Unfinished E-Book

Andreas Boppart

• Herausgeber: SCM R.Brockhaus im SCM-Verlag
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Deutsch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Seitenzahl: 340

Beschreibung

Adventure, everyday life, quirks, incompleteness, decisions, a two-thirds Jesus, God's perspective, normality, transformation and discipleship are just a few keywords of "Unfinished. Life as an Ordinary Jesus Follower". Be a passionate follower of Jesus - and still be yourself. Come along on this challenging and exciting journey further into the vast landscape of discipleship.

Leseprobe

SCM Publishing is a member of the Foundation for Christian Media, a charitable foundation that promotes the distribution of Christian books, magazines, films and music.

ISBN 978-3-417-22854-0 (E-book)ISBN 978-3-417-26788-4 (Available edition)

Data conversion e-book: Beate Simson, Pfaffenhofen on the Roth

This title was released earlier with the ISBN 978-3-417-20734-7.

Originally published in German under the title: Unfertigby SCM R.Brockhaus im SCM-Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, Witten © 2016 by Andreas Boppart

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation (NLT), copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Additional translations: Scripture quoted by permission. Quotations designated (NET) are from the NET Bible®, copyright © 1996–2016 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C., http://netbible.com – All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked (CEV) are from the Contemporary English Version Copyright © 1991, 1992, 1995 by American Bible Society, Used by Permission. Scripture quotations marked (NLV) are from the New Life Version.

© Christian Literature International Christian Literature International (CLI) is a non-profit ministry dedicated to publishing and providing the Word of God in a form that can be read and understood by new readers and the well-educated alike … and at an affordable price. We invite you to learn how the NEW LIFE Version unlocks the treasures of God’s Word!

© 2016 SCM-Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, 58452 Witten Internet: www.scm-brockhaus.de; e-mail: [email protected]

Cover Design: Deborah Villamar Typesetting: Debora Balmer Translation and Editing: Tracy Christman-Konig, Joel Wilson Proof-Reading: Judith Neibling

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  FOREWORD

1A ONE-WAY STREET

MY ETHIOPIA EXPERIENCE

THE NATHANAEL QUESTION

FEELING TROUBLED

2MY 2⁄3 JESUS

A PARTIAL FAITH

MY IMAGE OF GOD

THE SECRET

3DISCIPLESHIP

THE DIRECTION

THE YES

THE RELATIONSHIP

4THE PRICE TAG

THE ESTIMATE

CHEAP GRACE

THE REWARD

5THE TENSION

THE TWO-LEGGED GOSPEL

THE DEVELOPMENT GRID

THE MOTOR

6THE GOD PERSPECTIVE

THE HERO’S DILEMMA

THE REBEL HEART

THE MOMENT THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING

7MY UNFINISHED SELF, PART 1

BLINDED BY PIETY

FLIGHT ATTENDANTS

GETTING REAL

8MY UNFINISHED SELF, PART 2

THE OLD BOPPI / NEW BOPPI PRINCIPLE

THE PIT BULL VS. THE EAGLE

THE TIME FACTOR

9OPPOSITION

STAYING ENGAGED

THE “BY-YOUR-SIDE” GOD

EXCUSES

10APPLICATION

WILLINGNESS

COMMITMENT

COURAGEOUS OBEDIENCE

11THE BIG QUESTION: WHAT’S NEXT?

SENDING

THE VISION TREE

THE FINISHER

NOTES

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ANDREAS “BOPPI” BOPPART is an international speaker, author and the national director of Campus für Christus Switzerland, a part of Campus Crusade for Christ International. He is a champion of authentic faith and invites others to live in the same way. He and his wife, Tamara, have four daughters. They live in the Graubünden region of southeastern Switzerland. He dreams big, thinks out loud and loves moving between the stark contrasts of changing the world and changing diapers.

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FOREWORD

I’m just a normal guy. I’m not great at doing more than one thing at a time. I’ll probably forget your name three seconds after you tell it to me. I have no idea what kind of car my neighbor drives or what color it is. I don’t always react in an extremely loving way when one of my four little girls decides to experiment with waking up at 2 a.m. I can’t put together a decent outfit, so I usually just put on whichever t-shirt is on top of the pile.

