”…so that the people could not distinguish the sound of the shout of joy from the sound of the weeping of the people…”
… Ezra 3:13 …
I opened up my Bible to this verse on our second morning in Ongole. It accurately described the atmosphere of my own soul. Although I don’t think I’ll ever forget the moment my feet kissed the soil of India & the non-stop sensory overload that followed, I still found myself scrambling every single unoccupied moment to record everything permanently, sometimes in ink, but more often just in thought. I was finally in the place I’d dreamed of visiting for years. I was so happy. It felt so surreal…I spent a lot of initial time here deep in thought…bouncing back & forth from pondering the goodness of God to the reality of injustice & suffering, bouncing back & forth from the shouts of joy to the weeping. Meanwhile trying to embed every sight, smell & sound into my mind (the good & the bad). By 6 AM on the second day at our house, I was exhausted. Probably from the 16 hour plane ride & 8 hour bus ride, but also from the internal effort of trying to decipher my own feelings & refocus on my Lord. I needed to just stop. Stop grasping for the fleeting breeze & just live it. I needed to stop & sit & spend time with my Father, remembering why I came here in the first place.
I retreated to the rooftop to do nothing but breathe for a few minutes & then meditate on the thousand thoughts I intended to bring to Jesus. I asked Him to refine my vision of this strange land, & to give me His heart for this place & this people. I ended up being pretty wrecked for a moment or two.
I looked all around me, getting angry at the sleek condo for gloating over the slum.
I looked at the man sweeping the sidewalk, & I wondered about his dreams.
I looked at the old lady wandering in the street, interested in her story.
I thought about the prayers & chants I heard throughout the night, cries of desperation to an array of gods.
I even looked at the cows, annoyed that the holiness my Lord deserves was assigned to a beast.
I felt the thick, heavy air against my skin & let that weight seep into my soul.
For a moment I just paced in undeniable hopelessness. Hurting for the aimless & lost. Feeling fully the tragedy of life apart from Jesus. I hurt because of their hurt. I cried because of their tears.
Don’t get me wrong, this place is absolutely beautiful. The hospitality , the curiosity, the selflessness, the dedication, the joy, the clothing, the colors, the food, the design (architectural, interior, fashion, typography), the humor, the kindness…everything. There’s no way I could list every good thing about this place. The body of Christ here is alive, vibrant, & diligent, & I felt the Spirit strongly at church on Sunday even though I don’t understand a word of Telugu. I saw a notice on our church sign that informed members of prayer meetings on the first Saturday of every month, from 9 p.m…to 4 a.m. From another team I’ve heard news of 12-hour worship services every third Saturday with their ministry. Amazing…my heart burst with admiration for such a devoted people, & then it dropped as I came to terms with my own lack of perseverance & adoration for my King.
I love India. She is precious & radiant & intelligent. But you will see things here that you can’t unsee. You’ll be informed of things here that you’ll want to make others more aware of. You’ll bleed compassion everywhere…or clam up in indifference. Your choice.
Over 80% of the population of India is living a life of strife, trying to please 33 million gods they don’t even know the names of.
Over 20 million kids here are orphans.
Is that supposed to not break my heart & ruin me a little?
From where I stood on that rooftop in Ongole, for a millisecond the city looked bigger than the Lord of all creation & I strained under that load.
So I shifted my gaze from the city to the sky.
Then I looked to the Lord, & I took a few steps back from my lamentations.
And I noticed an arch, framing a sturdy, solid, weathered stone cross.
Then I looked at the city again, this time being framed by this arch & shielded by this cross.
& I saw hope instead of discouragement.
I saw the holy paradox that is walking with Jesus. Tragedy & suffering is a fact of life in a fallen world, but the most enduring & encompassing reality is that regardless of the extent of despair, hope will always exist. Always. In walking with Jesus there is a delicate balance of getting acquainted with the difficult & depressing things, but getting more acquainted with the hope we have in Him. We are responsible for shifting our gaze from the giant before us onto the Lord within us & all around us.
And I know that’s hard, especially here, because India is one of the most menacing Goliaths I’ve ever been confronted with:
If you are a member of the lowest caste in India’s social structure, you are a Dalit, or an ”untouchable”: you are born into an inheritance of worthlessness that your world will not let you escape…but there is hope in Jesus.
If you are a girl in India, before you’re even born you are in danger of being killed by sex-selective abortion, if you cheat death & are born you will most likely experience oppression your whole life…but there is hope in Jesus.
If you are a widow in India, you are cursed. You are the reason your husband died, you will be forgotten & forsaken…but there is hope in Jesus.
If you are a Hindu man in India you may spend a lot of time living in fear, leading a double life & living by superstition. You may be in bondage to religion, serving many gods while not knowing God at all…but there is hope in Jesus.
If you are a disabled child, people would say that you have no hope. You are abandoned at birth, & deemed unwanted by parent & society…but there is hope in Jesus.
We say that there is hope in Jesus, but like actually, in the most grim circumstances…there is. It’s always real.
And you might think it’s easy for me to brag about hope because I’m not an untouchable, a girl, a widow, a man, or a disabled child in India. I’ve lived a life of privilege & luxury. But it’s never been easy for me to hope, & it’s still not, because I’ve thought about the injustice inside out & over & over, I’ve asked the Lord my biggest whys & hows. But so far I haven’t been able to outsmart the inventor of the mind & heart, He’s always been able to answer.
Because He’s always been able to be the answer, something nobody else on earth can be.
When a person is despondent, when nothing around them permits success or victory, Jesus is the answer.
When I was overwhelmed by hopelessness on a rooftop, the Lord answered me with hope where I wasn’t even looking for it.
Our flesh will look at a third-world country (and they are most certainly not all the same) & see a problem too big to be fixed. People too diverse & innumerable to save. But I’m not here to fix & I’m not the One who saves.
Our Spirit, however, will look at a third-world country & see men & women made in the image of God, as we all are. It will see people who have a future & a hope, even if our logic contradicts that truth. It will see people hungry & thirsty for love that can only be found in Jesus. The Spirit will see beauty in the brokenness, desire in the despair, opportunity in the oppression & potential in the poverty. Because the vision of the Spirit is anointed with faith.
That verse from Ezra spoke to me in a lot of ways. It described the storm in my own Spirit of mourning & praise simultaneously.
It identified with the hurt: the weeping over the suffering & deception.
And it identified with the jubilee: the shouts of joy declaring the inevitable hope found in Christ.
These two contradictory concepts can peacefully co-exist in the human heart surrendered to Christ.
It doesn’t make much sense…but I’ve been a fool for Christ for a while now & I’m fully aware that to Richard Dawkins I am an idiot. Lol.
I just don’t care , I’m kind of proud to be “stupid” enough to walk by faith, because nothing has ever been more real to me than God. Nothing has ever comforted or answered me like He has & will continue to.
On the rooftop I saw the divine irony of following Jesus when I saw a dreary city behind a weathered Cross.
And I was reminded to view everything through the lens of the Cross, with heavenly perspective, not carnal.
I was reminded of the glorious oxymoron of feeling the pain, but knowing undoubtedly the wonderful remedy.
I heard the sound of weeping meshed with the shouts of joy, & knew that everything was going to be alright, & that my God reigns & causes His people to hope, even when we hurt. Even when we behold a sin-stained world that may never learn how to exalt Him, hope endures.
