(From Emily Belvery during her time as a mission partner in Taiwan)
I know giving up a food or activity for Lent can be a great spiritual encouragement to some Christians (and I have recently come to appreciate the blessings of practicing seasonal times of fasting and prayer), but this Lent I’ve been thinking about some different things to give up.
I was warned about the sacrifices of serving overseas, the grieving process that is culture shock with all its elements of discomfort and frustration and longing for home. But in many ways this setting has proven to be an easy transition into mission work.
I live in a first world country with a very high standard of living and a lower poverty rate than the US. I live and teach with other Americans. I can come home every night and speak English with people who share my cultural perspective and assumptions. There is KFC, McDonalds, Starbucks, Costco, Domino’s, and Carrefour within five miles of my house. I get to Skype my family at least once a week (which is probably more than we talked while I was in college), and instead of impersonal texts or audio-only phone calls, I get to spend wonderful time talking face to face with my parents, siblings, and friends for free.
Yes, there are things I miss about living in the States, and I have missed time and events with family and friends. But I have also been abundantly blessed by a smooth transition into life overseas.
Yet I’m realizing that there might be other things God’s calling me to give up as part of serving here.
I don’t have to give up relationships with family and friends, but I do have to give up relying on them before I rely on God. When time zones and schedules mean I can’t just talk to someone the moment I experience a struggle, I’m pointedly reminded that prayer is not a last resort but the only true answer – an incredible opportunity to approach the throne of God with confidence! (And even my mom and my best friend can’t quite match that listening ear.)
I’m learning to give up my ideals about teaching and ministry. Somehow conversations about theology and educational theory that seemed so neat and tidy in a college classroom are a lot more messy now that I’m face-to-face with real students, real colleagues, and real administration – and it’s even more jarring in a situation where the school culture is so antithetical to an American understanding of education.
I’m being called to give up the academic theological vocabulary that feels so comfortable on my tongue and lets me tie up God-sized realities into tidy linguistic packages – as if I can get a firm grasp on divine realities by boxing God up inside the English language. Somehow it’s more uncomfortable to talk about the paradoxes and mysteries of faith without words like “paradox” that offer an erudite, Latinate alternative to “I can’t understand it.” But when I talk with people about God in simple English (and hopefully someday even simpler Chinese!) I have to trust that the reality of God’s grace and mercy is so much greater than my ability to articulate it. I’m reminded of Paul who told the church at Corinth, “I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:1-2) For truly the cross of Christ is all we need know.
I have to give up trusting in my own ability to schedule and accomplish goals or plan ministry opportunities, as I recognize that more and more this cultural environment calls for constant flexibility and requires living with a fair amount of uncertainty. Neither of those things come easily to me, but I know my times are much better off in God’s hands than in my own.
But the paradox (the part I don’t understand) in all this giving up is that sacrificing the things I like to prop myself up on really means gaining incredible security and freedom in Christ. As Michael Card sings, “It’s hard to imagine the freedom we find from the things we leave behind.”
“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own.” (Philippians 3:12)
And that is of course where the real sacrificial message of Lent lies – “because Christ Jesus has already made me His own.”
So as we press toward Good Friday, the moment where God gave up everything to make us His own, we are also compelled by the love of Christ to give up the sins and self-reliance that so easily entangle in order to run with jubilant freedom the race God has laid out for us. (Hebrews 12:1)
Michael Card also sings, “The greatest gamble is to act on the belief that only the slave who leaves it all is truly free.” But “what is my petty offering to Christ’s sacrifice? I left my home; He gave up paradise. And what He calls me to offer has really set me free. He left everything to be with me.”
And you.