Indo Lessons

Exotic, third world countries.  Obedience.  Sacrifice.  Suffering.  Persecution.  Martyrdom.

Those were some of my lofty thoughts as I prepared to live in Indonesia for the summer.  Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world.  It is poor in most parts, and yet, has a beauty and energy that is contagious.  If you read an updated version of Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, Indonesia seems to dominate the modern day.  I imagined this trip as an inauguration into our life of self-sacrifice and holiness.

However, God had to first teach me some of the ABC’s of the faith, some truths that I’ve known in my head for a long time, but had yet to experience.  I left for Indonesia very certain of my ability and competency to serve God cross-culturally, but learned instead basic truths that helped me to see myself appropriately against the backdrop of our awesome God.

Lesson 1:  God is powerful, and we are weak

Who doesn’t know this?  I would have said I did before leaving.  But we got over to Indonesia, and we couldn’t do something as simple as communicate with others, something that is taken for granted here in the states.  I found it impossible for me to do. 

Weeks after arriving in our city, I came down with a strange and awful illness.  It hurt to swallow, to move my muscles.  I found myself unable to function basically and to communicate to others.  Scripture makes this weakness of man perfectly clear - man is dust (Psalm 103:14), and God is a refuge, a rock, a fortress, a deliverer, salvation, a shield, a stronghold (Psalm 18:2).  It took me lying in bed, unable to move, unable to talk to anyone other than my wife, to realize that I was so self-sufficient.  I depend on myself to simply talk.  I am arrogant about the health that I’ve been blessed with.  I confessed to God on that bed that I was an arrogant sinner and praised Him for the ability to speak, for every breath he gave me.

Lesson 2:  We are truly meant to live as exiles on this earth

It didn’t take but a few weeks of being isolated in Indonesia that I started longing for home.  I long for family, friends, and familiarity.  But as I talked about this to my wife over and over, God began to convict us about these talks.  Scripture teaches us that we don’t have a home.  King David says in Psalm 39:12 that we are sojourners on this earth.  We began to see that we were not meant for Alabama, for the states, or even for Indonesia.  Our resting place, our home, is eternally in His presence, not this world.  We should long to be with Him and not some geographical location.  If we don’t come to this truth, if we claim, “Alabama is my home,” we begin to settle in with the culture, blending in, and then find ourselves unwilling to listen to God or let go of location so that we can be free to obey and follow Him wherever He may call or lead.  I began to see that Philippians 3:20 is not a metaphor but a reality.  Our citizenship is truly in heaven, and we are to eagerly await our reunion with the Savior, not our hometowns.

Lesson 3:  We can trust the promises of God

My wife and I are by no means looking to serve overseas because we are super-holy or wild and adventurous.  We simply know we have a responsibility to obey the Great Commission, and so we are stepping out in faith.  However, just because we trust God with the big things life our life’s direction, it doesn’t mean that we are always trusting Him in the details of life.  We are told that God plans to give us hope and a future (Jer. 29:11), and that Christ will never leave us (Matthew 28:20). 

Our biggest prayer request for our trip was that God would show us where, within Indonesia, He would have us serve long-term when we hopefully returned.  Details are too lengthy for this article, but it is suffice to say that we began to despair when it came time to leave, and we still had no understanding of where in Indonesia He wanted us.  So a few weeks upon our return to the states, I desperately began to pray for guidance, even if it did not take us back to Indonesia.  Again, worthy of an article of its own, God began to open the door for us to serve in Shizuoka, Japan as career missionaries.  I understand now that we had chosen Indonesia based on its needs but hadn’t prayed about it in years.  When we quit presuming upon God and began to call on Him, He showed Himself faithful and trustworthy by answering our prayers and making it clear where He wanted us.  How could we ever have doubted a God who “did not even spare His own Son, but offered Him up for us all; how will He not also with Him grant us everything?”

Lesson 4:  The Gospel is necessary and relevant in everyday life

When I fell ill and confessed to God that I been acing as if I was self-sufficient; it was like the devil was telling me to quit. 

“You just confessed that you’re no good.  Go home.  You can’t be a missionary.”

He seemed to sneer at me.  Bu the Holy Spirit preached the Gospel to me reminding me that in my weakness He is powerful (2 Corinthians 8:9).

I also snapped at my wife.  With all the frustrations and pressures, she was closest one to me.  In a two day span I was inexcusably nasty to her twice.  To get away, I walked outside, put on my iPod, and come across a sermon about the Gospel in marriage.  I wept as I realized that I wasn’t applying the Gospel to my own marriage.  Here I am a sinner, undeservedly saved, still sinning and still being forgiven, and I have the gall not to offer my wife the same grace when she’s not even doing anything wrong!  I realized that “love your wives, just as Christ love the Church and gave Himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25) had become an empty sound bite in my life.  But how dare I, when Christ, who was God, emptied Himself to become obedient to the point of death (Philippians 2), not empty myself to serve my wife and others, to love them, to live the Gospel out among them?   

If you have the head knowledge of these things as well and have yet to experience them, let me encourage you to pray so that you can see your weakness in light of God’s power.  If you find yourself living as a citizen of this world, and not a foreigner, I encourage you to fast for a while for the things of the world that compete for your affection.  If you sometimes doubt the trustworthiness of God, let me encourage you to step our in radical obedience and give more away and watch Him provide.  Go on a mission trip and watch Him work in and through you.  And if you struggle with the Gospel not taking root in your everyday life and relationships, let me encourage you to meditate on Scripture, or learn a Gospel outline so that you are more certain what the truths of the Gospel really are and thus more ready to live it out and share it with the world.  God is powerful.  He is our home.  He is trustworthy, and He is living and active today, tomorrow, and forever.