Entitlement

I think that we live in the most obscure time in eternity. There is pre-Genesis eternity, Creation up to the Cross, now, and the age to come. We are truly in a peculiar spot in history. Anyone that is familiar with the Rock Harbor circles of fellowship are familiar with the New Testament picture of the Kingdom of God as “now, but not yet.” The Kingdom of God, and all the blessings and holiness that comes with it, is “at hand” (Matthew 3:2) and thus is within reach. The Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven, is a Kingdom without sin, sickness or death; utterly flawless, fulfilling and satisfying. That is within reach and Jesus wants His followers to walk in this truth. And yet, the Kingdom is not fully here yet, thus death, sin and sickness still have an evil grip on this world. The Kingdom of God is infinitely superior and more powerful than the kingdom of darkness and victory is already secured, yet it has not completely taken place yet (unless by the time you read this, Jesus has already come back , in which case, I’ll just tell you, the reader, that I’m never updating this blog again). I believe Jesus’ words and I believe that the Holy Spirit is just like Jesus and that He does the same stuff today. That’s truth.

I write this blog without much of an idea of how things work. May the Lord work through my foolish thoughts and writing. I believe in things that I don’t see. I believe in things that the Bible teaches, yet I’ve never seen them with my own eyes. I hear people’s stories about incredible miracles that have taken place and as much as I truly believe them, when it becomes my turn all I can do is kind of look at the ground and shuffle me feet. Certainly I testify of the Lord working in the supernatural in my life and testify that He does those things. But when it comes to those radical healings and completely unexplainable phenomena I don’t really have anything to say.



In the summer of 2009, I was doing an outreach with The Call Africa that took place right here in Moshi. I was at this stadium with all these other westerners that were coming to preach and pray for others. They were certainly in what one would call the “signs and wonders” stream of followers (sad that I have to designate them as such, when it should be all of us). The first night, the speaker was having people come up to receive certain types of healings and we would go down and pray for them. There was a time for people with hearing problems, another time for eye problems, and so forth. During the time for people with eye problems, I prayed for five or six different people. I was saying all the things that people tell you to say when healing someone, even those things that Jesus said Himself in the Gospel accounts. I prayed, I spoke to the sickness itself and told it to get out in Jesus’ name, I rebuked Satan, I did all those things. I somehow was going through people without really healing anyone. Culturally, Tanzanians are down to receive anything, including prayer, and will tend to agree with white people to appease them. So I doubt that everyone that went forward really needed healing and my assumption is that some of them said that the prayer worked even if it didn’t (or if they didn’t even need it in the first place). Just a couple things I’ve picked up culturally and I wonder what effect it has when white people come over in masses to fix all of our problems. Anyways, I prayed for this particular woman and when I finished, she got really happy and grabbed my hand and said “asante” then took off back into the crowd. I didn’t see her again. I was a bit dumbfounded. Did I just heal her? Did the Lord just use ME to heal her? I still don’t know what that was all about or what happened, but it’s the closest that I’ve got to a supernatural story.

That is juxtaposed against the hundreds upon hundreds of prayers that I’ve sent up for Awadhi to be healed. To date, he has not been healed in the natural.

Sometimes its easy to fall into this trap of thinking that God owes us something. We’ve done one thing or another or suffered through one thing or another and we feel that now God will do us a favor. I’m really fighting to avoid that mindset, because I see the way that it plagues and hinders so many followers. Perhaps it is most evident to me in the framework of American Christianity where individualism and consumerism leads to self-idolatry. Thus if we choose to follow the Lord, we let Him know how lucky He is to have us because our former god of self was pretty cool. He better make everything great for me, do everything I tell Him to and I better be happy all the time with no problems.

I feel this theological tension and it has an effect on me beyond my mere thoughts. Yes, I agree completely that by His stripes we are healed when we cry out to Him(1 Peter 2:24; Psalm 107:20), and that God heals people through the ministry of the Holy Spirit (read the book of Acts). I also agree that following the Lord is as difficult as bearing a cross (Luke 9:23), involves being persecuted by the likes of the same people that persecuted Jesus (John 15:20) and that people are sometimes called, like Paul, to suffer for the sake of Jesus (Acts 9:16). It is a truly peculiar spot. There is this gospel that goes around that centers on “health and wealth” and I don’t agree with it despite its obvious appeal. I don’t find it to be biblical, nor do I see it accurately portrayed in the lives of those that propagate it. Yet, I can’t deny the other side that says, yes, God does take care of His children and that includes physical provision, both financially and physically.

The rubber hits the road and stuff flies into the fan at some point in life, or multiple points as it seems to be.