I get mildly aggressive when I’m hungry, so no one can stand to be around me. I’ve lived for more than three-and-a-half decades with a lopsided face that greets me with a sleepy-eyed stare in the mirror every morning. I can easily forget what I wanted to do or get in the short distance from the table back to the kitchen. It takes me at least twice as long to wash the dishes as my wife Tamara. I have the unique ability to overlook every type of underlying interpersonal conflict.

I regularly forget to take out the garbage. I’m not a great role model for eating my vegetables and other healthy stuff. I tend to be a bit gung-ho when it comes to ball games. Even when I brush my teeth before bed, I still have bad breath (my wife says). I have to let my four daughters tell me which clothes belong to which girl. I can sing loudly, but not very well. All of these things (and there are many others) give you an idea of my own personal “Hall of Fame” of incompleteness.

(I made the mistake of asking my wife and best friends if they had anything to add, and sure enough, they came up with quite a few things, much to their amusement!) I’m normal, not despite these things, but because of them.

And you’re normal too. You don’t always get it right. You’ve got a few quirks that you could do without, according to the people around you. You’ve got some hard edges and sharp corners. But you are a regular person. It’s these things that make you normal. The fact that you don’t get everything right all the time has to do with the fact that you’re unfinished.

If being a work in progress bothers you, because you don’t live up to your own standards or the expectations of others and you are confronted with your failures time and again, relax! You’re okay. God can deal with the fact that you’re unfinished.

This book is meant to help you get rid of all those “I’m not a good enough follower of Jesus” excuses. On the one hand, I hope that reading this book will free you, but it should shake things up and motivate you at the same time.

If you’ve been wired with a lot of natural self-confidence, at times you might find yourself thinking, “Wow, God really lucked out when He got me!” I thought that for a long time. Of course, I wouldn’t have used quite those words, and I didn’t realize that I really thought that deep down. I was well aware of my own mistakes and inadequacies, but they were hidden underneath an “everything’s okay with my faith” attitude. That is, until a few years ago when I went to Ethiopia, where I passed a point of no return that stripped away my “everything’s okay” attitude. It was a helpful but rude awakening.

If you want things to stay comfy, buy yourself a pillow and meditate on the pattern of your bedspread. This is not a pillow; it is a book that is about as comfortable as a cactus-covered mattress. I pray that this book will be like a line in the sand, daring you to step across it. It doesn’t matter whether you start slowly, take a heroic and perhaps naïve leap into the unknown or just stumble over it – the “how” is merely a question of personality. I hope you will discover and embrace a new dimension of faith and discipleship in your life.

By nature most of us tend to be a bit lazy, trying to bring life into a comfortable balance. Of course this is not fundamentally wrong, but so-called “balance” can actually mean stagnation. Since my degree is in the natural sciences, I understand that stagnation in systems is nearly always linked to death – and boredom.

It goes without saying that my four girls don’t beg me to go out to the swing set to just sit there for a while. No! They want to swing high enough so their toes touch the clouds. It’s not fun until the swing starts moving. It’s the same with faith in God. Just sitting around contentedly believing gets boring fast. Movement is what makes faith attractive. This is the kind of faith Jesus talks about when He challenges us to follow Him. Many books about discipleship have inspired me, but just as many have been mildly irritating, because the content didn’t seem practical or doable in my daily life. For years I’ve felt that the gap in Europe between professing faith and actually following Jesus has grown wider and wider.

In the New Testament, we read about faith that requires sacrifice and suffering, and we hear that there are an estimated 100 million Christians around the world today who are being persecuted for their faith.

Here in Europe, it seems that many have come to expect that being a Christian means that God will bring blessing without pain – like an epidural when giving birth. The only problem is that when it comes to our faith there is no pain-killing injection. Authentic, vibrant spiritual life often begins where our comfort zone ends. This can be painful, though more often merely unpleasant.

