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Thai Mother's Day at Church

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Greetings from Thailand!  

And welcome to the end of our series Building a Better Life episode 10 Trust; Not Triumph!

There is a certain amount of danger involved in self-evaluation---especially as we tend to over estimate our own virtues and downplay our faults.  

But growth is indicative of health in almost every living organism.  

We don't have to measure ourselves against others, but it is good for us to compare the present version of ourselves with the previous versions.  

So we don't ask, "Have I arrived?" but rather, "Am I growing?"

Life is not always easy, but there is so much good to be found stuffed into God's world. 
Part of growing better is growing more grateful and thus, more able to appreciate and enjoy more of the good that already exists all around us.  

This is the reason gratitude is essential to a good life (see the earlier blog on this :-). 
It enables us to enjoy more good, and more kinds of good that are already all around us.  

In my last post on building a better life, we looked at what really constitutes a "good life" and we discovered the answer was a life driven by meaningful, sometimes costly commitments to others.  

But we need to be careful of our expectations from those commitments.  

One of the errors I make most often is not in what I desire, but when and how I expect what I desire to come about.  

Our longings, as C.S. Lewis has pointed out, are not too strong for God, but often too weak. 
The problem is not that we ask too much from God and life, but not enough---that we are too easily satisfied. 

Expect much, but be prepared to wait, and to have your expectations altered.  

Throwback to a little Fuzzy

Two good skaters

This lady is respected everywhere

One of the mistakes that I make, and young people in general make, is being too impatient to see change, and expecting those changes to take the form we expect.  

Ultimately, we must trust God for the change, and the timing of the change.  
We have no ability to change hearts.  

The world needs our gifts. 
But it needs not only what we have, but what we are. (Edith Stein)

God has redeemed us, and sent us out as instruments of redemption in our world with Him.  

But let us be very clear; there is one Redeemer, one Savior---one who changes hearts and minds and lives.

And it is not us.  

What we need is not triumph, but trust.  
We don't need to win, but to trust.
We don't need to direct or control the outcome, but to trust the One who is over all.   

We must make peace with our smallness. 

We must recognize that we are only a very, very small part of God's inestimable scheme for the redemption of His world. 

Full hands on Thai Mother's Day

I lift my eyes up to the hills, where does my help come from?

Prayer and silence together

We are the supporting actors and actresses, not the lead roles or the writers of the script. 

What is essential is not that things go the way we think they should go---even if we are confident that our way is the way God wants them to go, but that God's will be done.    

And it is being done.  

In the book of Isaiah in the Bible, God has some startling words for His people:

"My thoughts are not your thoughts, my ways are not your ways." (Isaiah 55)

We might expect this if God said this to atheists or unbelievers, but He says it to His own people.  

Being a follower of Jesus does not mean I understand or know God's plans for how his redemption will practically be worked out in my world.  The master architect doesn't share everything with a bricklayer.  

We must hold our own expectations of HOW and WHEN the kingdom will come lightly.  

Jesus said there are parts of God the Father's plan that even He didn't know; "But concerning that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." 

What does that practically mean for people like you and me?

Humility.  

Special friends at special seasons

Team KOG

Dominos have been a hit birthday present with Ezra

It means we put an asterisk on every expectation, every plan, every idea, every project----"If it is the Lord's will, we will do this or that." (James 4)

This is the secret to peace and to power---trust God with everything, in everything; be ready to act at any moment, but don't waste much time or energy on expectations.  

Do not lean on your own understanding.
Do not lean on your own ability or strength.
Do not lean on any other human strength or ability or schemes or ideas or political policies or leaders.

Trust God.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, all your strength."  
And trust in the Lord your God with all you heart, all your mind, all your soul, all your strength.  

Not trusting that God will do as we wish or as we think He ought, but that the God of all the earth will do what is right.  

Relationships

Ezra just turned 9, and then was eaten by a dinosaur

This sounds nice, but it is hard in the trenches.

We want to see good outcomes for ourselves, for those we make efforts to help, for our country. 
But we must not help people merely in order to change people.

We help the poor not in order to end poverty, but in order to love the person whom God has brought to us. 

I don't say we shouldn't try to eradicate evils like extreme poverty or work for better government policy, but that the primary calling of our lives is to love people, and we cannot love a cause, only a person.   

This is hard for someone like me.  

I like to get things done. 
I like to make things efficient. 
I want to see positive change right away.  

But after 10 years of working with children and poor families in Thailand, I am compelled to recognize that if I demand triumph, if I demand things go the way I think they should go, or that the outcomes match my expectations; I am more likely to give up and despair, or worse, become cynical.  

But if my goal is to love the individual God sends me, then I can count it success every time I do.  

Conversely, it is not failure if that person falls back into poverty, because love was the goal, not a particular outcome in their circumstances.  

Have I loved my neighbor as myself?  
If yes, then it is good---whether or not the outcome I desired for my neighbor has come or not. 

