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Shame & Stain: a gospel primer

from todays’ journal

Why would God approve of you? How pathetic…it takes Christ’s death to pardon you, because you have that much sin. Do you really think he looks at you with pride? Do you think that God the Father truly approves of you? He always has to come in to save you! He thinks you’re pathetic! Sure, you’re saved… but you are a shame and stain to Him.

Why would God approve of me? I am pathetic and weak and useless. It took Jesus’ death to pardon me, because I am that  sinful. He (the Father) looked at Jesus and said, ‘this is my Son in whom I am well pleased’. 

When Christ died for us, he granted us access to the Father. We gained His righteousness. Our old self was crucified with Him, because he took all the wrath meant for me/us. So does the Father really look at me with pride? Yes, because I am his son, because of Christ. In fact, he loves me and is proud because it brings him glory that through my weakness (in all ways), he shows his power… crediting glory to himself, to his saving work in my life.

He approves heartily because he disciplines me…showing me that he hasn’t left me, and isn’t leaving me to my own devices. He is working it out so that I get more of Him. Would an un-approving father draw a disappointing son to himself in such a sacrificial and loving way? 

He has to come and save me! I think I’m pathetic! How unloving He would be if He didn’t intercede! How unloving he would be if he left me alone to succeed in perishable ways, to thrive… on lesser joys! Whether I am ‘successful’ or ‘pathetic’ in this life… in either case I am equally pathetic! My successes mean nothing in eternity! 

I am saved…and it is the very evidence that he loves me. I was a shame and stain…yet he always wanted to draw me to himself. Now…He does. Jesus took that shame and stain from me. I am free.

I am not a stain and shame, rather I am to him- his son, his very mode of displaying his glory to the nations now. The very reflection of Christ’s work, the evidence and reflection. I have the Holy Spirit within me! I am sealed… and my enemy cannot steal my joy. 

My joy is greater than any joy I can gain in this life by my own power. I get to have the eternal. What is struggle in my life but continued assurance of your love for me? Of your approval and continued refining! I’ll let no one take it from me. No power on earth, hell or heaven can steal it. 

Satan, you will not take me down with you. I am approved, loved, saved, secured and sealed forever. I no longer have to worry or kill myself over who approves of me or my ability or lack of. I am free to pour out to others, because I have no question as to what I inherit, who I belong to, and how secure it is. 

To be free of self! Self-loathing, self-deprecation, self-exaltation, self-promotion.. what a tiring and fruitless exercise. Yet I always feel like it’s the game I have to play. In the Gospel… it no longer needs to be the case…the structure and rules are reshaped. 

What a price…Christ crucified. What a love that the Father has for me/us. What a guarantee…the Holy Spirit. What am I worried about? Help me cling joyfully and without shame, to You. 

My weaknesses are joyful displays of your strength! I have nothing to lose!

Hard things to say pt. 1: unedited

Haven’t blogged in a long time because it never feels like the thoughts are complete enough, or things aren’t worthwhile enough to be written about. But if I keep doing that I’m never going to do anything, much less write- right?

I’ll try not to spill my guts out too hard here, but things are, at least, feeling way harder to deal with than they ever have. Theologically, the pieces are coming together more, but it actually makes living it even more difficult. The stakes are getting higher in my circumstances. Dude, I’m getting married! Wow, I don’t think it’s even really hit me yet. 

I’ve been running into alot of people who can’t understand why things are happening to them the way they are. There are varying degrees of feeling how God is either far away or He doesn’t seem to care. Looking to people or things to be the answer for their pain, and still being let down, and continue to be let down.

The thing is, I wonder why more people aren’t feeling this way. Are people really that okay with what’s happening around them? I’m observing over time that most people don’t have enough taken away from them to really notice. Or are distracting themselves well enough not to think about these things. 

Is life really that manageable? Is it really that comfortable? If I’m not mistaken, there’s a great deal of hurt happening in your family, within your friends and in your neighborhood. Ever wonder why it’s easier to throw the care for people as far as possible over to  another continent? Pain is hard! And pain is managed under some false covers here isn’t it? 

