End Of The Line

it didn't take much to realize that this morning's sermon was very easy to relate to my situation in 2007-2008 when i lived in hong kong. paul said that God had afflicted him with the thorn in his flesh in order that he might be made weak and not trust in his own abilities, but that he would rely on Christ and His strength would be made to show through. when i was out there, everything i did was motivated by my own plans, my own desires, and my own schemes to make thing happen the way that i thought was best.

when i got my job, i was so excited. when i found out that the commute was going to be two hours a day, each way, six days a week, i was less excited but determined. i had come out there with my new wife, against all conventional wisdom, and without a working visa at that. to top it all off, we had come there with still changing theological positions and a lack of a solid church to fellowship at. when i got my job, i thought i had all i needed to supply my needs because i had an income. i placed my trust in that income, and that income failed me numerous times.

because i had forgotten to trust God.

some may say that He brought us back to a better situation, to work at crossweave and pay off our debt and someday move back, that it was a good thing that we left. i'm not so sure. i don't so much think that it was good that we came back, because when i think back to that time now, i see nothing but missed opportunity. i see my shortcomings, my failures, my lack, and i wish i could go back and do it all over again only better. what a life we could've had. we can still have it in the future, but we could've had it then. it could've been better.

i've said in the past that it would have been better had we never gone to hong kong in the first place, but i don't think that's true. sometimes we need a reminder that we must put our trust in God first and only, not foremost but only. hong kong was that reminder for me, and now when i think of hong kong, my heart aches and longs to return. but it also aches because i remember the time when my flesh was proven to be insufficient, weak, worthless, and my pride was broken to bits because i could not manage to provide for my family. i think of that time and i no longer feel as though i wasted my time, but i see it as a lesson in humility.

such lessons ought to be avoided, says conventional wisdom from people like my father or my family, but i think i'm for the better. i'm not one of those people who says 'i don't regret anything i've done because it's all made me the person i am today!' because that's foolishness. what i've done does not make me who i am today. it may affect my personality, it may have molded my quirks and idiosyncrasies, but ultimately those things are inconsequential.

Jesus Christ has made me who i am today.

and that is all that matters in the end. not what i've seen, what i've done, how i've failed, but how Christ has paid my debt and transformed my life by the power of the Holy Spirit. this is not some mystic thing, some holiness perfectionism, some 'life transformation' in a moralistic sense, but a plain fact. no matter who i am personally because of what's happened to me in the past [and by extension, no matter who any one of God's people is], it is His Spirit that defines me. my failures reflect that. i will boast in my weaknesses that the power of Christ may be upon me.

for the sake of Christ, then, i am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. for when i am weak, then i am strong. — 2 corinthians 12:10 [esv]