Peter is one of our college grads who works for an international school.  We love seeing him and catching up

Fellow missionary and George MacDonald fan

Sienna reading stories to sweet friends

For God did not send me to save my neighbor (He does that), but to love him and bear witness to him of God's saving power in my own life.  

An essential component of perseverance in any good work, is to continue in hope, regardless of whether we see the fruit of our labor.  

I would love to be instrumental like Frank Laubach, whose literacy program changed the world for the better for millions of illiterate people. 

I would love to be like Mother Teresa, who inspired millions to greater compassion for the least of these.

I would love to be like the apostle Paul who brought the good news about Jesus to many places where he was not known.  

But that is not my decision to make. 
I am not the city planner, only a laborer.  

I am certain God is redeeming the world in Jesus.  
I am uncertain exactly how or when.  

So I am free to trust, to wait, to rest, and cheerfully accept my own smallness.  

Donating feminine products to flooded areas

Ezra got to play hooky to get his passport renewed

We like ice cream

For God has made me human, with human limitations and abilities.  

I have to be careful I don't pursue what seems to me most effective, but what God has given me to do. 

I need to trust God for the fruit of the work He has assigned to me. 
My part is to continually seek to say yes to Him in every part of my life.  

This often requires drastic adjustments to my own hopes, expectations, and ambitions.  

But if I can make those adjustments, I am able to live in peace and with purpose. 
I can take myself and my work seriously, because God has commissioned me. 
I can also laugh at myself, because I know often my thoughts are still not yet His thoughts, or my ways His ways.   

Most activists are, for better or worse, aided by anger. 
Anger at human trafficking, anger at injustice, anger at racism, anger at inequality, anger at poverty.  

This is a fine line to walk.  

It does not take much for anger at wrong, to transfer to anger towards perceived wrongdoers. 
And anger can move very easily to hate. 
And hatred can quickly breed the more of the very same problems we originally set out to combat. 
In human history, there is a very small space between when the heroes can become the villains.  

When we focus on the triumph of our ideas, or politics, or goals; we are destined to be disappointed and angry. 
But when we focus on trusting God, we are destined for peace and joy
(though we may have to be more patient than we had hoped).  

Triumph is about human expectations of how things ought to go, and whenever they don't go that way we panic or rage or both.  

But trust isn't about HOW things ought to go, but WHO is directing them.    

Focusing on the how turns our attention to the failings of others (and our own).  
But focusing on WHO turns our attention back to God--the source of all goodness and beauty and love, the Creator and Redeemer of the world.  

Cuties!

Ezra had a great 9th birthday at the waterpark

Career Fair!

Trust allows us to just be human

(and stop pretending to be what only God is and can be).  

It allows us to accept our limitations cheerfully, even gratefully
(Thank God such important things aren't dependent upon our strength or ability).

Trust keeps us focused on what can and should be done now in the present
(and protects us from missing our present duty for an imaginary future). 

Trust protects us from neglecting our family in the name of humanitarianism or ministry
(Loving our neighbors starts with those neighbors who live with us).
 
Trust allows us to sleep even when things are wrong. 
(We can sleep because God never does)

Trust protects us from a savior complex
(What this person needs is not me, but God).

Trust protects others from the negative consequences that often come with good intentions.
(Doing too much can be just as harmful as doing too little)

Trust protects us from despair and cynicism.  
(We are looking to the unchanging God, not our ever-changing circumstances)

Whether we are advocating for better government policy, working with the poor in southeast Asia, more dignity for the aged, better theology in the church, or any other worthy cause; let us remember to focus on trust, not triumph.  

We do not wish to defeat our enemies, but to win them---and not to our party or position, but to God and His kingdom.

Flamingos after church

Sweet ladies

Chiang Mai Cafes

It is not our version of his will that needs to be done on earth, but God's own.

It is not our version of His kingdom which must come, but His own kingdom.  

It is not in our strength, political muscle, or human wisdom that these things shall be done, but in the power and timing of God.  

So we are invited to be still.  

And know the God is God.
He will be exalted in the earth.
He will make all things new.  

Trust in His triumph, not the triumph of our ideas or expectations. 

Our faith is not faith in our methods and ideas about how the world should be put to right, but faith that no matter how things seem to be going, God is and will put the world right.  

Faith in God is faith in God's means, as well as God's ends.    

At the end of every day, every election, every cultural upheaval, what we need is not triumph, but trust.  We don't need to win, but to trust the One who has already won. 
There is joy even in our defeats, in our grief, because Jesus has conquered sin and death and is even now, making all things new.  

The greatest cultural revolution the world has ever seen began not when a man defeated his enemies through political power and or military triumph, but when he allowed his enemies to unjustly take his life and chose to love them in return; trusting that God would use these unlikely means more than any political or military victory to bringing healing to our world.  

I will leave you with a prayer from St. Teresa of Avila that has helped me in this journey of trust:

Let nothing upset you,
Let nothing startle you.
All things pass;
God does not change.
Patience wins all it seeks. 
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone is enough

With love and trust, 

Matt, Audrey, Ezra, and Sienna

Reading before bed---The Wizard of Oz

Giant tiramisu