The Bottom

 

Carla and I realized there will only be $80 in our bank account and $50 in the Equip Mozambique bank account at the end of this month. Last month I was afraid, but not anymore. There is something freeing about hitting bottom, and knowing that all you can do is go up. Lord, use this time to wipe away the dross, everything that is extraneous and unnecessary.”

I also happen to be stuck in bed with a nasty neck ache. But my spirit is still on fire and alive as ever. God help me do the right things, purify me, let everything be stripped away that is not from you. I want to be white-hot for you. Burn away my excuses and the fat that can develop with plenty. Show me again the essentials, and your raw power for transformation.

 

Limited Bodies

We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing… While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us…. God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.-- 2 Cor 5:2-5 NLT

If everything was already perfect, why would we be looking for new bodies and new homes? I long for the day where I don’t have pain in my back, where my foot fungus totally goes away, and when this body that has so little energy gets rejuvenated and doesn’t hold me back.

The thing that hits me as I’m reading now is the part about the guarantee being the Holy Spirit. Will our new bodies have the Holy Spirit? The way Paul is saying this - in some versions, he says a downpayment - it sounds like the Holy Spirit is a taste of our new bodies, and through it we get a glimpse of what it means to live in our new bodies.

That makes sense to me. Often it seems like the spirit in me wasn’t built for this earthly body. It doesn’t dream or have vision only of the possible, and doesn’t seem limited by the same constraints as the rest of me. The spirit sees and acts with the resources, energy and vision of heaven and I am stuck here; human, frail, limited and utterly incapable.

As Carla will tell you, I pace. I pace a lot. I wake up early in the morning, visions of what can be and what may be possible. I wake up in the middle of the night, interceding for the poor with a body that wants to go back to sleep and a spirit that thinks it can single-handedly change a country. While most people are doing their own thing waiting for God to give them orders, I am brooding how I only have 70 more years to make an impact for the kingdom. Only 70 more years to give poverty and darkness the biggest black eye I can muster.

The spirit in me doesn’t seem to understand the limitations of my body, or my bank account, or my team. It dreams. It groans. And I can fully believe it was created for another kind of body and reality - one without these paltry limitations.

 

Weakness and the Mozambique Church

What’s the circumstance or situation Paul is facing in 2 Corinthians? There are other preachers in Corinth, preachers that the church has believed are more powerful, anointed, or have new revelations. They are preaching that because they are close to God they never have issues - they are blessed and victorious every
hour. They end up giving sermons on themselves and how amazing they are. PS, oh, and God.

I am seeing this so clearly now because that’s exactly where the church in Mozambique is and what is going on. The TV evangelist message is 1000% worse in Mozambique than in the US. Why? Because most Americans have been to a church that’s not like that and they at least know not all churches are all health-wealth-1000s-of-people. Here they don’t know any better - they think the rest of the world is full of powerful, successful churches and that the bigger the church the more powerful the preacher. They end up thinking their own church is messed up and weak because it’s not a mega-church.

The Corinthians thought the same thing. Because Paul had issues and was weak, they thought he wasn’t as anointed or close to God as the other preachers. They wanted a powerful leader like Saul, not a “weak-in-words” leader who is open about his pain and suffering like Paul. They wanted strong leaders of metal.

But Paul is saying that’s not how it works: the weaker I am, the stronger Christ can be seen in me. If I was powerful, then people could think that the power was from me, but God chooses the weak and the foolish things of the world to shame the wise and strong (1 Cor 1). So we should have absolutely no shame in our weakness and issues because they are a better vessel for Christ in His power.

Starting Anew

 

The past couple weeks have been interesting for me. Carla and I have no idea what we are doing in the nonprofit world. This is at once terrifying and liberating. In Mozambique, the news is always full of million dollar grants to fight AIDS, 10 million for some infrastructure project etc, but people rarely see any of the benefits of these projects. Some of the projects are completed but don’t really strike at the heart of the issues; others are never completed; others are greatly diminished from what they said they were going to be.

If we did things the way others did, we would have spent more time in the US and more time preparing before we left. We would have had all the money prepared for 5 years out and we would have made all the decisions about “what is best for the Mozambican people” with a group of Americans, most of whom have never stepped foot on the continent. We would have been more comfortable and respected both here and in the US but our impact would be next to nothing.

As it was, we left with little support and little clear vision on what we were doing, just an insane call to change what was truly wrong with Mozambique. We thought we were coming to plant a school but nothing was the way it was told to us and when we arrived there was absolutely nothing ready for us; no team, no plan, no documents, no financing. But God didn’t have us here to build a school.

The way we came into the city, we had no car and nothing of value except knowledge. When the Mozambicans in power realized how little we have, they despised us and didn’t value our teaching or partnership. We were no one in their eyes.

But in that time, in our time of riding local transport and living like we were no one, that is when we
really started to understand the deep problems Mozambicans face daily. That is when others saw us as human. that is when the trust began to build, others saw us cry and have problems and really understand that we were people too.

Now things are different in Mozambique. Everyone wants to be our friend now that we have an office and a car and employees. Everyone wants to get to know us now, and unlike when we came into the city, we have the ability to change things. But our greatest asset are the relationships, the trust, and the human connections we built in our times of nothing.

If we had done things the “Right way”, sure we would have money and comfort, but we wouldn’t have our most valuable assets - that trust and relationship that is so critical to getting anything done here in Mozambique.

 2 Corinthians has been really challenging me. It’s like the anti-Jon book. Basically the entire thing can be broken into 3 sections of things I absolutely refuse to do - attacking others who spread the gospel, boasting about what we have done or God has done through us, and spending chapters and chapters discussing finances. What the heck… Not only are these things the very things I don’t do, but I oppose doing them on moral grounds. That there is an entire book of the Bible that is dedicated to them makes me decidedly uncomfortable.

Now, I am aware that this is not necessarily a bad thing… If there is something in the Bible I don’t agree with, then that is a chance for me to grow and change. What makes this even more uncomfortable for me is that these 3 aspects of 2 Corinthians that I dislike so much are essentially the 3 things about the nonprofit world that I dislike and have been extremely resistant to doing…

So here I am. I don’t know another way of doing ministry or life, but the way all this is coming together, I know God is trying to change something in me. Sadly, I believe whatever He is trying to change is something so deeply ingrained in me that I probably don’t even see the full extent of it, and I absolutely have no idea how to change it. All I can say is “yes Lord, whatever the cost".

Things I know I should do but don’t want to…

I feel like my kids - often times when we tell them to do something, their answer is I don’t want to! There
are some things on my to-do list that always get done quickly and excellently, but there are other things that seem to always stay on my to-do list. Things like invoicing, planning, contacting potential donors, etc. The things that I want to do, the things I like, end up getting done so much quicker. There is also the one other thing… Things on my list that are urgent get taken care of. When people are beating on my door or insisting, those things get done.

Fortunately for me, God gave me a wife that understands where I am at and understands also where she is. We were both talking today and we had both realized individually that we have no idea how to run a non-profit; that we really have no idea about anything in the non-profit world. All of our experience was from the church world which has different rules and guidelines. Almost nothing we do is like how we should have done it, but we are still here. God give us the humility to change when we need to change and ask those of in our lives that you have given us to help us through it.