another abundance.

1 Corinthians 4.9-13

..for it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession like men condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men. We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless. When we are persecuted we endure it. When we are slandered we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world…

I think I must have fallen asleep during this lesson in Sunday school class. Somehow, I missed this part. Because over the past few years, I have faced some difficult days and for whatever reason, the framework I was using to understand those confusing times wasn’t the one above. I thought hard times were a sign that I had done something wrong, or that God was radically displeased with me, or that I had better figure out how to get myself out of the mess I had made.

I thought being a Christian, while it would permit the normal trials of life, would protect me from certain disasters. So, when my life became so hard and trying and painful, I assumed it was a sign of moral weakness and spiritual failure. I thought my poverty lifestyle meant I had messed up and God was just handing me over to my mistakes. It took lots of time in the Word of God and with more mature Christians, and some serious effort at redefining my understanding of my faith, to apply what Paul is saying above to my life. Once I started seeing my struggles as Paul saw his, I found freedom and life and healing flowing into every area of my life!

You see, over the past few years, I felt like a fool. I was weak. I was dishonored. I was hungry and thirsty, homeless, cursed, persecuted, slandered. I felt like the scum of the earth on a good day. Paul’s description of his own suffering closely resembled my own. Through Paul’s words, I began to find purpose in my pain.

Yesterday Penny and I were walking, and I was telling her about how God has brought us into a season of financial blessing (in response to her question: “Ashley, are we still poor?”ha!). She started talking about poverty and wealth, as most 15-year-olds do ;) and she said she has a friend whose family has all the money in the world but they are so unhappy. She said, “I just don’t get it. I mean, we’ve had no money and been so poor for so long, yet we’ve had so much fun. It’s almost like we knew how to make it because we we had one another. We may have been poor with money, but we were so rich in other ways. We knew how to make that last slice of bread a feast!”

This was a really good lesson for me. Not that wealth and abundance are bad, but neither are the lack of them. Paul considered himself fortunate either way. His bank account said nothing about his relationship with God, his eternal destiny, or the value of his missionary lifestyle.

I guess Christ wasn’t talking about cash money when He said that He came to give us abundant life. I think He meant something else. I think He meant we could feel abundant regardless of the situation, that somehow our outer reality didn’t necessarily define our eternal one. With our joy, identity, and purpose rooted in the love of Christ, that last slice of bread really can be a feast!

“I repent of my pursuit of America’s dream. I repent for living like I deserve anything: my house, my fence, my kids, my wife and our suburb where we’re safe and white. Oh I am wrong and of these things I repent.” --I Repent, Derek Webb.