is around us and we begin to adopt heavens perspective and walk with the reality that we are deeply loved by the Father.
In Haiti I literally had to count on my fingers ten things that I was thankful for because I was having such a hard time. When I stopped doing that, discouragement took over. I learned that you have to fight to be thankful too.
If we can’t acknowledge Christ inside of us in any situation, we’ve lost touch with the most important reality ever. So when you enter into your dead work environment, or the negative atmosphere of your household, or when you see poverty and injustice, or have no bed and have to sleep on the floor outside with no bug spray (my Haiti experience), realize Christ inside of you, the hope of Glory. Remember the power of choice that His Spirit has given you to be the joy and hope that fills this earth. This world needs more than just optimistic and happy people.. It needs people who are anchored in the hope and power of God. It needs people of steadfast faith even in the face of the hardest situations. So in those times where you feel like complaining about your situations, your negative workplace, your dysfunctional family, your annoying team etc… I say this:
Determine your environment, don’t let it determine you. Be the hope in the place you want to see it most. With Christ ruling in your heart through faith, joy is always possible.
