Finding Order in a Busy Life

Missing family and friends aside and the small amount of discomfort that remains from being in a different culture, this is a very enjoyable place to be. I love Huatulco. The favorite part of my life in here is the people. But this is also one of the most beautiful places on Earth. I especially appreciate the ocean. I am amazed by the tremendous variety of different creatures there. I love to snorkel. I could float and watch for hours. Nature is a significant pathway for me to God.  

As I look at all of the different colors and sizes, and kinds of creatures, I am seeing a piece of God's majesty displayed before my eyes. I can also see that everything has a purpose. Every creature has its role to play or a job to do. Many are food for others. Some live from what has died. Some filter the water and others provide a hiding place. It is a community in God’s creation. It is a single system made up of thousands of parts working together.

Even the tides and currents, the sunshine and the wind work together make the system function. This is what we call the balance of nature. Each part of the system exists to serve the others. As each element does its part , the system remains healthy and functioning as it was designed by God to do. If one part of the system fails to fulfill its role, the system will begin to break down. If one part suffers, the whole system will suffer and eventually die.

   

There are many things in nature which reveal God. Romans 1:20 tells us that His eternal power and divine nature are clearly seen through what He has made. God is a God of order. He is not a God of confusion. We know what time the sun will rise and set. We know when it is the season to plant. In God’s design, there is order and harmony. How would it be if the sun rose and set at random times or if the seasons came unpredictably? What would happen if the insects no longer pollinated the flowers? We would have no fruit. What if the birds stopped eating insects?  We would be overrun by insects. The system would get out of balance. Another word for balance, order, and harmony is unity. God’s design for His creation is unity. Everything works together to keep the system in balance and working properly.  God's design for our lives is the same.

I used to believe that finding a balance in life takes careful thought, planning and close attention. I now realize that it is not about creating and managing a healthy balance. Our problem is not the  balance, our problem is our focus. If our focus is placed where it belongs, preeminently on Christ, the balance and order will take care of itself.

I used to believe that the Bible is an instruction manual for life. I no longer hold that view. It is not a book about how, it is a book about Who. Jesus said that if we love Him we will keep His commandments. (Jn 14:15) We focus more on keeping the commandments than on loving Him. That's backwards. If we focus our attention on loving Him, we will keep His commandments.

Perhaps if we stopped trying to plan, manage and control so tightly, we might see more of the results we want to see. Isn't that what the Pharisees were doing?  They managed and controlled so tightly that they wound up rejecting Christ because He didn't fit their expectations. They were so focused on their structure and their rules that they lost sight of God. Is this perhaps why He doesn't show up in our lives (and churches) as often as we'd like. He didn't bend to their expectations. Why should we expect Him to bend to ours?

Try putting Him first in everything and see what happens. Make your goal and direct your effort toward loving Him. I wish that I could say that I have mastered this concept. I want to, but I haven't. I am still His work in progress.

A Little Lonely, But Keeping Busy

It has been 10 days since Donna headed back to the States for visits to her daughters. So far, I have survived. Three more weeks to go and I’ll be headed back for a two week visit. It will be good to see people, but I am not looking forward to the cold weather.

I went to visit a residential drug/alcohol recovery ministry called Monte de Dios. (Mountain of God or God’s Mountain). It is not too far from here. I had met the pastor a month ago and have wanted to visit. I only had a vague idea where it was so I rode my bicycle in that direction until I reached the end of civilization and chained it to a post. I asked a nearby older lady if she knew of it and she pointed up the hill. A narrow path over a small hill, down a ravine and back up again brought me to the Federal Highway. Some guys were there, so I asked them for help. They also pointed up the hill. After a little guidance from another guy who appeared out of nowhere, I found a narrow path leading up the mountain at a steep angle. I am just weeks short of 61 years old and I am not in bad shape for that age. Nevertheless, I had to stop twice to rest and catch my breath during the ascent. I guess I’m older than I feel.

When I reached the top, I discovered a flat, neatly kept area with several buildings. The pastor was just finishing almuerzo. We’d call it brunch (Mexicans have 4 meals per day). As we toured the grounds, I was reminded of the monthly “Sherry tours” at the Rescue Mission. They have a beautiful but small church building, classroom building, shower/washroom facilities, the pastor’s office, a dormitory with a capacity of 12 and a woodshop powered by a generator because they have no electricity. Neither is there running water. The kitchen is an open shack next to the dining room which is a slab with a roof over it.