This summer, Pastor Shoo told me about a Canadian organization that he’s partnering with to supply thousands hearing aids to people of Tanzania. This is the first time that they are working in Tanzania specifically. Obviously, Awadhi is at church with me every Sunday and is the deaf person that Pastor Shoo probably sees most often. He told me and we got the scoop on how to get Awadhi hooked up with a free hearing aid. Lydia and I went to an actual meeting that they had with the head of the organization back in the summer and Awadhi wounded up being the first person in all of Tanzania fitted for a hearing aid through this organization. They then said that they would return in October (which ended up being November) and would bring all the fitted hearing aids to all the people that they saw in the summer. Well, today was the big day. Jodie and I headed over to the mission house at 10 and were there for a few hours altogether. It was a bustling atmosphere and I jumped in to help with translating and crowd control, everything was going great. Apparently, Awadhi got fitted at his school also so he had two different sets of molds. We took it as him receiving a double portion (not that he has four ears or anything). After a couple hours we got to the front to have them tested. They cleaned his ears, put in the molds and hooked them up. They then began testing and we couldn’t really tell if he was responding or not. So they had Jodie and I take him aside with the testing device and try it out. We turned it all the way up and were speaking loudly into it. Nothing. I try, she tries. Nothing. We sit on this stoop at our wits end, the hearing aid isn’t working. All those times that we thought he heard something, now seem to just be wishful thinking. We pray and then we decide that since they clearly don’t work, there’s no point in withholding them from someone that they might work for. Before we finish our conversation with the man and leave, telling that Awadhi and I have a special relationship, he asks me if I’ve already adopted him or what my plan is. It almost felt like an inadvertent twisting of the knife as I begrudgingly tell him, “I’m waiting to see what the Lord would have me do.” We leave somewhat dejected.

My son is deaf. He’s totally deaf. That sucks. To show us just how deaf he is, the guy put the hearing aid with the testing device in our ears on a low setting and it was uncomfortably loud. We had it cranked all the way up on Awadhi. If he had hearing, it was so loud it would actually damage his hearing. That sucks.

They tried to console us. We told them that we still trust God and that the Lord can heal him. We believe that can and will happen. Two different guys, both kind, both well-meaning, tell us that sign language is good, there are blessings in being deaf and that God has better plans for Awadhi than him being able to hear. I understand them trying to console and encourage us, but that’s crap. If there was blessing in deafness, we’d all be deaf and music wouldn’t exist. God has something better for Awadhi, we believe and trust that that involves his hearing and God’s glory.

Nonetheless, I would like to have things my way. I would like to show the Lord all my credentials, all my accolades and then tell Him what He should give me. “Well, Almighty God, Creator of Heaven and Earth, who saved me from my own sin… here’s my list.” Biblically, I have a few things going for me, right? I take care of orphans, that has to count for something! Wrong. Its not about me or what I’ve done. Its about His glory and I continue to trust that His glory will be seen. As much as I would like to say that God owes me a son that is healthy right now, I can’t say that in my own right he owes me anything at all. I praise God that Jesus advocates for me and Awadhi and I pray and declare in faith that Awadhi will be healed at the exact moment that gives God the most glory.

The Lord’s plan is bigger and better. When we returned to TOA, we shared the diagnosis with Eli and I agree with what he said. My paraphrase of what he said is that God likes to exhaust all other opportunities so that no one can point to anything other than His intervention. I agree. This isn’t my plan; my plans seem to have gotten the shaft back in June 2007. I don’t deserve anything in my own right, but my Father is the King and I trust Him. God’s plan is bigger and better than I can imagine and He seems to have a flair for the dramatic. He will show His faithfulness again. Because I want to see God glorified, I invite you to keep an eye on what the Lord does in Awadhi’s life. Albeit a somewhat discouraging day at one point, we in fact were productive today. We were able to cross off Awadhi’s list that says “healed by man’s technology.” That’s not going to happen. I can’t think of much else to cross off before we just get to the point where Jesus just pops those ears open, He receives all glory and everyone realizes just how close “at hand” really is. That’ll be a blog worth reading.

He is entitled to our worship. He is worthy of our faithful obedience regardless of circumstances. He deserves everything that we have and everything there is. Our salvation was more than enough and yet in accordance with His good plan, He continues to bless us, for this we give praise.

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The Rundown: Not much else going on. I suppose the big news is up there. I’ve enjoyed being able to skype with Melissa pretty regularly so that’s been nice. I had a great time at church with all our kids at their church on Sunday. Our little ones were dedicated and other kids were involved in the service. It was a blessed and long time. Hold on to your seats Americans, we were at church for over seven hours. The service itself was five and then there was an interlude for food and then they started up again. We actually left before they finished. It was fun to be with all the kids and my precious treasures have certainly inspired me of another upcoming blog that would have gone up today had all the hearing aid stuff not gone down. Keep an eye out for that one coming up. That’s the only big news really. Thanks for reading and thanks for your support. Be blessed!