Please don’t mistake this for bitterness, though honestly, maybe there is some in there (though there shouldn’t be). It’s just very surprising to me how well we hide pain. When I went to India, it was a sobering reminder that it’s all so real. The kids I met there were actually struggling with the problems of ‘hope I get to eat today’ or ‘hope my dad doesn’t beat me’ or ‘hope my husband comes back after leaving me for another bride with these babies’ or ‘hope I miraculously recover from this sickness’. I’m not romanticizing and elevating the pain over there. It’s just more obvious. They get it, that these issues are real and they have to wrestle with the reality every day. And here’s the weird thing I can’t get past. It’s not like we’re different here. But we can’t see it.

It’s a problem of sin and pain and all the messy things that we just are so good at not looking at in the face. The problem with living here isn’t that pain is lessened, really. It’s that there’s enough going on to keep you from looking at the real sin and pain that’s going on. The circumstances aren’t always the same as the third world, but it’s just as real and just as hard in the end. 

It is so, so easy to only look at the physical poverty of a child in India and think you yourself are okay. If anything, this is the greater hypocrisy is it not? I’m saying this with a great deal of compassion for whoever you are, because this is so hard to do. And I’m pleading that you look at yourself and the sin and pain and the messy things in your life for what it is. 

I’m not trying to emphasize or de-emphasize here. The pain of the 12 year old girls I saw who are being use for sex in the brothels is not a small deal. But neither is your sin, and it is a difficult thing to deal with when you won’t look at the truth and wrestle with that difficult tension before God- and with Him.

I say this because these last few months, I do feel like a failure, consistently. And no, the answer isn’t to tell me, ‘don’t think that, there are so many good things about you!’ or some feel-good band-aids. I’m coming to a point where it genuinely seems like there is nothing intrinsically good about me. And that’s a hard thing to accept. And this came with having to deal with difficult people, being in difficult circumstances, making difficult choices and being in difficult relationships. When I stopped running away for a second, it got really difficult. 

The theology that is difficult to swallow is this: That God doesn’t owe you anything. He does not owe you a pleasant life, nor did he ever promise to make your circumstances comfortable. He never promised to fix all the circumstances in your life in the way you want. I don’t think many people would say they believe this outright if you asked it, but I observe that this is a tragically prevailing thought about God. I say that mostly because I can say that’s what I believe (wrongly). And I still am struggling in this.

The evidence is this: “God, why are you letting these things happen to me?” or “God, I’m giving up on ______(whatever biblical thing like community, prayer, serving, spending time with him) because it’s evident from my circumstances that ______” . I’m not saying we don’t ‘pour out our complaint before God’ but there’s something bigger here about the nature of our life and about who God is. 

God is loving. And he will do whatever it takes to give you the best, not just what’s good. Most everyone believes this right? But we all believe that his best for us comes down to different things.

There’s guy who is giving up on life and people because of crap happening to him circumstantially, he believes that somehow, if God wants the best for him, He would make relationships more palpable, fellowship feel more supportive and cause people to become more understanding. There’s the guy who can’t understand why his parents won’t reconcile, and has given up because, shouldn’t God be doing something? It’s the girl who feels judged at church because she dresses a certain way, so she gives up on Him because, shouldn’t this community accept me? How about one of the 12 year-old prostitute in Kolkata? 

All of these people make valid points and their pain is real! Do you know how often I hear people scoffing and judging people like this? I’m guilty of that too.

The issue is this: What is God’s best? If He loves you so much, and promises to ‘make all thing work together for you good’- why would these things happen? There’s this cerebral level of ‘one day, I’ll understand why he did this’. Okay I’m talking too much-

God’s best is himself. And that is what he is offering to us. 

It’s easy to tell someone here who is, say, very accomplished in college ministry and is a blessing to many people’s lives that he knows God. But it’s much harder to deal with a young girl who has AIDS, comes to know Jesus and loves him, then dies alone in the middle of the street calling out for help. What do you do with that? We like to say, on a sympathetic level that she is okay with God because she is innocent and is poor. But it’s because she has Jesus. This worth of this girl’s life and the ministry guy’s life will be judged by Jesus. The difference is made when someone has Christ and is with Him. 

And this is what he gives us. Himself.

