Confessions

Muraho!

Immediately following the end of the meeting, I took my place at the dinner table where the rest of my team was already sitting, ready to eat. I tried to focus on the food. But all I could think was “what do I have to offer? Who am I before man? Who am I before God? I am nothing.” I felt so small and so powerless. Any sort of pride or self-righteousness was shattered and I was left sitting in the midst of the glass pieces. The thoughts and feelings were intense and eventually I could no longer hold them in, being overwhelmed with a myriad of hurts, fears, regrets, shame, and struggles that I had been pushing down and bottling up. However, the experience at the meeting somehow broke through the walls I had created to contain my personal dysfunction. One of my teammates noticed the tears streaming down my face while I was eating my soup and she asked me what was wrong. At first, I tried to ignore it all and just say that everything was fine. But it was too late. Within another minute, I was weeping my eyes out and sharing with my team all that God had stirred up in me.

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What is interesting is that, looking back on it now, it's having been a little over two and a half weeks since this event occurred, it is very difficult to remember exactly what happened, what I said, what I thought, what I felt. The worries and stresses of this life have such an amazing ability and power to overthrow any sort of “progress”, “revelation”, and “emotional upheaval.” However, even as I am writing this post, looking back on that evening and seeing my life now that I have returned to a very fast paced daily trajectory, I am able to draw out more from the experience than I even realized at the time. So here is my commentary of what I felt and thought then and what I have seen now.

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Two, seemingly opposing, sinful attitudes came into full view as a result of the meeting and the aftermath of my breaking down at dinner. First, I had realized that for a while now, even in my darkest moments of despair or depression, even in my times of struggle and pain, I entertained a level of entitlement in my spiritual walk and my intellect.  I was quite something. I had an enormously blessed spiritual heritage. In some ways, I felt I had inherited a sort of spiritual “claim to fame”. My parents are missionaries. My grandmother is a missionary. My granddad pastored an enormous, growing, and influential church in the Congo. He has even been called the “Billy Graham” of the Congo! My other grandparents are honorable, generous couple filled with integrity, discipline, and wisdom, and who had been surrogate parents and provided a surrogate home for me throughout my childhood and college years. Both sets of my great-grandparents were missionaries. All of this amazing heritage I used to my advantage. I’d throw it out there every once in a while, just to make sure I was noticed and appreciated.

I was quite the somebody. I have had extensive cross-cultural experience. I have had a variety of ministry experiences. I have excelled in academics and fairly broad in my learning. My ability to express myself through various methods of communication were at least good if not laudable.

All of these things, this mentality, provided a veneer which overlaid the surface of a brewing perfect storm, the true crisis in my soul: the struggle for dominion and lordship over my heart and mind. Who or what actually headed up my life? Is it the people around me? Is it my past? Is it the world with all of its flighty trends and puffed up knowledge? Is it my reputation, my image? Is it vanity?  What I had discovered and continue to realize now as I am writing, all of those things occupied the throne of my life. Except for God.  God has been distant. Yes, I have given him my future and I gave him my past, but I realized I am in firm control of my present. This firm control has led to a spiraling loss of control and dysfunction.

The second mentality arises from this crisis. I have been gripped in the clutches of uncertainty, shame, and doubt, being tossed back and forth by the treachery of my thoughts and emotions. I have felt incapable of doing much of anything. Every thought, belief, or action had a myriad of other possibilities. Who am I supposed to listen? What is true? What is right? What is wrong? My shame has sprung forth from my inability to be the perfect husband and spiritual leader for my wife. Instead, she has been strong for us both, as I have so often been weak.

The walls of pride came crashing down when I was confronted with my spiritual and intellectual lack and shallowness at the meeting. Who was I to even think that I was entitled to anything spiritual or intellectual? Trevor demonstrated himself to be more diligent, intelligent, analytical, articulate, and broad in his knowledge. Sandrali had a spiritual battle plan laid out without any of my input, he had true humility, one which exuded spiritual authority, power, and revelation.

With the walls being broken, the chaos in my mind and heart flooded out. While it hurt for a while and was humbling, it was also remarkably clarifying. My muddled mind was finally released from the pressures within and I was able to see more clearly.

I remembered “that God is God, and I am not. I can only see a part of the picture He is making. God is God, and I am man, I will never understand it all, for only God is God.” I remembered that the Father created me, knows me, and loves me. I remembered that Jesus, the Son, died and was resurrected to save me in every way, to bring holistic, continual transformation to my heart and my whole life. I remembered that the Holy Spirit is here to guide me, to give me understanding, revelation, and discernment, and to empower me to face life here on earth in a way that glorifies the Holy Trinity.

I came to a new appreciation and understanding of those famous lyrics, I “was blind, but now I see!”

Murakoze my friends!

Eric