Are we “blessed” or just blinded?

The beautiful woman in front of me glows with the love of Christ.  She is the wife of our dear Tanzanian pastor.  She is raising four lovely children and faithfully serving alongside of her husband in our small church here in Morogoro.   With her feet up on my lap I carefully paint each toenail and listen as she hums a favorite tune.  This woman displays true grace and beauty.  However, her rough feet, missing toenails, blisters and sores remind me of a life that is far from similar to my own. 

We had just spent half of the afternoon in her home and then the other half at mine.  My mind raced back and forth between the bleak contrasts. 

Her home: well-swept dirt floors, a sheet for a front door, a kitchen outside which consists of coal and a pot, stirring a pot of ugali while explaining their inability to afford rice.  I listened as Pastor and his wife talked about the terrible government school in which their children attend.  They fear for their children’s future, but there are no other options they can afford.  

My home: newly mopped tile floors, windows protected by two sets of iron bars, around the clock guards and a beautiful gate; freshly baked banana bread as we sit on our outdoor patio and the uniforms of our girl’s private school freshly hanging out to dry.  Our lives really couldn’t be more different. 

Okay, now stop for a moment. Catch what you are thinking.  If you are anything like most Americans, anything like how I used to think…your thoughts may have been somewhere like this.  “Wow, it just makes me realize just how blessed we really are.”  It sounds simple and true.  But is it?  For a while now that statement has haunted me.  It bothers me because that simple statement implies a very serious misconception of who the blessed in this world really are.  It’s a very dangerous formula.

I have things SO I’m blessed.  

They don’t have my things SO they are not as blessed.

I think as believers our worldview has been seriously messed up because of this lie. I believe it’s much more simple.

Jesus + Nothing = Everything  (btw, this is a title of an amazing book that you should read!)

What if tomorrow your story looked more like that of Job of the Bible (who lost everything he owned, his family, his health, his friends, his comfort).  If all you had left in this world was…well, Jesus.  Is that enough?

I think if we looked into God’s Word we would see a different view of who the blessed really are.  Maybe we would shift our thoughts.

“Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!” (Psalms 34:8)

“Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him?” (James 2:5)

Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust, who does not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after a lie! (Psalms 40:4)

“Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 19:24)

So, really…how are we gauging our standard of God’s blessings?   We are not blessed because we are rich.  In fact, we are all suffering from poverty, spiritual poverty.  Each and every one of us shares in suffering, this spiritual poverty, because of SIN.  It just manifests itself in very different ways.  In Africa we see it manifested through disease, government corruption, parentless children, etc.  In America we can see our “poverty” through consumerism, idolatry, self-obsession, a lust for the world.  Without Christ both poverties are equally hopeless.

 I never truly understood the words in Matthew 19:24 until I moved to Africa.  As the scales are (very slowly) falling off I realize that yes…the rich of the world (myself) non-Christian and Christian alike are blinded by what we see as our “blessings”.  In the often quoted words of C.S. Lewis:

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

Maybe we aren’t so “blessed”.  Maybe our consumer driven hearts have led us so far astray from what life is really about that we are blinded.  We are blinded from living the life that our Savior redeemed us to live.  Maybe our “mud pies” are not really so satisfying after all?

There are over 3 million people in Tanzania alone who have never heard the gospel!  THREE million souls who have NEVER heard the name of Christ.  I don’t think our dear pastor and his wife are splashing around making mud pies over here.  I think God has BLESSED her family with faith, and joy, and HIS love as they live by faith and share HIS hope here in Tanzania.  They are blessed. 

July 1st, 2012 Journal

After almost four months of living here in Africa I can definitely look back and see some extremes in emotions.  Some times I still can’t believe I live here and other times I feel like this is where we have always been.  Many times I am welcomed warmly and lovingly by the Tanzanians. Other times I fight back tears as I am stared at, mocked, harassed, confused, frustrated with language, etc.  Sometimes I have compassion for the 7-year-old child begging to hold my bag at the market for 200 shillings.  Other times I am so angry at a system that allows this to happen and at whoever is making this child work instead of allowing them to go to school.  Sometimes I walk fruit and vegetables out to the old women begging for food at our gate.  Other times I watch in irritation as they rub their stomachs and hold out their hands to me. Sometimes I love this life…sometimes I just want to go home. 

Today…I want home.  As we are visiting a family in Kitumbi, I watched out of the corner of my eye as a mother and her adult daughter interacted in the kitchen.  They laughed and washed dishes, they sang together.  (Yes…I was the creepy girl watching them from the living room.)  Then I saw something that struck me so deep that all I could do was leave the house before I burst into tears.  I watched this mother and daughter look at each other and without saying a word…they communicated.  In a moment…all the things that I try to guard my heart against dwelling upon came flooding back.  I miss my mom.  I miss those glances, where not a word needs to be spoken…just a look into the eyes of the woman who raised me.  I miss my sisters.  I miss the moments of sweet laughter and the moments of quiet, where again…nothing needs to be said or discussed…you are so familiar with one another that you just know.  I want that back.  I miss my family more than I can ever truly allow myself to admit.  But today, I remember.  I remember the looks, the laughs, the hugs and warmth, the smell, the voices, the sweet familiarity of my family and I miss it.

~God, you alone are our comfort and strength during moments of fear and pain.  I ask that you grant me peace today.  Strengthen me when I feel lost and weary.  Lord, you know my heart.  It is far from here today.  Today, I am not moved for the lost.  Today I am not weary and crying out for the people around me who need to know you.  I am crying only for myself.  Forgive me. Help me to remember why we are here.  Help me to live each moment with eternity in view. 

Even now, I type this hearing the Muslim call to worship and I’m not praying for them; I’m not even moved for them right now.  I’m discouraged.  I need you, Lord to strengthen my soul.  I need to be reminded of the gospel…what you have already done for me.  I have everything I need in this life because of you.  Encourage me through your spirit and your word today.  Please help me not to make my feelings a cause for obedience.  Renew a right spirit within me.

Psalm 84

How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at you altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God.  Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise! Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.  As they go through the Valley of Baca they make it a place of springs; the early rain also covers it with pools.  They go from strength to strength; each on appears before God in Zion. O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer; give ear, O God of Jacob! Behold our shield, O God; look on the face of your anointed!  For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.  I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness. For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor.  No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.  O Lord of hosts, blessed is the one who trusts in you!