I’m not against being thankful for that A on your test or your family member being healed, those are all good, excellent grace-things. Yet, nowhere does Jesus ever promise that he will do those things for us. What do you tell a kid whose parents are heading towards divorce? What do you say to your friend when she calls you to tell you she was raped? These are all people I know! What do you say to them? It’s not an easy ‘God is working it out for your good’. It is not, ‘listen to this song from KLTY and you’ll feel better’ (sorry, that’s a little harsh). It’s a difficult confrontation with: God has given you himself… and he weeps at the injustice or whatever wrong is happening. But God has given you the GREATEST thing, even though right now, I want a good thing. 

I suppose this is both for the person who ‘has it all together’ and the person who doesn’t. I can honestly say I’m bouncing around like a crazy person between all of these things. I feel like I’m ‘in a good place’ and don’t really see myself for who I really am and face my pains and acknowledge how much it actually affects me. I’d rather DO more and then ignore the pain. When I actually get to the hurt, I start wanting to close off and it gets easy to blame people and start to distance myself from God. The last thing I want to do in any case is to think that God is giving everything: Himself. And that’s supposed to be enough.

If you are the person A, who is not facing your pain for what it is, why won’t you face it? Why do you want to control your environment so much? Why does your life look more like a Jesus day-spa? Where’s your mess? 

If you’re person B, who is bitter and hating the world for it’s injustice, it’s true. We live in a messed-up world. We live with messed up people and we are messed-up people. But you’re still missing the point, God gives you himself, and it’s not about him changing your circumstances to get you to person A.

God works all things for the good of those who love him- and that good is that he gives you himself and he’s EVERYTHING, not just some of it. He himself. That’s why Paul can say, ‘To live is Christ, to die is gain’. He gets Jesus either way. Paul getting stoned, berated, laughed at, shipwrecked, imprisoned didn’t change this fact. In fact, he considered all these things as a way for him to ‘gain’ more of Christ in this life. And it was ‘far better’ to depart because Paul gets to BE with Jesus completely. 

I had to tell this to a guy this week. And it was one of the hardest things I ever had to tell someone. Because I knew I could no longer just say that things will ‘be okay’. Because our human idea of ‘okay’ is warped. All I could really say is that God turns all these things meant for evil into good…. which is that you gain more of Christ in your life somehow. That’s it in the end. Not so that things will work out the way you want them to. 

It is so hard to say because I am these people. I’m kind of externalizing on different people even as I write, and I’ve already begun to drift into preachy mode. Let me tell you as Daniel, that I want so bad for whoever you are to get this. Because in ‘developed countries’, it’s so easy to be distracted in our lives with Christ and to stay on an external level even with stuff like  ’complex theology’. It all means nothing if we’re not looking to the best thing that is already given to us. Jesus. 

I guess that’s why Paul says “I count it (the good things in his life) all as loss for the sake of knowing Christ”. I just frankly do not live in that. And there are so many days when it really feels like I don’t believe that. I want good, even very good, over best.

It scares me because I don’t know if people who say that they’re Christians, even my friends, really believe that. Even you. Even me. 

The Gospel is hard because is actually is requiring us to do the humanly impossible- love God so much and rest in him so securely that you would even consider good things in life as dung compared to the worth of knowing Him. That’s impossible. So we really do require the new birth and putting the old self, along with the old ways to death. 

Okay, I’m going to pump the brakes, I could go on forever. I’m at the point where I’m starting to feel good about preaching truth, but I’m already in the wrong if I don’t start dealing with it myself. So I’m going to stop here. 

Calloused Hands and Chances to Take

Finally back in Dallas. This is the final post I wasn’t able to upload at the airport

We’re officially done with all the work and right now we’re at the airport on a 15-ish hour layover. 

Our last day:

We started off meeting with the G brothers and then we headed off to the rock quarry:

They use these big leafy shields to protect them from the sun 

I was trying to take an action shot, but he kept wanting to pose ahhaha

The faces of the rock quarry

Calloused Hands

These are the hands of some of the women who work there. Their hands are calloused, they have scars from rock fragments and it gets in their lungs. You see from the pictures that many of them are pretty old. These men and women are breaking rock with hammers all day under the sun, and they’re pretty much stuck there because of their caste. They can’t have any upward mobility in their jobs-one person can only break so much rock.