The whole area was very clean and well kept. They have a foundation for another dormitory, but lack about $900 to put the roof over it. Walls are not required in this part of the world. The pastor/director is a wonderful guy. I plan to get to know him better. Next time I’m up there, I’ll take some pictures. I wonder if an AGRM mission somewhere would want to be a sister mission like sister cities and churches do from other countries.

I encountered the wheel chair alcoholic guy (“O”) early in the week. He was cleaned up and sober. I asked if he could say how the relapse happened. He said he didn’t know, but not to worry because he had it all together now. I’ve probably heard that story a thousand times at the Rescue Mission. I probed, but he told me he would never drink again. I offered to help if he ever wanted to figure things out.

I saw “O” again later in the week talking to a guy in an auto shop. He said he’d been looking for me because he wanted to accept my offer to help. It allowed me the opportunity to share my own testimony with the guy at the shop. At a certain point, I asked “O” to explain grace. He got out his Bible and he took it from there. I’ll have to look for “O” because he’s homeless, but I believe God wants me to help him.

I will be preaching again tonight at Pastor Salomón’s church. I am going to talk about holiness and using an old Paul Martin object lesson, a toilet brush, to illustrate the point. If I post a blog next week, it means they didn’t dump me in the ocean.

It has been fairly quiet around town because there are practically no tourists. The call it “Oct-hambre” meaning “Hungry October”. A few white faces have shown up as the part-year people are beginning to return. We look forward to meeting them. The weather is getting cooler. It got down all the way to 66F last night. Brrrrr!!!

Dios los bendiga a todos.

UPDATE: The toilet brush went over really well. On the way home I encountered "O" on the street. We had a really good talk which lasted more than an hour. He really opened up.

FLYING SOLO

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Thursday of this past week, Donna headed out of Mexico for visits with daughters Amy, Kate and Angela. As I write this on Sunday night, I’ve been on my own for 3 days. I’ll be cleaning, doing laundry, and cooking on my own until November 12^th when I’ll be returning for a two-week visit. Until then, I am without my teaching helper, schedule keeper, fashion advisor, accountability partner, and friend. I am missing the nightly Backgammon games for who has to get the coffee pot ready for tomorrow. Did I mention that she also makes sure we have good stuff to eat?  

 

The weekend is less structured than the rest of the week which normally has a pretty full slate. Saturday is usually unscheduled. We had to change rest day from Friday. I got to slip off to one of my favorite snorkel beaches. Usually, lots of people are there so I am not swimming alone. Safety first! I got to spend about three hours in the water. I am still overwhelmed by the thousands upon thousands of six-inch, big-eyed silver fish that were there. There was also a large variety of brightly colored fish and other unusual creatures. The incredible variety and spectacular beauty of it all is for me a major “Wow God!” experience.

 

During one of my swim breaks, I had my Bible out and was working on my message for Pastor Salomón’s church next Sunday night. One of the waiters from the beachfront restaurant I was sitting in approached and asked if my book was a Bible. He asked if I would please talk with him a little while. Since he spoke decent English, we were able to have a good conversation. He told me that he feels that his life is without meaning. He said he was looking for something to fill the emptiness but doesn’t know what it is or how to find it. He related to me that every time he thinks he knows what he needs, he reaches after it but falls on his face. He grabs it, but when he opens his hand, it is empty. He said he is tired. I was able to share the Gospel with him. He asked if I could help him get a Bible.

Another chance encounter we had was with an alcoholic man in a wheelchair. He had gotten saved, been dry (he said) for almost a year and was regularly attending church. We saw him on the street a few days later. He had relapsed. I saw him again a few days ago and chased him down. We talked for a while. He told me a story I had heard a hundred times at the Rockford Rescue Mission. He said that he didn’t understand what had happened. He asked if I could help him sort it out. He said he would make a regular time to meet. I’ll have to be intentional about finding him because he’s still out there.(drinking) He showed me his sleeping spot (he’s homeless) and I know a couple of his routines. I looked for him on the way back from church tonight, but he wasn’t “home” yet.

I met the pastor of a recovery ministry/house a little way from here. I’ll be going out there to spend some time checking it out while Donna is in the States. There is a lot of alcoholism in Huatulco.

There are still a lot of unexpected surprise (is that redundant?) opportunities to minister here. I guess it’s not really surprising any longer. We have come to expect the unexpected. We still want to connect with the Christian foreigners as they begin to return this month. I am seeing some glimmers of opportunity. God is in control!!! He is taking us in His direction.

