Two Things:
1. I still need $1000 to stay on race. If you would consider donating I would be supremely blessed.
2. Forgive the lack of photo, this is a more serious entry, and I don’t know how photos would add to the outpouring of my heart.
Six months into the race, and I am beginning to believe my trainers when they said this would be one of the quickest years of my life. I cannot believe I have been to 8 different countries and lived short term in six. There is a beautiful diversity in the world, and I am in awe I get to experience any of it. Still, in all Earth’s variations, it’s many outliers, and seemingly endless manifold of persons—there is one unremitting constant. Every person, from a child in the slums of India, to a taxi driver in Cambodia, is seeking one thing: value.
Before I delve deeper into this idea of value, I must first make a confession and rid myself of some chains I have been dragging around for some time. Here it is: the majority of my problems are solely rooted in perception. I have spent a large majority of my life, and even my time overseas, refusing to seek a view other than the one I have held so dear for a month, years, or even decades. I have learned, often painfully, that just because I perceive it, does not make it true. Just because it is, does not mean that it should be, and just because I say it, does not make it truth to remain unchallenged.
So often I, and I might venture to say even you, are perfectly satisfied with our view of the world. We believe what we believe, and that’s just how it is. What a dangerous and even dull way to live. I have been constantly challenged in this area. Why do I think the way I think? Why do I believe what I do? Where is my heart? Sadly, we don’t ask these questions because the answer is often too painful.
As many of you probably know, most third world countries operate on a haggling or barter system. If a vendor offers you a t-shirt for $10, you should probably only pay $4. If he want’s $2 for a kilo of apples, you shouldn’t pay anymore than $1. I find the most sensitive of these times is when arranging transportation.
I was searching for a tuk-tuk to take four people to the Killing Fields and S21 Prison in Cambodia. The driver said $15 there and back. I wouldn’t accept a cost higher than $10 total. Finally, after maintaining my stubbornness, the driver finally said in almost perfect English, “My brother, if I accept that low, I will not even have a dollar left over for some food or a drink.” I was taken aback. Immediately I remembered some advice I was given at training camp. “Nathan,” one of my mentors said “you are a phenomenal negotiator, but be careful not to let your own pride get in the way of not noticing you offending someone. You are haggling over their worth and their value.”
I assumed because he was a taxi driver he was trying to rip me off. I assumed he didn’t speak English and I was smarter than him. I assumed he would only take my extra money to spend on alcohol or cigarettes (another unjust stereotype). After agreeing to his asking price of $15, he spent over 5 hours driving us around Phenom Penh, no complaints and very courteous. On the ride back, I decided to get to know him.
Turns out, his name is Why (yes, like the question). He moved to the city from a poor village. He worked three years to save enough money to buy his own tuk-tuk so he could have full time employment. Now, he works 7 days a week, 10hours a day so he can pay for his little brother’s university, his parents housing in the village, and afford a small one room apartment on the outskirts of town. He taught himself English, and is trying to save enough (after all he gives away) to complete his education.
I was dumbstruck. God really used this man to show the abhorrent cracks in my heart. Christ commands us to love the least of these. In fact, He says that is how we will be judged. I was so concerned for my own way of thinking, and my own air of superiority and value, I never stopped to see the beauty and value in Why.
My only value comes from the cross. It’s time I start living like it, especially in the way I view others. I am desperately seeking to view the world through the eyes of Christ. If God treated us, or thought of us like we so frequently think of others, we would be at a loss with no hope in sight. Yet, Christ chose to love me, and to love you in your current state—be it saintly or depraved. His life was one lived for love without boundaries, without prejudices, without judgment, and without condemnation. Why’s sin is no greater than my own. Why’s accomplishments are no less than my own.
It’s time I start living out the heart of God, and seeing with the eyes of Christ. We can have money, we can have degrees, we can do good works, but if we have not Christ, and we do not love, we are as useless as the salt that has lost its flavor.
I don’t know about you, but I’d rather my value be determined by the cross, and not my own self-righteous perspective. The moment we start really living and loving like Christ, is the moment lives can be changed forever.
