Helplessness and Hopelessness

Back in Rajahmundry at last, and I'm so happy to find myself under Solomon's roof! Last night we were treated to delicious dinner of chapati and mango, slept a full ten hours and awoke to a breakfast of French toast with even more mango! We are well rested and stuffed.

I can't think of much else to blog about, so let me take some time to try sharing some of my own recent struggles.

My time in Kodaikanal was more difficult than I had anticipated. I was living at Bethel Home with the boys, so I was frequently exhausted with play and attention. The climate in Kodai was cool, but also dreary, with frequent clouds and rain. I struggled to stay healthy, and by the end of our visit I had a fever, chills and frequent stomach pains.

But what affected me most of all was the realization that there is an unchangeable pattern of suffering in this world. I was driving through dark, wet mountains into dark, wet villages swamped with poverty, disease and depression. In these places I would watch Christ-hearted servants like Paramadas share truth of Christ with joyful abandon, pulling smiles from listless faces and enlivening slack limbs. I would be given the opportunity to speak with these missionaries, sharing stories, a song or two, praying the prayer...

And this is where I became caught. What to pray? How can I make a prayer meaningful for this people, when I see these same problems everywhere? "Lord, please reach the people of this village... reveal Your truth to them... reveal Your love to them... heal them..." We'd travel to the next village. "Lord, please reach this people... Reveal Your love, Your truth, Your healing..." And again. And again. The same problems. The same prayers. And no change that I could see with my eyes. Only grey skies, sad faces, children with running noses and mud on their clothes. And a small, frail hope that God was doing something.

At last words failed me, and I found myself unable to pray as I was accustomed. I could only say, "Lord, my words fail me before all of this evil, and I can do nothing but beg you to intervene here." And that was it. "Words fail me; do what You must." "I don't know what to say, but You do." "Lord, here we are again. HELP!"

During my time in Kodaikanal I began a study in the book of Romans. In Romans 3:10-18, Paul outlines the extent of human depravity:

None is righteous, no, not one;

no one understands;

no one seeks for God.

All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;

no one does good,

not even one.

Their throat is an open grave;

they use their tongues to deceive.

The venom of asps is under their lips.

Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.

Their feet are swift to shed blood;

in their paths are ruin and misery,

and the way of peace they have not known.

There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Depressing stuff. But there it is, and the rest all follows: "No one understands, no one seeks God." Therefore idols, therefore worthlessness, therefore mouths that lead to the grave, therefore deception, therefore violence, therefore ruin, therefore misery through sickness and plague, therefore restlessness, therefore audacity: "There is no fear of God before their eyes."

This is why I don't know how to pray. This is why I can't fathom what God is doing. This is why when I see human suffering in India I wish myself back in the States, away from all of this so I can lock myself in my personal castle of gilded things and forget that men and women suffer at all. Because when I am not remembering to live by the Grace I have been given, when I am consumed by the sadness of circumstances that can be traced to my own sin nature, I am left to enjoy nothing but myself. And that's not much to enjoy. Selfishness will never lead to happiness.

I hope I'm making sense. All this to say I have realized that if I do not return in my heart to the Grace of God daily, even hourly, and if I do not keep in mind that "the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us" (Romans 8:18), I will go insane. That's strong language, but it's true. In the face of the suffering here in India, and with a proper understanding of what I am guilty of, I would go mad if it were not for the love of Christ and the work He does in me by His Grace to make me a jar of clay for His purposes.

Purpose: you can only find it in Christ. If you look for fulfillment in anything else, you may attain the world, but at the top you'll find yourself still hungry, and still hopeless. In an impoverished country like India it's easier to see how meaningless the life outside of Christ really is, because people are suffering and dying all over the place. During our afternoon in Kannivadi a man was found dead in the hills behind our guesthouse. He had been a poor laborer who had gone scavenging among the rocks, had fallen and lamed himself, and been unable to crawl out of the hills before he died of thirst in the blazing sun. I didn't see the body, but Joseph, our host, told me about it.

Life ends in a moment. How can we possibly derive meaning from this single mortality? Only in Christ, for Christ, through Christ. Amen.

I hope this post doesn't scare anyone. Or maybe I shouldn't hope that. Maybe we need to be scared out of our meaningless lives by the knowledge that we are making it meaningless by our own abstinence from the Grace Christ has offered us. The words of Ecclesiastes come back to me again and again: "Vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?" Redundancies of hopelessness. But then we see the light at the end of the tunnel: "The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." (Ecclesiastes 12:13)

In Christ alone our hope is found.

Max