Jun
11
Written by:
Rev. Ed Boon
6/11/2008 8:57 PM
Lessons learned about the place of suffering in our spiritual lives.
THERE IS NO OTHER WAY
No sight ever was more glorious than that of the French Caravelle jet that swept down out of that cloudless West African sky to take us home on our first furlough from missionary service in Africa. It had been five long years since we had left the U.S.A. True the Lord had taught us many things, but that didn't change the fact that it had been a very difficult time in our lives. There were many things we needed to get sorted out in our minds. I had had so many preconceptions and misconceptions of Africa and missionary life, that there were times when I just wasn't sure where I was.
I remember one hot, very hot evening, walking with Karen from our home to the center of town. We passed men in their long flowing robes and women with the traditional loads on their heads. Sheep and goats wandered in the streets. A donkey was tied to the gas pump at the local gas station. Unlit mopeds and bicycles swished by in the dark. Off in the distance we could hear the sound of a huge tractor trailer as it downshifted while coming into town. I turned to Karen and said: "Before we came to Africa, is this what you thought it would be like?" She admitted that it wasn't.
We were aware that there were ultra modern cities like Abidjan in the Cote d'Ivoire and we could fairly easily handle that. We had also seen many missionary presentations of the African bush villages which in many ways hadn't changed in hundreds of years and we were somewhat prepared for that. But towns like San in Mali, crossroads where the old and the new met head on, and lived side by side; this type of place left us often confused even bewildered. There was the leper sneaking into your yard to use the well, the kids defecting in the streets, the helicopter landing in the yard across from your house. There were people glad to see you and church folk asking what you were doing there. The questions weren't easy to answer for at times you really weren't sure what you were doing.
Even the image left by our fellow missionaries was sometimes bewildering. There we were standing side by side with the great spiritual giants of our time. What was that we were hearing? They were tired, discouraged, and sometimes even angry. Were they really saying they weren't sure where to turn? Again if I were to ask myself if this was what I had been expecting I would have had to say "no". There was no way I had been expecting to find these "giants" in the valley of despondency. I remember one day when one of them said to me: "You won't be here long before you find out how really carnal (sinful) you are". "Carnality", that had always been a preacher’s word used in a derogatory manner to speak of mans fleshly lusts and our lower nature. It certainly wasn't an adjective I had expected to be used of missionaries and certainly not of me. I very quickly learned how right that person was. It was amazing how the pressures and tensions of everyday life brought out the worst in me.
I asked myself, "Is the person who goes through extreme difficulty more carnal than the one who has an easy life?" If you were to take two identical spiritual twins and put one in a situation that pushes him to the breaking point, and place the other in a relatively easy situation, the one would more than likely show signs of his "carnality", and the other of God’s "amazing grace". Is the one really more carnal than the other? The answer is not an easy one. However, one thing is certain: true growth can only be had by the one who goes through times of testing
The potential for growth comes on the one hand through struggles, and on the other in knowing where to turn for strength and help. I remember when I reached that point during my first term when "the heavens closed", and the scriptures "had no meaning". I was beaten and I knew it. There was no going on. The best I could hope for was to hold on until furlough then cut loose. It was exactly at that lowest, darkest point in my life that God spoke. We were reading through the book of Zechariah and in chapter four verse six Karen read this: "This is God's message to Zerubbabel: 'Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts--you will succeed because of my Spirit, though you are few and weak."" Living Bible The Lord had spoken, the result was electrifying. The Lord had wanted me to learn that as long as I depended on my own strength I could never grow. The ‘theory’ I had learned years before in school. I could give all the right answers to an examining board, and it was not out of a lack of good faith that it had not been a total reality in my life. It was not something that could be programmed. God in His own good timing had allowed me to discover the glory and wealth of this truth in that hot barren African village located on the edge of the Saharan desert. It is as always a question of where we fixed our gaze. Do we look down at ourselves, or lift our eyes to the Lord?
I remember the first time I ever saw the Alps. We were traveling from the USA to language school in France and had gone two days and nights without sleep when we finally arrived in Albertville, France in the heart of the Alps where we would spend a year in language study. Too tired to do anything else, we flopped into bed and slept through the night. The next morning we went out to have a good look around. The sky was heavy with clouds, but they were fairly high and we could see the hills all around us. Those hills reminded me vaguely of the rolling hills of western New York. I thought to myself, "These hills are nice, but this is not at all what I was expecting when I came to the Alps." As the morning went by the Sun began to evaporate the clouds and shortly before noon, the clouds broke. There, towering over, and totally dwarfing those hills were the magnificent, majestic peaks of the Alps. It was breath taking, absolutely stunning. They had been there all the time, but it was necessary to lift our eyes up from the hills, to look beyond the clouds to see the very splendor of God. It reminds me of that message of God through Haggai to Zerubbabel and the Jewish people: "Who among you can remember the Temple as it was before? How glorious it was! In comparison, it is nothing now, is it? But take courage....The future splendor of this Temple will be greater than the splendor of the first one! For I have plenty of silver and gold to do it! And here I will give peace,' says the Lord." Haggai 2:3,4,9 (Living Bible)
This whole truth was sealed when, during our furlough, I came upon a small book by Amy Carmichael entitled HIS THOUGHTS SAID…HIS FATHER SAID. In that book I read this: "His thoughts said, Is there no other way of learning how to help another but by the way of suffering? His father said, Had there been another way, would I not have found it for the Son of My love, whom no thorn of pain had ever pierced, who was tender as a child to the touch? If it became Me in bringing many sons unto glory, to lead the Captain of their salvation by that way, wouldest thou win souls without a pang? Settle it once for all; THERE IS NO OTHER WAY." ( Published by the CLC) Many years have gone by since I first learned that lesson, but that truth does not change. In order to help others we must ourselves pass through the refiner’s fire. There is no other way.