Jet Lag Notes

Got back to Indy Friday at 5:00. Felt good until jet lag hit me Saturday around noon. Dragging myself around since then. Go back to work tomorrow.
Trip was good in many ways. Here are some points that will get elaborated when my mind returns.

• Indians are a people (in contrast to Americans) who have little margin in their lives and do not value it. I see this in their housing and traffic patterns, to name two things.
• Rajesh Paul has a great vision for raising the bar for medical care in his part of India. He is demonstrating the grace and truth of Jesus. www.naceamission.org
• God can answer prayer to get a bus unstuck.
• Riding down India's roads is a great lesson on placing faith in the one driving.
• Hindu cremation service across the road from the mission station.
• 3+ hour Christian worship service at which I learned that morning that I would be preaching.
• "Forgive me for irritating you [God] as I forgive those who irritate me."
• Opening a wedding with prayer, nearly 1000 guests. Serving communion to the bride and groom.
  
• "What's your name?" Kids wanting to connect. Me deciding how much I want to connect.
• Someone said that I resemble Daniel Vittori (New Zealand Cricket Team Captain) -- I checked. Not even on a good day!

Out of India

Eight days ago I arrived in India with a team from my hospital to provide medical care and education to rural villagers around the city of Machilipatnam, India. I leave for the train to Chennai tonight at 5:00. I believe that the trip had significant impact and after hearing Dr. Rajesh Paul's vision for the Christian Medical Center and Nursing School, I am more committed that ever to help make it a reality. This is a wonderful strategy for transforming this part of India under the direction of God's Spirit. Sometimes you have to just step into something you don't understand and learn as you go. In God's economy we never see the end from the beginning. If we think we do, it becomes an opportunity (a jarring one) for God to teach us a lesson about faith. Life with God is "stranger than fiction."

I am looking forward to being with my wife in a few days. My next cross-cultural mission experience will be in her company.

On another topic, I'd reccomend the writing of two new authors:
Science Fiction -- James Sawyer
Thrillers -- James Rollins

A Foretaste of India

My wife and I just enjoyed an evening with our son Jeremy. Before enjoying some of Famous Dave's delicious barbeque (www.famousdaves.com), we saw the new film "Slumdog Millionaire." It was produced and filmed in Mumbai, India and surrounding areas. I am traveling to the opposite side of the country, but I recognized many similarities: the use of mass transport, colorful clothing, immense poverty and the unclean environment. Like any nation there is corruption and vast differences between those who have and those who have not. People in India and America share the same needs to be safe, loved, involved in occupations that do not degrade, and creative to name a few.

I was a pleasure to share a "taste of India" with Nadine and Jeremy. If you choose to see the film I believe you will be blessed.

I will post again after I return from my trip and perhaps more of the film will come to mind as I make my own movie in my memory.

India Bound

Tomorrow morning I return to India for two weeks. I am a chaplain going with medical personnel to assist them in medical camps, teach people about preventative health care, lead Indian church leaders in a workshop, and provide spiritual reflection for the team. Please pray that God will open the opportunity for people to experience the reality of God's love for them. Pray for God's guidance for me as I attend to how the team experiences this trip. Pray for those I leave here.

Before I depart, I will enjoy "Slumdog Millionaire" with my wife and oldest son this afternoon. I look forward to sharing a piece of India with them in a small way.

The hotel in Chennai, India has internet so I will post more then.

Until then, keep living with all you heart the story God is writing in you life and whenever you get confused, exchange paragraphs with someone you trust you will find common ground on which to stand.

Sleeping with the Lions

I first realized how unsafe the world was through a news story I heard my parents discuss sometime during my eighth year. Even though I remember hearing about the death of President Kennedy, it didn’t rock my world. My concerns were more pointed and personal: whether the bully would be looking for me at school the next day or if I would want to eat what was on the cafeteria menu. Not so after this day.

The story I am thinking about involved a circus lion that had escaped its cage and gotten loose in a small town in a neighboring state. That night my imagination ran away with me. I made sure to lock my bedroom window and I lay in bed with a baseball bat across my chest just in case. The world had become a dangerous place and I needed to be able to deal with it.

