I left Canada three years ago. I remember even then part of the struggle. In leaving Canada was I just "doing my duty"?1 At that time that was how I sometimes felt. I even considering calling our blog, "Just Doing Our Duty." The passage in Luke1 is a tough one, inferring I serve a demanding master who seems disinterested in my needs and burdens. Following God 'step by step' sounded more of an adventure, not as mundane and uninspiring as just 'doing my duty'. The last six weeks has been struggling to come to grips with a God who promises no recognition or reward, who expects that I just "do my duty".
A number of the girls the Mustard Seed serves have been making poor life choices. They have not had the strength and courage to follow the narrow way, but have followed the crowd. We talk of peer pressure in Canada, but I think it is even harder here, in a culture that demands greater compliance with group expectations. So we have one girl stealing, another dabbling in drugs, a third pregnant, another couple - I'm not sure I want to know what they have been up to. My response was to question God. I am still smarting from the Amy Carmichael story and it was easy to question his plan and purpose when things seemed to be going wrong.
I had thought I was following God 'step by step', that the people and situations he brought across my path were not coincidences but part of his direction for my life. Now seeing the behaviour of the girls it all seemed to have been so in vain. Allegations of a lack of integrity concerning one of our board members added to my disappointment and discouragement. Maybe I had not heard God. Maybe I was just using His name in vain, suggesting that 'coincidences' were anything more than just that, coincidences. I felt let down by God. I had completed my part in leaving home and friends and family, and what had he done. Not much it appeared. I argued with God.
I was not just questioning God, I was angry at him. I still have not resolved the story of Amy Carmichael, and it was easy to let my anger at God's seeming injustice in her life be rekindled.
So God, I left Canada, seeking to follow you one step at a time, and after three years of trying to understand and obey your desires this is all I get, failure.
You promise to hear my prayers.2 Well I have been praying for the Mustard Seed girls. Is your arm to short to save and protect them?
You promise life to the full3, but what do I get, discouragment and disappointment and questions.
On one hand you say that I am fearfully and wonderfully4 made but more often you remind me of my worthlessness5 and unrighteousness. An unworthy servant expected to just do my duty6.
You call me friend7, but it seems always conditional8. What kind of friend is that? Where is the friend that "always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres"9?
God, if you do not exist or cannot change situations, then life is truly a chasing after the wind10, pointless and futile, where the one with the most toys wins. Is this all that life is?
How does God speak? When do we hear the voice of God? A day came when I was confronting God with my questions. "Jesus you said, your sheep hear your voice."11 I had sought to hear and understand his voice and to obey it, yet all around me seems to be failing. I was discouraged. If what I was doing is just chasing the wind, I wanted to quit. How does God speak? In the midst of my muttering and bemoaning it was like I caught a phrase from an over heard conversation, "I am not finished yet." Was it my imagaination? Was I grasping at straws? Yet there was something in the words that compelled me to listen. I opened my Bible, I was reading in Matthew, and I prayed, "Lord give me something more, something in addition to a barely audible, 'I am not finished yet.'"
That day I was reading in Matthew 14. John the Baptist, the man who had boldly proclaimed of Jesus, "Behold the Lamb of God",12 was now cast aside, in a prison for declaring the word of God, about to be executed. This John who had boldly proclaimed Jesus' messiahship was struggling with doubt and uncertainty. He had sent his disciples to ask of Jesus, "Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?"13 John died in prison, never having heard Christ's final cry, "It is finished!"14 John had went about in rough clothing, living on what he could, and never saw the finish. Who was I then, to demand that I see the finished result of God's work in and through my life. And as if to tempt me at that moment I received a phone call telling me of another disappointing decision of one of our girls. "God," I wondered, "are you just playing games with me?"
A couple days later as I continued to struggle, I thought of Paul the apostle. How must he have felt at times? Flogged, beaten, imprisoned, shipwrecked, toiling without sleep or food, and carrying the concern of the churches.15 What am I experiencing compared to Paul's struggles?
I can't say that since that day, all has been well. I continue to struggle with setbacks, and discouragements. But, I have let go of some of my anger and distrust of God. John the Baptist's picture of what Jesus, the messiah, would accomplish must have been very different that what occured, causing John to question. My challange is to let go of what I expect God to accomplish and to trust that he has a finish planned for what he has begun.16 There are good things happening, and I need to not let the discouragements cloud the good things. (We finished the house for Ausi Moselentja and her siblings. There are some God things in that story that I will share in a later entry.)
I will leave the last work to Solomon. "A man's steps are directed by the LORD. How then can anyone understand his own way?" Proverbs 20:24
~ Benno ~
1 Luke 17:7-10; 2 Matthew 7:13, 14;
3 John 10:10; 4 Psalm 139:13-16;
5 Romans 3:10-12; 6 Luke 17:7-10;
7 John 15:15; 8 John 15:14;
9 I Corinthians 13:7; 10 Ecclesiastes 2:17;
11 John 10:3 (KJV); 12 John 1:29;
13 Matthew 11: 2,3; 14 John 19:30;
15 II Cor. 11:23-28; 16 Philippians 1:6
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