Seeing Beyond

"Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions.  Don't worry about missing out.  You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met."  Matthew 6
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We have a friend who was imprisoned in Afghanistan by the Taliban.  She was accused of sharing her faith in God with people.  After many close calls, the 9/11 attacks, horrid living conditions, and eventually being locked in a shipping container and left to die, she (along with some others) were miraculously rescued by US troops.  We had prayed constantly for her during her time in prison, so you can imagine how thrilled we were when we finally got to see her months after her return.

After exchanging hugs and letting her know how much we had prayed for her, she said something I have never forgotten.  

"I didn't do prison as well as I had hoped I would," she said.

"What kind of statement was that?" I thought immediately.  I didn't know how to respond.

This statement has puzzled me for a long time.  I mean, what the heck does it mean to "do" prison well.  Who talks like that?  I could only imagine that just surviving so many frightening situations would be "doing it well."

But, through the rough terrain of the last years, God has been explaining it.

I, like many believers, have made some big commitments to God.  I have promised to serve Him joyfully when I was pumped up during worship, after hearing a great sermon, when I was recognized and praised by the church, and when I was well-fed, well clothed, and had a comfortable place to live.  

And then, as the circumstances have been stripped away, I find those commitments are greatly challenged.  It is quite another thing to have joy in the middle of different mission fields the world has chosen to ignore, when no one (including other believers) praises or encourages you, when we have been hungry, homeless, worried for our own children, while carrying the good news to others.

Somehow, the commitment doesn't seem so shiny and beautiful.  It seems like I might have spoken too soon, and joy gets washed over with disappointment.  And, disappointment easily turns into self-pity.

But, I had so hoped to be able to rejoice in our time of suffering, to rejoice in this time that I knew was part of the deal when serving Jesus.

But a prison is a prison.  No matter what, it is an unpleasant situation.  It is suffering and, no matter who you are, it is still a hardship, it is still pain.  And suddenly, or slowly we find ourselves there with what looks like nothing to the world, and all the glitz and glamour of what we are called to do is gone.  Our faith is staring us in the eyes and it looks like cold walls and bars and that our lives are going nowhere.  And when we try and move to change our circumstances, we find our wrists in shackles and bleeding because this life is no longer our own.  We falter a bit in the emptiness and the pain of the reality of what it actually means to be a true follower of Jesus.  

It's not what you see on TV.  It's not what you hear about in some great story while you are full of food and resting comfortably at church.  It's a hardship you didn't fully understand until you stared at that cell wall.  And, now, we are not only supposed to choose to have faith, but we are supposed to rejoice and be joyful about being imprisoned.  We are supposed to sing.

That is hard.  

Its even harder if there is no one who understands you.

Our family has felt the prison walls around us the past years.  We have never had such a clear vision of who we are and what we are to do for Jesus as we have right now.  Yet, we have again come face to face with our faith in a world where many are telling us to back down, conform to the world around us, and abandon all hope.  Believers shake their heads at our "irresponsibility" or our "insanity."  We should see the prison walls,  the obvious lack of provision, and the lack of God's favor for what they are......right?  We should focus on reality.  I did and I despaired.

And then, one day I was singing in the middle of another problem with finances and finding a place to live. I had my eyes closed and there He was....Jesus hanging on the cross....right in front of me.  And I saw His pain and I saw his suffering and I saw in His eyes that He didn't even mind.  I saw that in His pain, He was able to reach past the reality of what He was seeing and feeling.  I saw Him reach into God and find the strength to go forward into the pain and through the pain and I saw the deep love He feels for me even in those terrible moments.   I was undone.

I found then that even in my most generous, most selfless moment, I am selfish. I saw that I haven't been doing prison very well.  I saw how selfish I really am...how I don't want to do His will unless my circumstances work out.  I saw how I felt like I had a right to have the basics, like a place to live.  And, I saw that He gave up everything for me.  And, I saw (unfortunately) how I had been whining about what I was sacrificing instead of feeling the joy that comes from the great honor of being called AND chosen. I was instantly humbled in thinking over how I have handled my imprisonment for Jesus.  It was not done out of a joyful or selfless heart or spirit.  I have not been seeing Him beyond the pain and suffering.

In that moment, I saw beyond our circumstances to Him, the one that my heart loves.  And when His love called to me, I could lay down my rights.  I could lay down my children's rights (which is even hard to type).

So now, I get it.  I haven't done prison as well as I had hoped either.  I haven't rejoiced as often as I could have.  I have let the voices of the enemy eat at me and leave divots of frustration, disbelief, and anger where there should be joy.  I haven't been always looking into Jesus' eyes and seeing his suffering.  I haven't always felt the honor of sharing in His suffering.  I haven't always felt my deep love for Jesus melt away my discontentment with our situation. 

Serving Jesus IS wonderful, but it is far from easy.  We are in a world that doesn't understand this love that we feel and carry.  But because they long for it and cannot resolve this inner conflict, they will have us suffer for that.  In that suffering, we can lose hope because it is easier to listen to the mocking and the impossibility of what we believe in, than to see beyond to what we are trusting God to accomplish.  

Freedom and the ability to "do" prison well come when you can hold your shackled hands up over your head and REALLY sing at the top of your lungs.  

So now, I hold my chained hands up high because I volunteered for this place of honor.

It might look like the stupidest thing ever because I am singing with the metal cutting my wrists, but I can see beyond.  And I know it looks terrible because other believers have reminded us that we could ask for an escape and live comfortably.  But, I can see Him beyond the prison that it looks like I am in.  And while I would never suffer just for the sake of suffering, I will suffer with joy for His love.  

When this kind of true worship happens, when I can really worship when I am naked and imprisoned and homeless and hungry, then somehow people get changed.  

"But who would want this?" I often think in the midst of yet another desperate situation.

It is not a great story to tell in a newsletter or at a church gathering.  It doesn't look like any humans' idea of being responsible and anyone's idea of success.  But, those that are being changed are not seeing that...they are seeing beyond to what I see when I sing...the eyes of Jesus.  Others are seeing beyond to someone that loves them so deeply that they would volunteer to be bound to them.  They see beyond hardships to the value of knowing the value and worth of being loved.  That is reality.  God-reality.

The reality is that the opportunity to be a bondservant for Jesus isn't the life of a slave, but the call of a lover.  I love Him beyond the normal life everyone says is so dependable.  

Do you see what I see?

"Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives." Galatians 5