Barnacle-Encrusted Ships & Unmarked Graves

       Culture shock is well-named, other cultures can be shocking, not even so much in how they are different but simply that they are different in the first place.  How can humans exactly like us, needing the same things physically, emotionally, socially, and spiritually build worlds so different from our own?  And they are different worlds, Africa is a world unto itself, separate and distinct as if Kelly and I had landed on another planet.  That’s what culture shock is to me, the realization that in no way do I fit into the world I find myself in, I do not truly belong, I am the outsider, the social klutz who fumbles through the most basic greeting.  Culture shock is being unrooted but not really knowing if you’ll thrive once you’re planted again; can I survive in this soil; can I swim in these strange waters?  And you find yourself coping with this uncertainty in strange ways.

       Kelly and I watched a film the other day where uncertainty came to the forefront and in the midst of the story one of the characters said, “A man can survive anything if he has someone to love and if you can’t give him that, give him something to hope for and if you can’t give him that, just give him something to do.”

        There is something really sad about that advice, maybe it’s how prevalent that type of coping seems to be back at home.  Most men I know fail in matters of the heart, fail to really connect with their loved ones.  Few I know do better with hope, most simply keep busy, and what a meaningless hamster wheel busyness can be.  And what does it accomplish?  Often nothing more than distraction, than a fleeting & false sense of control in an uncontrollable world.  It is said that it is the small things that make life worth living, the creature comforts, the small pleasures.  But even in seeking the so called “small things” the name of the game is often distraction.

       Lately, I find myself craving the little things of home more than the big things: the TV shows and other relaxing niceties of 21^st century living.  But what are these things?  Why is an episode of Colombo or watching The Hunt for Red October important to a guy living in the jungle, facing huge hurdles?  Its about distraction, it’s about how people tend to give up on love, and even hope, in difficult situations to merely stay busy. Entertainments become idols, chores become careers and life-purpose is often overlooked and forgotten.
      
       Back in the days of tall ships, when ship hulls were made of wood, Captains used to de-barnacle their ships.  A new ship, clean and freshly painted would cut through the waves like a hot knife through soft butter but that wouldn’t last long.  Soon barnacles would attach to the hull, and barnacles would attach to those barnacles until the hull was thoroughly encrusted with them.  The ship would gradually ride lower and slower because of the growing mountain of sea life attached to the bottom of the hull, like a man’s work boots slowly building up pounds of dry clay on the soles as he works in the mud.  Eventually the captain would be forced to take the boat out of commission, put her in dry-dock and have all the barnacles scrapped off her, the wormed wood patched and repaired, then the boat painted anew.  And when she was put to sea again she would cut across the waves just as in the beginning.  It was a hassle and nobody wanted to admit it was time to de-barnacle their ship, but it needed to be done from time to time.  If it wasn’t, then the ships would begin to crawl through their journeys and eventually would be caught in rough water and founder because their increased mass.  People still don’t want to interrupt their regularly scheduled programming, to crash their routine, to be placed in dry-dock like a fish out of water and have all their encrusted barnacles scrapped off, but we need it and God calls us to it from time to time if we’re willing to obey.  We are simply too easily amused, too ready to let go of what’s important to take on what is easy; too quick let go of what is difficult to embrace what is distracting.  It is far too common for humans to finish a very busy season of life only to look back and have nothing to show for all their rushing around.

       Paul, questioning and correcting the doctrine of hedonists (pleasure-seekers) in his day said, “’Everything is permissible’ but not everything is constructive; ‘Everything is permissible’ but I will be mastered by nothing.”  I think Paul was saying that there are perhaps things which are permissible in our lives which are still detrimental, things we make light of but in time can sink us or at least slow us to a crawl in Christ.  These barnacles aren’t icebergs, you shouldn’t panic if you pick one up every now and again.  But these barnacles aren’t constructive either and if they are left long enough they can master the man.  Are the comforts of home and hearth evil?  Are creature comforts icebergs that come suddenly and sink our faith?  Can distractions and entertainments scuttle a man’s soul?  No, but if they slowly build up, like barnacles on our hearts, dragging us down, slowing our progress in the Lord, they could eventually sink us.  The “little things that make life worth living” are liable to be the very strongholds that the enemy of our souls makes the most use of.  The things that are too small to consider serious have a way of accumulating over time.  The things that are “permissible” in theory can still lack benefit, those things that are lawful can still enslave.  By itself a cancer cell is not destructive, it is simply useless, it accomplishes nothing, it exists to exist, but if its joined by more and more cancer cells and it grows big enough, it steals life and resources from those cells which are essential, even to the point of death.

