Leaving Port
May 18, 2009
I once read in K.P. Yohannan’s book “Revolution in World Missions” about his confusion over why young indigenous ministers who experienced great power, miracles, signs and wonders in their outreach, upon attending Bible College or obtaining some theological training, found that the power would disappear. Equipped with more knowledge of scripture and theology, they would no longer experience signs, wonders, healings, demons being cast out or other such phenomena. I echo his natural resounding question of “Why?”
I similarly remember the early days after I began to cling to Christ for my very life. Amazing supernatural things would happen. And I could sense the leading of the spirit as if a breeze was blowing through an open window, and I would just “know” and obey. It was a precious time. My theology was not all worked out. I often admitted that I did not have it all figured out. Somehow just knowing that I was in the hands of the One that did know it all, gave me peace and assurance to go on. Faith was alive and the impact of the reality of a living God could be felt everywhere I looked and in almost everything I did. But it was a scary time too. It is all too easy to romanticize things in retrospect. It was romantic in many ways to find Someone so great, to be know him and be known by him.
But the scary part was partially because that is what faith felt like sometimes and partially because I could feel my own weakness so clearly at times. We live our whole lives since childhood learning how to protect ourselves and have control over our own lives and destiny. With Jesus you have to unlearn that. You have to accept all the implications of being vulnerable in the most intimate and tender parts of your soul: the parts that hunger for love and thirst for acceptance and are desperate to be valued by others. When we are very young we want someone that we can trust and we want to be trusted back. It’s a deep human need. But most people become so let down or injured by their own family, friends or confidants that they give up on the trust search. They decide they can’t find someone they can trust, then they must find something they can rely on. It can be anything that feels more solid than the relationships they’ve seen crumble. It could be achievements, it could be physical attractiveness or sexuality, or money, or some talent or aspect of themselves that can be socially desirable and useful to cultivate some semblance of value. So it becomes this system that they trust, but not people. Friends and family become necessary utility and perhaps enjoyable accessories. They might be enjoyable and even stress-relieving. But trusted? It’s easier to “love” than to trust. And I remember the little baby steps of unlearning the patterns that I had so daily gripped to and developed as scary. I was learning to do what I had been taught and even shown you cannot do: trust.
But even though I was experiencing this great inward healing, and learning what it meant to love and to trust and to experience joy, patience, kindness and hope… even though this was occurring, I still felt the need to scratch the itch of having more control. More specifically, I mean the kind of control that is an extension of mistrust. This particular temptation lures the person who has embarked on the open sea of faith and is still learning how to work his rigging and harness the wind to find a comfortable sandbar on which to lodge. It’s a natural temptation to slow down and spend some time in port, getting better prepared for the sea. It’s not altogether a bad thing to do. The problem is, the port is a haven for wanna-be seamen who talk the talk and appear to have their lives centered around life at sea. But the problem is that they don’t actually leave port very much and are caught up with the posturing of the sailing life with others and find it all too easy to be affirmed there among friends than face the lonely sea where uncertain winds blow. But the primary the reason they don’t often venture too far beyond the harbor is because they have ceased to be drawn by the voice beyond the waves. They remember it well, are haunted by it, and can recall it to others well enough. They love to surround themselves with stories about it and be friends with those who heed the call to voyage. But the voice is drowned out and lost among the cacophony of stories, information, cargo trades and merchant deals that hum around the port and its vessels. They are busy getting better equipped, building more capable ships, and increasing in stature among the young sailor hopefuls and even teaching courses on marine warfare, stellar navigation and oceanic survival skills but rarely ever taking anything but short cruises, where they return to port again after a day at sea, posturing like seasoned mariners. They sometimes get frustrated with it all and think about moving inland. But occasionally on a quiet morning at the beach when the sea is calm and the port is asleep… they hear it! The voice beyond the waves whispers its delicate unfolding mystery and they renew their activity at port, preparing, assessing, training… drowning out the voice again with activity.
It’s not that the power leaves the young missionary who formerly experienced power in his ministry and now finds that it has somehow evaporated in his new theologically trained life. It’s just that when he found a good port with good provisions, a good network of camaraderie and lots of things he can do to prepare himself… he can get encumbered with the trappings of staying near port within himself and cannot bear to venture too far because there is always a little more that can be done to prepare. There is always someone with a better developed answer to certain questions that might arise and always a little more understanding that can be had from others about survival at sea, and always some better equipment, ropes, sails, and provisions… and soon we can’t seem to find our way out of the habit of consumption. We become the consumer, when the whole time we are supposed to be the ones being consumed by the One who draws us far across the sea with him… to have our being filled with that wonderful voice and be spent upon the waves of agony, joy, peace and power that cannot be experienced in its fullness while settled comfortably numb in the teeming marketplace of port.
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