"Doing my Duty" - Reflections

"Doing My Duty" was a difficult blog entry to write. Today some random thoughts and reflections subsequent to writing it.

Some days after writing, I was still arguing with God and a piece by Elizabeth Elliot. She wrote that while to some "it is a very bad thing to question God. ... [it] depends ... on whether it is an honest search, in faith, for his meaning, or whether it is a challenge of unbelief and rebellion."1 Humph, I thought, God is able to deal with even my moments struggling with unbelief and questioning. Somehow though, my contemplation of her statement led to a feeling of conviction - I need to live out in my life what I was accusing God of not doing.

I was accusing God of being distant and remote, not near and supportive, as I struggled with failure and disappointments. But where had I been when the Mustard Seed girls were struggling? I was discouraged and had distanced myself. I wallowed in self pity and was neither near nor supportive of them.

Job ... I thought. I would check out Job. He had been through a lot. He questioned God. What I learned about Job was that, when confronted by God, Job responded, "I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. ... Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know."2 God's plans, his intentions, in his timing, are too wonderful for me to grasp.

Later, I was reading a bit of the Stephen Lungu story. In 1962 Stephen was an angry, violent, young black man in a township near Harare in what was then Rhodesia. On 14 May 1962, with members of his gang, he had entered a missionary tent meeting armed with petrol bombs, bent on destruction and mayhem. While his gang members did do their best to create mayhem, Stephen Lungu met God amidst the mayhem and confusion. He left, transformed.

Thirty years later, having preached all over Africa and around the world, Stephen Lungu was called as a last minute, guest speaker at a Methodist Church outside of Durban in South Africa. That evening, as he was relating his story, the church service was disrupted by two little old white ladies. Leaving their seats, they approached the pulpit and pressed an old Bible into Stephen's hands, open to a page where in faded, hard to read ink, were the word's "14 May 1962 - Lord Jesus, will you save one gang leader tonight."3 One of the old women explained, "We were housewives in Durban. But we knew about the Dorothea Mission's meetings in Highfield Township outside of Harare, and so we were praying. We asked God for a gang leader."4 Thirty years later, God had arranged for them to meet with his answer to their short and simple prayer.

In response to this 'reunion', Stephen Lungu wrote, "Each one of us is called to be a witness to Christ, and so each one of us will find ourselves helping in someone else's faith chain. God will use you, in no matter how small or indirect a way. Your prayers, your faithfulness in doing your bit, are all that matters."5

Another day, ... listening to the pastor of our local church. He talked of seeds. We are called to sow. Some seeds produce a harvest within weeks, he noted, and then the harvest is over. Other seeds, and he used the examples of a grape vine and an olive tree, need to planted and tended, a scion grafted on, and then, maybe five, six, seven, years later, the first harvest. But the harvest, like that of those Durban housewives, continues for years, and decades; sometimes even generations.

Yes, there can be, there will be, discouragements and disappointments, but I need to hang on to Stephen Lungu's words. My prayers, my faithfulness; doing my bit - 'doing my duty' - is all that matters. What God will do with my bit is something I may never know nor understand, something that may be "too wonderful for me to know".

Thank-you to those of you who have been doing your bit, whatever it may be, to help me along my faith walk.

~ Benno ~

1 Elliot, Elizabeth. On Asking God Why. Grande Rapids, MI: Fleming H. Revell, 1989 (pg. 18)

2 Job 42:2,3 (NIV)

3 Lungu, Stephen with Commes, Anne. Out of the Black Shadows. Oxford, UK: Monarch Books. 2001 (pg. 236)

4 Ibid (pg. 236)

5 Ibid (pg. 238)