Eventually, I fell asleep that night. Since then, though I have had some sleepless nights, I have never faced even the remote threat of being devoured, save in a metaphorical way. I went to work this morning unarmed and even though the snows of winter are coming, I expect that I will survive to the spring.

With all that is going on around this world, how is it that all of us are not emotionally paralyzed? Are some of us just made of sterner tuff? I think that what makes life meaningful and even joyful in the face of very real fears is knowing that the raging beast may be loud, but it is not the only power afoot.

Christian writer Frederick Buechner wrote an essay on the subject of sleep. It says a lot. “It’s a surrender, a laying down of arms. Whatever plans you’re making, whatever work you’re up to your ears in . . . whatever sorrows or anxieties or problems you’re in the midst of, you set them aside, find a place to stretch out somewhere, close your eyes, and wait for sleep.

“All the things that make you the particular person you are stop working – your thoughts and feelings, the changing expressions of your face, the constant moving around, the yammering will, the relentless or not so relentless purpose. But all the other things keep on working with a will and purpose of their own. You go on breathing in and out. Your heart goes on beating. If some faint thought stirs somewhere in the depths of you, it’s converted into a dream so you can go on sleeping and not have to wake up to think it through before it is time.

“Whether you’re just or unjust, you have the innocence of a cat dozing under the stove. Whether you’re old or young, homely or fair, you take on the serenity of marble. You have given up being in charge of your life. You have put yourself into the hands of the night.

“It is a rehearsal for the final laying down of arms, of course, when you trust yourself to the same unseen benevolence to see you through the dark and wake you when the time comes – with new hope, new strength – into the return again of life.”

The nightly news hasn’t been good lately. The roaring lion is making a fearful amount of noise. Maybe he is breathing his foul breath into your life. You can shutter your relational windows and dead bolt your finances, but you’ll soon feel the temperature dropping as your heart freezes in place.

There’s another option. “Do not be anxious about anything. As you take your needs to the God of peace, He who is far more capable than you will guard your heart and mind as befits the relationship you have developed together in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7, my translation)
I got up that next day and went back into my life with its decisions and hazards and pleasures. I still run scared of things more often than I like to admit, yet at the end of each dark and fearful path, I learn once again that God has been with me all along.

Coming to Love God

Jesus identified the greatest thing a human being can do. His wisdom contrasts with many contemporary spiritual teachers who promote that complete self-knowledge is the goal of the fully actualized human being. Jesus has another answer and it is agrees with the whole message of the Old and New Testaments.

The whole point is to love God with all one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength. He equated eternal life with “knowing God and Christ Jesus whom God has sent.” (John 17) This is a call to relate intimately and positively with the invisible, infinite, and all-knowing Person who created everything that is. Jesus saw his death and resurrection as providing the opportunity for this relationship.

How does a human being like me express this love? The Bible instructs us to show our love by a radical adjustment of behavior toward God. “He who loves me will do what I command,” Jesus said. But love is more than mere conformity to authority, even a benevolent one. Love is a relationship that grows from what starts as an initial acquaintance and develops into a full appreciation. Love is something received and given. Jesus said that He wasn’t after mere servants, but friends. Servants can be acquired fairly quickly through either adequate pay or threat of loss. Friends/lovers are the result of an interchange involving the heart, soul, and mind.

Fullness of love between two people takes time and much attentive labor. It is no different when the two people are God and one of His creatures. While some of God’s “best friends” have their stories recorded in the Bible, many others are lost to human history. The good news is that each tale is recorded in the books spoken of in Revelation (Rev. 20: ). Perhaps it will take the first part of eternity to listen to the “diaries” of the saints. Abraham’s volume might be called God’s Friend. David’s, The Man After God’s Own Heart. Paul’s record is titled Knowing God and Being Fully Known.

I Corinthians 13 is a teaching poem about love. For nearly two thousand years, newlyweds and mature spouses have resorted to it to build up their homes. Countless sermons have been given by preachers concerned for the quality of fellowship in their churches. Even secular authors realize its value.