When I shake their hands, the skin is tough like leather. But they were so warm and friendly. Among the most smiles I’ve seen in one place in India.

So the G brothers helped plant a church where they work. The Rock Quarry church. 

The worship was amazing. This little boy and girl were leading! Never seen anything like it. 

It was one of the most passionate displays of worship I’ve seen. The singing just filled the room and resounded to the outside. It’s a moving sight and sound with the people worshipping Jesus at the top of their lungs with a Hindu idol right outside of the church.

Calloused hands raised high .

The School

We visited the school where the kids in the children’s home went to:

The Home

We ended the day by returning to the home. We got to hang out with the kids one last time. There is so much love in this place. 

Remember the mom from the last post? This is her daughter.

I mentioned this in the last one, but the brothers are committed to feeding, clothing, schooling, housing and nurturing her until she is able to finish school, go through university, and get a good job. This is one of 40 children they are committed to caring in this way for. 

I asked Anunth (the taller brother) last night how often him and Pastor Isaiah visit the children. He said that he goes in the morning, leaves when they go to school and returns at night to say goodnight and to make sure they get to bed. Everyday. And when any of the kids get a fever or anything, they are there throughout the night.

He says this with a smile on his face, as if this is a normal thing to do. 

Everything I’ve mentioned in the Rajahmundry stories are led and operated by the G brothers and a team of a few dedicated, local pastors. 

The guys agree that if your heart doesn’t break for these children, then you’re in the wrong job. 

I’ll end with something Carl has said a few times here. You are not called to be an accountant, designer or whatever else. You are to care for, love and help these children. When we design, plan and build it’s just a means to loving and providing for these kids. What we do is not the call, it’s the people the God loves.

There’s something about being behind a camera that creates a chance to distance myself. Maybe it’s because it feels like there’s too much to capture, or maybe it’s because the images linger. Maybe I’m afraid of what it will mean for me if I really let myself engage with these children and their families. Whatever the case, I think my temptation is to get lost in just doing what I’m doing well, when it’s more than that. It’s doing whatever I can to serve these children.

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Home: 

Woke up around 4am today and it feels weird. It’s weird because the wall in my bedroom is just as real as the painted cement wall in the kids home. Anyways, thanks for all the support and prayers. I really felt it there.

I am so thankful for everyone right now. Please pray for the family in India. 

Rajahmundry

When we got off the plane we were greeted by this:

These are the kids at the Rajah Children’s Home that was started by the G Brothers:

Anunth (left) and Pastor Isaiah. Very loving and generous people. 

So we took a tour around town to see the market place and then we arrived at the children’s home.

Children all up in my grill:

Kids will be kids eh :)

Church Plants:

We went to visit two church plants:

The first one has a really awesome story. They got a well built in front of their church and the pastor explains that it serves two purposes:one is to reconcile the villages who often fight, and the other, to show the villagers that Jesus is the living water. I got to bless the well-it was pretty awesome to say the least.

Reconciliation with people and God through water. Doesn’t get more real than that.

At every plant we went to, people wanted us to pray for them. This is the pastor of the first plant.

this is a mom whose kid is in the Rajah home. There is nobody alive in her entire family and her husband left her. She says that the G brothers are the only people who will take care of her child. 

I’m kind of all over the place, and there are alot of stories from the last 2 days that need to be told. It’s worth noting something the G brothers said. Their maximum capacity right now is 40 kids, which might not seem like alot. Anunth tells us that when they take in a child, they then have the responsibility to stay with the child all the way until they finish college and are able to get a job. That just blows my mind. They commit fully to these 40 children. 

Okay, last story. There’s a story about a little girl that got taken into the home- she was bone thin and her clothes were all tattered. She wouldn’t talk to anyone and didn’t want to eat. As the brothers took her in and nurtured her, she grew and began to engage with the children and just became a completely different person, happy and full of life. 

She got sick and they weren’t able to save her. The children of the home didn’t eat that day. When Carl tells the story, it breaks my heart, but he ends with this. She’s having a better time than all of us now with Jesus.

There’s a story and a soul in every person, and I get to see that in the children’s home and in these village church plants. It’s easy to forget that in the places we’ve been; people sleeping on the streets and little children forced to be prostitutes.