       How much of our daily lives are made of permissible, but useless, things?  Not much you’d think.  Just like an old sea captain would admit to having a few barnacles on his ship but would deny them having much effect.  Can such little things affect us so greatly?  But Jesus said they could.  Jesus spoke once of our hearts being like soil and His teaching being like seed sown within us.  One type of soil, one heart, is too hard to accept Jesus’ teaching: he reads his Bible but balks at any real repentance or change in response, he explains his responsibility away and the teaching becomes like a seed scattered on hardened earth that is quickly gobbled up by birds.  Another man’s heart is too shallow, he indeed embraces Jesus’ teaching, but never with much depth.  His excitement about God’s new teaching is palpable and even intoxicating, but it doesn’t last long.  Like a sprout that is rooted in shallow soil without deep root, his desire and willpower withers and dies within his heart because the cost was not counted beforehand and his shallow heart faints and flees at the approach of suffering and hardship.  Then Jesus points to the third heart which is soft and deep, this heart counts the cost and pays the price but, Jesus explains, it is infested with weeds.  Scattered among the seeds of the Kingdom of God in this heart are the seeds of this world, which Jesus describes as “the worries of life and the deceitfulness of mammon (money and material things)”. 

       This disciple is open to correction and teaching from Christ, he counts the cost and prepares himself to pay the price, but he is not immune to the slow growth of weeds in his heart, the encrustation of seemingly harmless barnacles on his soul.  This person hasn’t allowed God to winnow his heart and weed out the world from his soul so eventually he is overcome by the “little things”.  The “little things that make life worth living” can grow and steal us from the One whom we are supposed to be living for. 

       Fairly often, when Kelly and I are sharing our story, whether about missions or other ministry, people will come forward looking like people awoken from a deep sleep and they tell us about their callings, to missions, to ministry, to some kingdom purpose and then they tell us why - why they have never got around to it.  It’s always a mountain of little things, the tyranny of the urgent and immediate that blocks them from walking on the path of obedience.  It’s rarely the big sacrifices that turn us back, the truth is we never get that far along; before we approach the giants we are ensnared by a cloud of gnats which slowly turn us away from the life God calls us to.  We should never underestimate the power of a million little things.  It’s the little foxes that spoil the vineyard, it’s those little, innocent hobbies and loves that often steal us from God.  They aren’t icebergs and there is something to be said of being over-vigilant about things that are – by and large – lawful, but we should say with Paul, “not all things that are permissible are beneficial, perhaps it is lawful for me but I refuse to be mastered by anything or anyone but Jesus!’

       Sometimes God sends us in a direction that makes us wonder what He’s up to.  He puts us in a dry-dock situation, exposing a soft underbelly and sends scraping tools to cleanse us.  And for it all we feel like running away, or at least hiding in a cave made of distraction, instead of facing it and walking it out with God. God sent me and Kelly to the far side of the world, to a people we can barely understand at the moment. It will be a while before we are truly useful to the Baka.  And at the moment it might feel like chunks of ourselves are being painfully scrapped off;  but it’s just barnacles.  It’s just layers of materialism, cultural identity, and idols-in-infancy getting exposed and scrapped off so that we lean on Jesus and not on those things.  Sometimes what God is doing is not immediately apparent to us and that’s where our faith comes into play.  The question arises, “Lord, what are you doing?”  We might mean it rhetorically, but there is a whispered answer in the depths of our hearts – “What is God doing?”  “Something infinitely wise.”  Take my word for it, He’s always doing something infinitely wise.

       So my flesh mourns the loss of normalcy and comfort, and to a degree I let it, but I don’t let my flesh mark the grave, to set up a shrine to that loss in my memory.  Digging out parasites, spiritual or physical, is painful but it isn’t really a loss, its restoration and a door to deeper, fuller life.  God’s plan is so good, it’s such a tragedy that we trust Him so little and follow it so rarely.  The truth is: this is not a time of the cross in my life – I’ve had those too, but this isn’t one of them – this is not a time of suffering, not any more than when I get a splinter tweezed out of my hand or when I wash out a cut with alcohol.  It stings, but it’s healing not torture.  Africa, for all its weirdness and difficulty, is the blessing of the surgeon’s scalpel, the scrapping off of encrusted niceties, the washing clean of a heart too divided by creature comforts.  Praise the Lord He’s setting me free from that which has enslaved me in the past, even of those things that I was not aware of.

       And I have no doubt that when we can speak with fluency, when we can touch lives with some useful word, that we will cut through those seas like a hot knife through softened butter because of what God is doing in us now.  I know because God is doing something infinitely wise right now in us, among the Baka, and in this ministry; and maybe, if we are patient and humble enough to seek it, He’ll show us His wise plan and let us play our part in it.  And perhaps this word is for some of you too, perhaps it will touch you at a time when God is calling you into dry-dock, scrapping you clean, and you simply can’t understand it; my counsel is to stick with Him my friends, trust and obey, walk it out.  “What is God doing?”  “Something infinitely wise.”