DownshoreDrift

A couple of years ago, I got to go to India.  This was an incredible, life changing trip. I was able to go to New Delhi and then north to Dehradun and Mussoorie. We worked in Children's Homes and in a variety of situations. Two days after we had gotten there, we were on a tour of New Delhi.  Our guide, a local pastor, was taking us to all of the local shrines and attractions (Ghandi's tomb, the Red Fort, temples, etc.).  At the end of the day, I felt that we had seen the public face of India, but I wanted to see behind the mask. I wanted to see the reason that we had come. I asked him to take us to the slums so we could see how the majority of the people lived.  He was really surprised and said that no one had asked him that before.  He took us to a slum, where we were able to hang out with the people, share Christ, meet a Christian family, and pray for people. It would be real easy to criticize the rich Americans for making their "visit" to the poor people so we could feel good about ourselves, but that is not why we went. I wanted to go because I wanted my illusions destroyed.  If I had any hope at all of ministering to these people, I needed to really see them, and not just have them be an object in my mind. God changed me that day.

I used to think that so many in America really had it bad, that poverty was so horrible, and that  many were abused and forgotten. Then I entered the slums and orphanages of India and I realized how blessed we are here, even the poorest of the poor, and how we do not even see it.  We are awash in prosperity and are miserable.  We have everything and every opportunity we could ever want, yet it is easier to blame others and compare ourselves with others.  The Dalits in India, who have no chance of moving up from their low caste position, would gladly trade places with the poorest of Americans for the chance to work hard and prosper (from a material perspective, anyway).  In comparison with the third world, there is no poverty in America.  I have done a great deal of inner city ministry in my day, and the difference between the urban poor in America and the rest of the world is that the poor in America really do have a choice. Their prison is the prison of culture, heritage, family, poor choices, and mentality, more than it is a dearth of opportunity.  That is my perspective, anyway.  That is why the whole gospel really is the solution for every need.

From the suburban perspective, we want comfort, choice, and pleasure at all costs. We will do whatever we can to find it.  We build our lives around the pursuit of happiness for ourselves and our family, and anything that gets in the way of that is seen as an obstacle or an enemy. We will literally destroy our families, the one thing that we were trying to protect, to pursue our own happiness, and the result is abortion, divorce, cultural breakdown, and devastating entitlement that goes on for generations.  Scott Berkhimer of Theopraxis wrote a series of posts about ministry and theology in the suburbs (Steve McKoy created a synopsis here).  In Part 2, he writes:

Everything in suburban existence is oriented around these values of comfort and security. Everything. These values are inculcated in children from before they can speak. Our education system is oriented to create good producers and consumers for the marketplace - children are trained to want good paying jobs and to find satisfaction in goods and services. Mass media is driven by advertising from companies whose entire purpose is to meet the needs of comfort and security. Of the thousands upon thousands of messages with which we are confronted daily, how many are centered on specifically orienting us towards these values? How many promise their fulfillment? How many reinforce their centrality? Walter Brueggemann calls this mindset the "royal consciousness" - The Way Things Are™ as an unassailable mindset in service to the powers that be that is often in opposition to the purposes of the Kingdom.

The end result is a stunted imagination. Choice is bounded by the marketplace, and imagination is taken captive. Try challenging these assumptions and see what happens. As a youth pastor, I had a conversation with a graduating senior trying to decide between serving for a time with a missions agency or going directly to college. She felt as though she should pursue the missions opportunity; I concurred. One of our adult leaders was present for the conversation and expressed shock that I'd advise someone to forego college - she'd never even considered that there would be another possibility and clearly didn't think that my advice was wise.

The question becomes, how free are we? We seem to be conditioned to pursue a lifestyle of comfort and security. So, when tragedy happens (like childhood cancer, divorce, loss of job, etc.), we question the God who could allow such things, believing that He only exists to make our lives pain-free. If our comfort is messed with, it is easier to lash out than to trust a powerful God who has the ability to carry us through such circumstances. We change churches to find the ones that "meet our needs." We pursue rest, recreation, and romance.  We look to one another to satisfy us deeply and through that, we have created the myth of salvation through romantic love.  We fail to understand that we are deeply flawed, that this life is not all there is, and that God is at work in our lives through disappointments, tragedy, and heartache, to prepare us for eternity.  Jesus did not come only to make this life better, but to prepare us for the life to come by enabling us to know God now and be conformed to His image.

I believe that God is working to strip us of all of these false comforts and securities so that we will look to Him - so our affections will change.  Like the fish who has never known what it is to be wet because it has spent it's whole life in the water, we Americans do not really know our blessings because we have spent our entire lives awash in them. When tragedy comes, it draws us out of our illusions and reminds us of the difficult realities of life and death that we have tried to insulate ourselves from.  Katrina. 9-11. Terrorism.  A fragile economy. Rising gas prices. Immigration. Sickness, death, heartache.  All of these things are entering our lives to cause us to let go of false hope and unrealistic expectations.  God is calling us to place our hope in Him, the God who never changes, so that He would become our strength and song.  When we reorient ourselves that way (it's called repentance), then we can rightly appreciate and be thankful for all of the blessings that we have received in life, instead of expecting them to be our right.  Then we can live at peace with the God who both gives and takes away.  Then, we will be ready for eternity. May we live our lives thankful for what God has given us, rather than comparing ourselves with others and always expecting more. May we use our blessings to bless others, recognizing that we, too, could have been born elsewhere, in a totally different situation.  May our hearts be fixed on Christ, praising Him at all times.