The last six months in India has been a time of new experiences, new learning and fresh challenges on this world, faith, love, hope and heartbreak. As my time here draws to a close I have been reflecting back on many of these experiences, learning’s and challenges. I have shared five of the bigger lessons here in this entry.
1. Renewed hope for the future of this world
Over and over again I have witnessed situations of brokenness and hopelessness turn to situations of hope and freedom. Seeing this transformation take place in the lives of people here and now, for me, has been a reminder of God’s want to see this broken world restored here and now (and that He is willing and able to do it). I have found a renewed hope in the fact that God is just as interested in the physical restoration of people and their situations (and ultimately this world) as He is in the spiritual restoration of people.
As God restores people, God restores the planet. God is not done with this world.
A belief that God is done with this world, that one day this planet will be end and those that belong to Christ will be taken to another place, if I am honest, doesn’t fill me with much hope and doesn’t inspire me to do anything about the heartbreak, pain and problems of this world (I wonder if that’s why this particular theology is the one we most often here and like, it takes the pressure off us having to play our part in fixing up this world, we do not have to worry about the physical problems we only have to worry about our personal spiritual relationship with God and the spiritual saving of others, which we can do without getting our hands too dirty or changing the way we live too much).
The idea that God wants to see this world restored and healed, on the other hand, fills me with hope. It gives purpose to the work that is happening around the world to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, free the captive, love the unlovable, heal the sick and visit the prisoner. It allows places and situations of heartbreak to be re-imagined in the way that God originally intended (a world without hunger, a community without the exploitation of human life, a beautiful garden instead of a carpark, an unpolluted stream) and begin to work to see those visions become a reality now, knowing that one day those visions will be completed here in Christ. This idea inspires and motivates me to get out into the world and be Jesus’ hands and feet in the fixing of this world (and that excites me).
I think as God wants to once again walk on this earth and interact with human kind again on this earth as he did in beginning.
2. Love wins
I have seen that active, generous and unconditional love wins and can change the world, and I have learnt that real love must act (and have been challenged live it in my life).
When love moves beyond words into a physical act things change. And when people see God move beyond words on a Bible page into a physical act of love they see and experience Him in a real way. Loving the world through small acts of kindness done with great love (Mother Teresa) reveals to the world who God really is and what he is about, it touches the hearts of the “have-nots” and fills them with hope, and it inspires and challenges the “have’s” to show more of the love God has shown them to others in new and radical ways. Real, authentic and active love points all people to God and His love.
Love makes the world a better place. Love really does win.
3. Don’t be afraid of heartbreak
I have found that entering into peoples pain is uncomfortable, it hurts and it can really mess you up, but all these uncomfortable feelings are worth it. When you experience a persons heartbreak it challenges you, shapes you, and throws new light on the way you see the world and how you interact with it. And when you see the person you have shared a little piece of their pain with come to a point where they find hope and freedom it is an experience words can not describe.
In my life I so often avoid heartbreak. I don’t want to hear the stories about women and children trafficked from their homes into sexual exploitation, I don’t want to think about the 4500 children that die every day because they don’t have clean drinking water, I don’t want to think about the women being beaten in their homes in my neighbourhoods, I don’t want to think about the homeless people on the streets. I would rather not think about those things and take on their pain because it is easier and more comfortable for me to ignore it.
I can’t ignore heartbreak though, I can’t be afraid of it, I need to find heartbreak and enter into it so that people might find hope (and in doing so I have the privilege of experiencing the joy that occurs when hope is restored and be reminded of God’s love for people and for me).
4. Seeking a new way
I have really been challenged on the way I live. Does my life really look any different to anyone else’s life? I go to church on Sunday’s and say I love Jesus but the reality is I spend, consume, pollute, waste and act violently towards others just as much as the next person. My faith needs to move beyond a Sunday faith focused solely on religious spiritual self-improvement: believing the right things and working at not drinking, not smoking, not swearing, reading my Bible and praying regularly.
I need to look not just spiritually different, but totally different to the world and how it operates.
I have been challenged to love not just those who love me but to actively seek the unlovable and the outcast and show them radical unconditional love. I have been challenged on what I buy (is it right to spend money on clothes made by fellow human beings working in sub standard conditions for sub standard pay, is it right to buy chocolate farmed by exploited, abused and scared kids, is it right to buy coffee purchased from growers in ways that keeps them and their families trapped in poverty?) I have been challenged on how much I consume (do I really need that new t-shirt, new pair of shoes or another pair of jeans, a European car, how can I save water, how can I lessen the amount of waste I produce?) I have been challenged to make a stand against the things in this world that are wrong (guns, the worlds constant use of war over diplomacy, structures and laws that keep people in poverty, the exploitation of God’s creation for profit). If this world is to be different, I need to be totally different.
Living a life totally different is a big challenge for me because, if I am honest, I am addicted to stuff and prefer the easy way out. I pray God continues to always challenge me on these things and that He gives me the strength to act on these challenges.
5. You got to give them hope
I recently watched a movie called Milk. The movie is about Harvey Milk (America’s first openly gay man elected to public office). It was a great movie.
There was one thing particular thing the Harvey Milk said in the movie (I think more than once) that really stood out to me, and that was “you got to give them hope”. That is so true, people need and want hope. That statement I think sums up what God want’s his followers to ultimately do in this world, to give people hope. God want’s me to give the poor, oppressed, outcast and unwanted hope for a better future. God wants me to give people hope that this world can be free of corruption, greed and violence. God want’s me to tell the lonely people they are not alone and that there is hope. God want’s me to tell the struggling married couple there is hope. God want’s me tell the family that has lost a love one that there is hope. In every situation of despair God want’s me to speak hope in to it. More than that God want’s me to show that hope, be that hope, which is inspired by Him who so loved the world he sent His only son to save it.
There is hope and freedom in God and I need to tell and show it to people.
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