Perhaps the primary application of the text concerns the individual’s relationship with God? People pass along to each other the quality of the relationship they share with their Creator. While many people are committed to believing and doing the right things in their religion, they stop short of relating to God at the personal level. They bow before Him as a king, thank Him as they would a lifeguard that has pulled them from the waves, and even give their lives as a soldier might in battle, but still not experience the closeness with God for which they were created.

This text raises some serious and exciting implications. Is it possible for a human being to extend patience and kindness towards God? How could jealousy, pride, or arrogance against God crop up? What does it mean to “act unbecomingly” toward God? Are there things that will happen in this relationship that necessitate the forgiving of God? “Love is not provoked [by anything God might do] or does not take into account a wrong suffered [done by God upon me].”

It is for good reason that the Scripture uses the illustration of marriage when speaking of Christ’s relationship with those who believe on Him. Believers enter this relationship in a powerful moment in which their minds are changed towards Him (i.e. repentance). They become convinced that God is for them and not against them. They come to believe that God has their best interests at heart. They come to hope in his offer of eternal life and forgiveness of sins. They express that repentance through the obedient ritual of faith that is Christian baptism.

But the heart is another matter. A mutually fulfilling relationship is the result of much work. People fall into love, but marriages are built. Sooner or later, the relationship is tested. Husbands disappoint. Wives act irresponsibly. The needs of children require a renegotiation of responsibilities. Even in the best marriages instances will arise that require deferment of gratification and hope for the best.

What will the Christian do when God allows something in her life she had not bargained for? How will she treat God when it seems that everything is being asked of her while nothing seems to be offered in exchange? What will she do when God disappoints? Some would counsel that the “good Christian” acts as if nothing is wrong. He must suppress any feelings of anger or doubt and must never bring an accusation against His Maker.

Any good marriage counselor will say that intimacy comes through openness. Christians who want to experience love with God need to bring everything to God, the good, the bad, and the ugly. When they work through these matters they will experience more intimacy as both partners know each other better. Even though God knows everything about us and though He has had countless “lovers” through the millennia, he desires to experience a unique relationship with each of us anew.

Love is always a choice. God has chosen to express Himself towards us as described in I Corinthians. Will we return the favor?

Fears and Trembling

To paraphrase the Hebrew prophet Isaiah, “I am a man of fearful mind and I live I amongst a people of fearful mind.” That is not all I am but I'll admit to many bouts with fear over my nearly fifty years.

The first thing I remember fearing was a well-house that was attached to the back porch of the Michigan farmhouse my family lived in during my 4-5th year (1961-62). My grandmother’s grandparents established the farm after they moved there from upstate New York. We came to live there upon my parent’s return from their elopement to California.

[That is another story.]

My mother believed that the well house was unsafe and that I was important to her. So she painted a profoundly scary picture in my mind of what would happen to me if I ever went in there. The old boards that covered the shaft would give way when I stepped on them and down I would plummet into the cold dark water. Though I became instantly curious, I never ventured inside. The farm has since been sold so I will never know whether I had good reason to be afraid or not.

The Christian and Hebrew scriptures direct us to “fear the Lord and keep His commandments.” They also counsel, “fear not, for I [the LORD] shall be with you.” I think this is one way of saying that we live in a world of “good” and “bad” fears and that how we choose to respond will become our life.

Dealing with fear is not all there is to life, but it is a start.

In sixth grade I feared making a speech. In junior high I ran scared from a couple of bullies. In high school I feared failing to make Varsity in wrestling. In college I feared being turned down for a date. It is what I do with fear that makes the difference. I went ahead and made the speech. I survived the bully. I managed to wrestle varsity as a senior. I married the girl I dared to ask out.


Fear has sought to keep me in small places and away from the adventure that makes life worth living. Fear has also kept me out of unnecessary danger and suffering. Example -- I credit the healthy fear I had of my mother when she discovered me staying up to watch TV and smoking a cigarette I had sneaked from her purse.


I believe that understanding this difference is important to arriving at a more mature faith. I also believe that there is a fate worse than falling into a well.


What have you learned from your fears?

Russ Jarvis