There is hope. Maybe it’s because of the contrast, but when you see people who are being loved in the churches and the children’s home on the backdrop of unmerciful and cold idols all over the city, you see that Christ does makes all the difference. He is truly the living water and the father to the fatherless.

Please pray for me, I’m feeling pretty sick and I just hope I get better before I get on the plane. Tomorrow’s the last day, can’t wait to hang with everyone again.

Hope in Kolkata

The last day in Kolkata we got to visit Smriti’s ‘Mudpaths’ ministry where she was helping a slum community get quality schooling for the kids and jobs for the women. There was definitely a feeling of hope there, and the kids were awesome. They all crammed into this hut: it’s their school

Remember the girl I talked about with the 2 kids? It was really awesome getting to meet her family. Jason said he felt like even though she’s only 22, she has the maturity of a 30 year old. The cool thing is that Smriti is discipling her.

We had a really long and in-depth administrative meeting with Smriti as I creepily took pictures of everyone and the house during the whole thing. We said our goodbyes after that. What an awesome and fearless woman.

We woke up at 4 am to leave for Rajahmundry and when we got here, it was really encouraging to meet the G brothers and the children’s home they run. I’ll put up more tomorrow, I am literally falling asleep on my keyboaodsklaf;n’edaswRZ

lights in a dark place

Ranchi

1. We visited some slum kids

2. We took them to a park 

3. Visited a community in the far countryside to meet potential pastors (4.5 hour drive, youch)

4. Hung out with the Lawrances.

Kolkata

Got up at 4 am, went to airport, boarded at 7:30, showed up in Kolkata, got lunch w/ Smriti.

Visited some places Smriti had worked in: Red light district and the neighborhood where Mother Theresa was. 

//

Today was so intense, I can’t even begin to describe. I can barely stay awake as I’m typing this…

I saw stuff that I thought I’d be able to handle (I’ve heard/read it all) like babies sleeping on the streets and children in the red light district. I walked through a giant temple of the local god. 

It was non-stop filming today, I had to capture everything. There was one point where a pimp got in a fight with my friend because she didn’t want me taking pictures of people there. I saw a guy laying in the middle of the street, he might have been dead, with almost 100 people walking past him- only to eventually drag him off the road so cars could pass. One of the girls who hung out with us today who was helping with the ministry; she was 21, had 2 kids, and her husband left her for a rich woman, so he didn’t have to work. It’s been 3 years, and she believes that he will come back for her.

I think there are many things I could write about right now, but this is the foremost; I got to see a light in a dark place. The national leader we were with, Smriti, had such a connection with kids all around the city. When we were in the red light district, many young girls ran up to her with the biggest smiles, because they remembered when Smriti loved and took care of them. It’s weird, but she would be able to laugh and smile in the middle of everything. I can’t imagine how heartbroken I’d be to see young girls I know now end up working in a place like the red light district.

You know, when you stand in the middle of poverty and all this evil, you either become an irresponsible optimist or a pessimistic cynic (redundant?). Poverty is not simple, and the problem with evil is so deep. I’m not claiming to understand it either, and I have to admit my response is a raw, but immature one. I feel like I have to zealously figure out some grand solution to fix it all. It’s such a naive, western rich-boy view. 

It’s cheesy sounding and said alot, but from what I saw today, change happens one person at a time. When you see that girl in the brothel still have some hope or when you talk to the 21 year old mom who is helping others like herself, something hits me. These are real lives, whole lifetimes. They are not reducible statistics. Do I sound idealistic? 

In the end of the day, I can confidently say that I would be a cynic if it wasn’t for Jesus. To serve as he served, to love as he loved, to come down to the grit. I’m not quite there, but how would things change if I began to absorb the the fact that God came down into my poverty, redeemed me from dirt, and adopted me as his own- and the craziest part is that I didn’t do anything to merit that. Now to think that we can be part of living that very reality out by loving those around us in that way…

// end ramble

Thanks for all the support and prayers… can’t wait to get home to everyone. Please pray for me that I wouldn’t lose focus on Jesus and my relationship with him… it’s so easy to get lost in all of this stuff.