Suffering

A couple of weeks ago, I was privileged to preach to a particular congregation (my third time in their pulpit) about the sufferings of Christ. We are clearly instructed that we are to share in His sufferings and to follow Him in His example. I took (and hold) the position that the suffering He endured through the Calvary experience is not the example we are to follow.

True, many have endured and many will endure torture and even death for their faith in Christ, but the vast majority of us will not and never will experience that kind of suffering. So then, what form is our suffering to take?

Jesus showed us when He washed the disciple’s feet. In that day, feet got covered with every sort of filth imaginable. There was no foot deodorant. The Lord and Master lowered Himself to wash twelve sets of stinky, dirty feet including the feet of Judas who would betray Him. He told them, “Do as I have done for you.” He wasn’t instituting the sacrament of foot washing.

Philippians chapter 2 tells us the He did not consider being God a thing to hold onto. He voluntarily suffered the loss of the right to be God on the throne to become a man. As a man, He voluntarily gave up every right in order to lower Himself beneath every one of us for our benefit. He saw our need and did not hesitate to suffer the loss of all of His rights to meet that need. God so loved the world….. This is Agape love. This is the example of suffering we are called to follow. It is not an option.

Tonight (Sunday) I am sharing with them again. I will talk about what happens when we Agape-love. When we show Agape, we shine a spotlight on God. We draw attention to Him. We glorify Him. When God is glorified, people are drawn to Him. We are the light of the world, a city set on a hill. Our Agape behavior reveals a magnificent, powerful, merciful, good, and loving God to the world. Our good behavior is building God’s reputation. The inhabitants of Jericho (Joshua 2:9-11) melted in fear of the Israelites because of God’s reputation. What sort of reputation are we giving Him today?

The pastor of this church, Pastor Salomón, has become one of our English students. So have his number one man Manólo and his family. This congregation is a humble, loving bunch of people with a hunger for God. Manólo leads worship with a worn out guitar that uses a string and bungi cord for a strap. It is anointed. It is an honor and a privilege to share with them.  The building where they meet is essentially four walls with a corrugated plastic roof with holes in it and ceiling fans. In spite of or maybe because of the humble surroundings, one can sense God’s presence in these people.

Semi-sadly, our rescued kitten left us this week. She had gone from a week-old orphan to a frisky, playful and affectionate companion. In short, she was adorable. I confess that I am not a big cat lover, but this little one became quite special. Donna had grown very attached. For a number of reasons we could not keep her. With the help of our friend and neighbor Susan, she was adopted as an inside cat (rare in Mexico) by a very nice couple. She will have a good home. Adios Meow-zer.

We got the opportunity to go to the beach this week. Conditions for snorkeling were perfect and there was an amazing variety of different sea creatures. At one point, a large Manta Ray came close to us. It was beautiful. I am especially blessed by things like that because one of my main pathways to God is nature.

A Blog About Nothing

There were no earthquakes, no storms, no remarkable occurrances or discoveries to report on this week.  It continues to be hot and humid, although we did get an afternoon rain which cooled things off for a few hours. It really helped in that it washed out a lot of the heat stored up in our concrete apartment.

We met all of our usual committments and we were blessed again by how well our students are doing with their English. Our initial temptation and the expectation of most of the students was that we should teach useful words and phrases. We do some of that, but we opted instead to teach the language from the ground up. We begin by building a base with the most fundamental elements. Then we begin constructing a wall row upon row, the next row building upon the last. We tell our students when we begin "ladrillo sobre ladrillo" (Brick upon brick.) As we work our way through the concepts of the English language, they begin to understand and are able to connect the elements in a meaningful way. It is a thrill to see them figuring things out for themselves using what they have learned. The ones who stick with it will be able to speak a little English and understand what they are saying.

This is not a shortcut method. It takes time, work and a committment on both sides of the relationship. I can't help but thinking about Christianity and spiritual development. We all seem to want the shortcut method. We are not willing to take the time and make the effort necessary to build our relationship with the Lord line upon line, precept upon precept. We want it now and we want it delivered. It is no wonder there are so many popular instant spirituality, new revelation, new wave hyper-faith preachers (read false prophets) getting rich on our desire to be super-saints without the effort. There are no shortcuts.

We won't become mature christians who overcome our issues and become Christ-like by reading a book, adopting the latest fad or joining the new movement. We need to put the time and effort into the spiritual disciplines. They don't get us into heaven or even make us more pleasing to God, but what they do is open us up to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We are His workmanship.

Personally, I don't think God cares how much you read your Bible, go to church or do for Him. He is after your heart, not your efforts.