What am I supposed to do with what is in me?
10/01/2011
Hurt & Helpless–
It just popped out while we talked. I had stopped by on a sunny, windy Sunday to see the guys in Masi, just to check in with some friends from Zimbabwe with whom we had been meeting for the past 2 years. To see how they were doing. And in our short exchange with one other Zim friend involved, it popped out. He said that Terry (not her real name) had been hurt by her husband during the night. He knew. His makeshift shack was attached to hers. All that separated them was worn, misshapen wooden slats. So he heard the shouting, the accusations, the crying–at 2:00 a.m. And he did what Africans do in this kind of situation: nothing.
Now this is not an accusation from me. Because in African culture one does not interfere with another man’s domestic issues. You stay out of it. You “respect” his behavior and allow him the privacy to settle his own domestic conflicts. I understand that cultural value. But I belong to a Kingdom that overrules cultural norms. In Africa, in America. And those that are part of this kingdom, in this case, my friends in Masi, get all the benefits of that kingdom.
Domestic violence is not uncommon. It is a familiar scene. Husband stays out to the wee hours of the morning, making noise, drinking with like-minded friends, one bottle of beer after another, pooling their own limited resources for the day, for more drink. Spending what little money they have to escape the relentless reality of seeming failure to succeed, failure to provide, failure to achieve, failure to attain the promise of a better life. Husband comes home drunk, unhappy, despondent, lashes out to anyone weaker, finding a scapegoat for his sense of failure. Making the helpless feel, well, even more helpless.
So, right then and there, Sunday afternoon, I went and spoke to Terry. And I went looking for her husband. Her husband was not around. I had spoken to him once before on this topic. I told him months ago that beating a wife was against the law. That I was Terry’s spiritual papa and I would not tolerate it. It was not bravado on my part. In their culture they were not going to beat me up. Her husband understood my veiled threat. I wasn’t going to beat him up, but I was going to go to the authorities. At the time he felt ashamed of his behavior and at the time, he stood, head down, embarrassed and corrected.
But now it was months later, that shame and embarrassment had worn off. The pain of life upon him, the easy step into drunkenness, all of it erupted into his bad behavior to Terry. So I spoke with Terry and comforted her, I told her I would speak with her husband but he had left, and he would avoid me. I told her I wanted her safe, and I asked her where would she be safe. We worked out a plan, and I asked her to call me should anything come up.
fearful
Yesterday I went with Kalyn and 2 others to visit one of her Vulnerable Children families. The mama is a destitute older Xhosa woman with a name that takes practice to say. She has 3 children with her living on the edge of the wetlands, in a small, isolated shack. She was so happy to see Mamacita, and then she shook my arm off with a big smile. We represented Help. An answer to prayer.
She told us that 3 different times during the night some gangsters (term for young men prowling Masi to take advantage of others by stealing, robbing, burglarizing for their sparse things) 3 times they had come to her small shack at night and begun to pull planks off her wall to get inside, and take what they wanted. A mama huddled with her 3 children in a very primitive shack on the edge of Masi, with water and marshes from the wetlands just behind her, full of fear.
She had called out to shacks around her but no one responded. And she told us no one would. No one wants to mess with gangster boys. She was asking us for help to buy some large pieces of zink that would provide more safety than the narrow wooden planks as they would be secured over all of the wood on her vulnerable shack. We worked out a plan of action for her and her children.
I tell you these stories not to startle you into another reality. And I want to be perfectly clear this is not about Kalyn or Mike coming to the rescue. It is so much more. It is bigger than us, you or me. You see, someone other than Kalyn or Mike knows their names, their stories. If it wasn’t Kalyn and Mike, it would be Dave and a Alison, or Julie and a Kyle. Because the Father cares.
It is personal, always personal. Calling God “Father” is a very personal name. And calling out to Him is a very, very, very personal matter. It implies a very personal relationship. Just ask someone that has never had a father. What does father mean? So if He is Father, if He does know the number of hairs on each of our heads, as Jesus said He did, then He is personal. He knows us. So if Jesus heals this blind guy with spit and dirt, and then heals another blind man by having him wash his eyes in a pool, God, the Father, personalizes our care, our relationship with Him.
He is coming (in us)
So Terry knows the Father. She has stories about the Father in her life. She sees that the Father comes in physical bodies to her to share His life with her. And this understanding, that He comes in physical bodies to her, is what the Kingdom is all about. What you and I are all about. We may not have signed up for this, but that is how it works.
We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. 2nd Corinthians 5:20
There is a significant truth here that we need to grasp. The Father is speaking through us. You and me. He is working through us. He is reaching out through us, whether in Africa or America.
Even more clear, If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. 1 Peter 4:11 Did you catch that? When we come in His name, we represent Him. We are on holy ground. When we come to someone, we may not know it, but you and I come as an ambassador and we represent Him. An ambassador gets all kinds of rights and protection. But I haven’t hit my point yet, but I am coming to it.
When Christ is in us, something is happening in us, something huge, something we often don’t even catch, or even feel, see or articulate. Something is being reworked in us. i am trying to avoid religious language because religion camouflages the truth. Something is going on in our mind, in our spirit. Something is agitating, moving, growing, because this divine agitation is the impulses, the desires of the Father wanting to come out to the Terry’s in Africa, to the Terry’s across the street in America, to those who are helpless in their circumstances, waiting with hope, waiting for change. Helpless. Often full of fear.
So it makes perfect sense:
for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. Philippians 2:13
Ah, isn’t that cool? We (each of us, no one is disqualified) are in on it with Him? His plan:
who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds. Titus 2:14
Now here is my point. We belong to such a bigger story. We belong to Him, to His plan. We are the “Father’s own possession,” that is who we are. And agitating inside of us, unknown to us, are His desires, the zeal to do “good deeds”–because of Him.
The other morning I woke up thinking this thought:
what am i suppose to do with what is in me?
As I walked, I thought over that question as if it was leading me to a significant discovery. What do I do with what is in me? What does the Father want to do with His Spirit that is in me? What do I do? What do you do? What should we do?
The answer seemed simple: Give it away.
