Perceptions…

Thursday evening: I have thought several times lately how perceptions of people and circumstances are sometimes very close to reality; while at other times couldn’t be further from the truth. For example, tonight on my way back to the hotel, David (one of the leaders here) took me back to the hotel on his motorcycle a different way than normal. We went on a road that was like a highway—which meant we went very fast. This was really good because the mosquitoes were thicker than day old oatmeal tonight. I kept thinking as I was trying to hold on to the motorcycle as we dodged cars, trucks, bikes, cows, and some kids AND trying to swat those pesky blood-sucking, potentially malaria-carrying demons, “I wonder where we are now?” When we finally turned onto the main highway where the hotel is, I was totally shocked and surprised. I thought we were way north of the hotel. Instead we were still south of it. My confidence in my ability to keep a sense of direction was flushed.

I wonder how often this is true in my life. I think that certain person is a certain way or that some circumstance has a certain meaning, sometimes to find out that I was correct but other times find out that my perception was way off course. As I was riding home tonight, I just looked at the thousands of people that streamed past my view. I couldn’t help thinking, “I wonder what life for him or her or that little one is like?” As I looked at their stone-cold looks, it seemed that life just is. One of my questions that I like to ask people is, “How is your heart?... How are things going?” Often the answer has been, “What do you mean?” After a few follow-up questions, the answer has usually been something like “The way it always is—dummy, what did you expect?” It seems that people would be searching, seeking, and desiring something else in life. Yet often that is not the case. Satan deceives most with his shroud of just being alive rather than living.

My heart aches for these tens and hundreds of thousands of people—who are living in absolute darkness. Often the electricity goes out in the whole city and everything goes black at night, except for candles and those few who can afford generators. That seems to be the best word picture for Jesus’ presence here…mostly darkness, real darkness that is broken here and there by some candle lights. Jesus’ words… “Let your light shine” seems appropriate. “Jesus, shine Your light in this place, in the lives of these people—remove Satan’s shroud of just being, of loving the darkness or at least their being content to be in the darkness so that they will seek YOU, the source of true actual living. Lord, chase away all the darkness—the self-absorbed, self-concern that keeps YOU hidden from so many.”

Life is short…I am reminded of that reality by the many new dirt grave sites on several of the cemeteries that I ride by every day. People are born and die! People die to enter either eternal joy in Jesus’ presence or into eternal, just, unthinkable agony, fearful loneliness, excruciating pain and horrifying remorse that never ends…Never ends but continues for all time and all eternity. Lord, I can’t hold that thought for long. It is too dark…too hard…too awe-ful…too true! Jesus keep breaking my heart for those who don’t know YOU so that the powerful Gospel of GRACE and TRUE LIFE may flow freely from my lips…my heart to any and all around me. Break through my lack of courage and my self-concern that silences and extinguishes Your fire of love in my heart.

Today, I asked one of the students to share his story. He shared how he came to faith in Christ, and how Jesus has changed his life and now has called him to make disciples and plant churches. He is a very bright, personable and humble man. I sense a genuine delighting in and intense desire for Christ in his heart. Several of these men who are married will go nine months without seeing their wife and children. UGH! That is a long time. My perception of these men is hope-filled as I taste their devotion and commitment and am privileged to feel their passion for God’s power to mightily work in and through them. Jesus by the power of Your Spirit, continue to touch their lives with a heaven-sent, God-centered passion to treasure YOU before and above all other pursuits so that Your glory will be spread throughout this area with the true knowing and tasting of the sweetness of Your name. Lord, may my perception of these men and what You are doing in them be true and real and eternally satisfying before You and life-changing for thousands in this area.