“And if we’re not careful,
we’ll think that God mainly cares about us gaining followers and doing action,
that mainly He doesn’t want you to sell yourself short or waste your energy on low-impact drivel.
We’ll think that God’s real blessing is found in our giftedness,
in what we’re able to build and where we’re able to go.
But that’s not true.”
– John Piper.
The past month has been one of hard lessons.
Having grown up and thrived in a world which rewards grand performance and celebrates newsworthy achievements, it can be easy to mistake shiny platforms for God’s blessings. Here, stuck between two worlds of breakneck efficiency and crawling delays, I am learning, that this is where Earth is, in between His highly heavenly place and on our knees.
Here, I am learning, a blessing is not being applauded for a successful project or for being a Great Missionary (is there such a thing?).
A blessing is coming to a place before man and God, with no glitzy results to show for, where we choose to remain faithful.
Back home, a victory is finally launching a project and hitting key numbers; a blessing is receiving some recognition. But I am learning, how different victories and blessings look like here.
Here, a victory looks like getting off from the floor wiping off tears from a tear-stained face, and being humbled to know that cross-cultural stress is accumulative and very real; it looks like navigating through dirt roads with no signs or landmarks for hours in places with no streetlights; it looks like finally getting a visa application approved after 6 months of document-submissions, dozens of phone-calls, and several exhausting trips down to the Visa office.
Here, a blessing is finally having a cosy 2-door, 20-year old car to drive, that stutters to life when it starts up, after days of painstakingly time-consuming negotiations and a nearly buying a lemon; a blessing is having God always send help to us every time it breaks down, even when it was right next to a slum market where chickens were being slit and defeathered, and when it rained so hard that the dirt roads melted into rivers; it is having help delivered to us even when our tyres burst and a metal bar beneath the car ripped off from going over a rough dirt road; it is knowing no one got injured when a motorcycle hit the car while it was being fixed at the mechanic’s; it is realizing that the robber who stole from the store next to our home was hacked nearly to death by an angry mob just minutes before we arrived home; it is being in the same room with an Ebola suspect and to know he was negative; it is being through one stressful, unpredictable situation after another and having the hand of a steady, good-looking husband to hold, one who can say, “We are Team Tam, we’ll get through this together!”
It is being able to come to God at the end of each day, frustrated by the inconsistencies and delays and how often things break down, discouraged by wondering if our sowing will make any difference at all, vexed by these overwhelming thoughts and nostalgic dreams of home, and being able to say, “God, you have put us here and we are grateful for your joy and strength each day.”
It is in learning that my security lies not in projects or numbers or stories to show for, but in the quiet knowing that God has used us to ferry someone’s elderly, crippled mother to hospital, God has used us to win the hearts of the people here that they have asked us to shepherd and mentor them personally, God has used us to live our lives faithfully, obediently and joyfully, even through hair-tearing, vexing moments that are familiar to every missionary.
But my greatest blessing, is in knowing that at the end of every day, I can return to a husband’s loving arms, realizing that my tears are hid in his prayers for me each day, and that we are both hid in His embrace, wrapped in His love, and kept in His grace.