I’ve been thinking and
processing lots in the midst of an always frantic and event filled Spring in
our family and the CU campus…and in the midst of that I think I am ready to
offer a raw and open and authentic reflection as I approach THE day on the Christian
calendar and THE trip that once again promises to change my life…so here goes:
And then these moments like last Saturday of insecurity and discontent run into Easter…into the reality that as a friend who works alongside me often reminds me the Kingdom that Jesus brought via His incarnation and established forever through His resurrection carried with it a new and different economy…a Jesus economy that I first truly saw and experienced in a forgotten village in Zambia where I found joy and laughter and sport and mercy and grace and life among the poor, a people who love Jesus and His people and world in an upside down way…
The resurrection flipped the world and all of our lives upside down…and the upside down Kingdom life is indeed the best for me this Easter…
As we approach Easter tomorrow I am always overwhelmed at
the massive impact the resurrection of Jesus has had and continues to have on
both a personal and corporate scale…
In just a couple weeks I head back to Zambia again for trip
#7 to a place that is so very far away but has become a place I visit more
often than spots just a car trip away from Grand Rapids…
Over the last decade of trips to Zambia I’ve watched communities
and the lives of so many dear Zambian friends literally be transformed and
changed through the power of a Savior who renews and restores and gives life
and hope to that which seemed to be broken and without the possibility of a
different future…
I’ve seen heaven come to earth in the most unexpected dirty
and dusty roads and fields and thatch huts and soccer pitches and school
classrooms and medical clinics and clean water well sites and wooden church
benches…and the power of the Gospel of Jesus who is no longer in the grave has
before my eyes conquered death and brought resurrection in both body and spirit
to places in Africa where dreams have become real and true for people with
remarkable faith and perseverance…
This transformation has taken place perhaps even more
surprisingly in the hearts and minds and lives of people like me who have had
the privilege of traveling to a different culture and world that literally has
flipped our lives upside down…and allowed the reality of Easter to do what it
was intended to do all along in our lives—to turn us into people who love
freely, choose good over evil, experience joy in serving another instead of
fixating on our own wants and needs, and free us from a life of materialism,
arrogance, and fear because of what Jesus has done on our behalf…
The death and resurrection of my Savior and Lord has become
more that just an event to be recognized and a reality I offer intellectual
assent…it has become a yearly and sometimes daily reminder of the preposterous
idea that everything is now different and all things are indeed being made new
because I’ve seen HIM alive and on the move and doing miracles in African
communities and American student lives over and over and over again…
And in 2014, I once again find myself a different person
with dreams and ambitions and in reality the ability to accept and revel in a
very different life experience and path than the one I can imagine if Jesus
hadn’t stepped into life on earth and connected me with people on the other
side of the world where together we experience the joy and hope of Easter
despite our differences…
Let me explain what this has looked like for me over the
last several years, even the last week in more concrete detail:
A week ago I spent Saturday morning on our Cornerstone
campus running in and helping along with some students to host a 5K run for
clean water in partnership with Living Water Intl, an organization I deeply
believe in and former partner in seeking to help funds new wells in global
communities with desperate need for the water that brings life and health and
the ability to do much more in life…
At the same time some of my friends were running in another
5K race on the other side of Lake Michigan back at our former church home
Willow Creek to help make education available for kids in Zambia, which seems
like about the best idea in the world in my opinion given that much of my life
has been invested in the pursuit over the last dozen years…I loved getting
tweets and texts with their pictures even as I posted several from our CU run
at the same time…I am a gigantic fan of Willow's amazing Celebration of Hope campaigns...
Now you should know that the comparison of these two runs
caused me to actually experience some serious internal tension and
struggle…mostly because of how very different they looked and were in the results
and outcomes…
Our little run struggled to get 40 students out of bed early
on a Saturday morning despite on campus publicity efforts and raised about
$1000 towards the construction of a new well in Africa…while Willow Creek’s run
featured almost 4000 runners and most like raised about 100 times what our race
did in terms of funds for the education of Zambian kids…
To me, it looked like the classic case of one of the largest
and most influential churches in the world compared to a small Christian university’s
student justice group trying to pull off the same kind of event…and the results
were probably what most people expected them to be…
But if I am honest, the very visible differences in these
two events didn’t settle as easily for me…and strangely enough brought up all
kinds of feelings of disappointment, discouragement, and doubt on a warm spring
Saturday in the Midwest…
Several years ago I actually interviewed to help give
leadership to Willow’s global efforts and I couldn’t help but do the
comparisons in my mind where I would have been the one running the 4000 person
event instead of allowing a group of students to try with limited success to
draw our own small crowd of runners to a race course marked out in chalk on our
campus sidewalks…
And once again I started fighting the inevitable self-doubt
and fears that can easily attack me as I enter the second half of my fifth
decade in this world:
Have I “failed” and not “maximized” my gifts and potential
because I am part of a run with 40 rather than 4000? Did I not have what it
takes to truly become the kind of “leader” who is one of those known and
followed and published and podcasted and asked to speak at Q and Catalyst and
the Global Leadership Summit when I once just assumed that I would be on of
those figures now “IN” as part of the evangelical subculture? And why would I
have chosen to come to and so deeply invest in a workplace that doesn’t have
national pull or recognition when measured against other schools, churches, and
organizations that I’ve hung around for a good chunk of my life?
It is this tendency to compare, this bent toward measuring
up, this deep desire to have a platform of influence and impact as a leader
that often brings these kinds of questions and doubts and feelings of failure
to my otherwise optimistic and positive and hopeful outlook on life…
I can easily make things become all about the bottom line,
all about the economics, all about the size of numbers, and all about the
public praise and notice received…and this tendency can turn my moments of
reflection into ones filled with more angst than is healthy and more worry than
is necessary for one like me who is ridiculously blessed and remarkably cared
for by family, friends, and our God…
And then these moments like last Saturday of insecurity and discontent run into Easter…into the reality that as a friend who works alongside me often reminds me the Kingdom that Jesus brought via His incarnation and established forever through His resurrection carried with it a new and different economy…a Jesus economy that I first truly saw and experienced in a forgotten village in Zambia where I found joy and laughter and sport and mercy and grace and life among the poor, a people who love Jesus and His people and world in an upside down way…
Easter for me this year marks the reality that soon I will
again be in sub-Saharan Africa helping to stop malaria’s impact and reveling in
the way that the community there embraces us like family…and together we will
affirm and celebrate what Jesus has done and will continue to do as the Risen
Redeemer of all people and all things…
I know that even though it may not look to those who are
watching from afar or even to myself some days that I have become and am doing
things that are good enough and big enough in my life and work, I am able to
experience the peace of Christ and enjoy that I still get to be part of Jesus’
work in student lives, have brilliant and compassionate friends awaiting my
arrival in Zambia, and know in my very soul that what God has called me to do
in the place He’s clearly led me does matter to Him and to His Kingdom…whether
40 or 4000 run in a race to help change the world…whether I self publish or
make the NY Times bestseller list…whether I work at a university with the
highest of ACT scores or a bunch of first generation college students…whether I’m
invited to speak at national conferences or teach a first year experience class
cohort…and whether my global initiative saves millions of lives or gives
individual families a bed net that they’ve been praying for…
The resurrection flipped the world and all of our lives upside down…and the upside down Kingdom life is indeed the best for me this Easter…
JAMES 2:5…Has not God chosen those who are poor in
the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he
promised those who love him?