Believe me, I don’t have a secret desire to suffer! My pain threshold lies somewhere slightly above the agony of a hangnail. Naturally, my emotional pain tolerance is equally low, so I’ve developed endless strategies to avoid discomfort. My stomach starts to clench up just seeing the “drama” label on a DVD cover, before even watching the film. (But a Hollywood happy ending sets off my endorphins like a squirrel in a bathtub full of acorns.)

Nevertheless, I’m convinced that true faith requires discipleship. And discipleship, really following Jesus, has a price. We are wise to put the price tag back in place if we’ve unintentionally removed it along the way.

Besides that missing price tag, we may have other apparently good reasons for not taking the call to discipleship seriously. Maybe you were sitting in the back row when Jesus called you, and you are pretty sure that He didn’t really mean you. He was probably looking at the person in front of you. Or maybe you just see the blemishes in your life, and you’re completely convinced that Jesus could not have meant you. Following Jesus is often a struggle, but since you have an allergic reaction to the smell of sweat, and because you know that God loves you anyway in this age of grace, you find it easy to just sit on your swing set without all that back and forth movement.

This is exactly why the pages between the covers of this book contain a powerful message. Initially, it’s a message that is meant to take the pressure off as you realize, “Hey, everything is fine, we’re all unfinished people!” But then once you’re lying there all relaxed, the message of these pages should gently wake you out of your comfort zone and shove you off the edge of the bed. So, enjoy both parts and watch out for what God wants to do in and with your heart. This book is a fiery appeal to unfinished people – not to somehow legitimize or minimize sin, but to free you to live a redeemed life.

I hope that my thoughts and personal experiences will help you get rid of inappropriate pressure and feelings of guilt in your walk with Jesus, so you can enter into an authentic, exciting life of faith.

In the end we can have the conviction and an unbroken hope that God will bring us all – unfinished, yet redeemed sinners – to the finish line of faith, and that He loves to walk with us, despite our unfinished condition.

You are normal. Unfinished and, therefore, normal. Sometimes following Jesus can be rather unspectacular, but man, it can be breath-taking too.

Start swinging as high as you can!

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1 A ONE-WAY STREET

The Point of No Return is the moment that changes everything; there’s no going back, you can only go forward. It’s like a one-way street. Once you turn onto that road, you can’t just turn around again – and if you do, it could cost you a lot. One adventure like that cost me 700 Swiss francs.

When I unexpectedly found out that my Dad was more than just Santa Claus’ helper, decorating the tree and bringing in the presents, but that my Dad WAS Santa Claus, there was no going back. Or when I had the sobering realization that another Santa wore the same shoes as one of my parents’ friends, everything changed in an instant. It’s like a diver ready to take a step off the platform. As soon as he goes over the edge – beyond the point of no return – he can only go in one direction.

When I was a teenager I had the cocky idea of sliding down a nearby hill in a truck inner tube. I sat in that rubber ring with naïve euphoria. A couple of seconds later I found myself careening down the hill, my still beardless face covered in the powdery snow whipped up as I sped along. In the next second I remembered an important detail that I had managed to overlook: there were no brakes. I would have given my entire stash of barbecue-flavored potato chips for a brake pedal, a parachute or better yet, a big box full of anchors, but there was no going back. Because the hill was dotted with holes and bumps, you can imagine how excruciatingly painful stopping turned out to be.

My wife and I had a similar experience years ago in Uganda, when an inexpensive pregnancy test revealed that her horrible vomiting during a 10-hour bus trip wasn’t because of the roads strewn with potholes or something from a local food market. I just knew: from now on, there’s no going back. For the rest of my life I’ll be a Dad. It was wonderful, awe-inspiring, and at the same time, fundamentally terrifying, to realize that something new was growing inside, something that would change my future in a lasting way.

When you pass the point of no return, you see everything differently. It’s like putting on a new pair of glasses and only then realizing that things were blurry before. It must be like when somebody eats Swiss chocolate for the first time. Once you take that step, you can never really go back. Now you’ve had the only true chocolate experience, a taste of heaven.

Moments like these in my life – when I know that things can only move in one direction – tend to make me feel uneasy, but at the same time, force me to say “Yes” to the present and look to the future with hope. This is the best thing that could happen to me. Sometimes I step into a new situation consciously, but in most cases when something new knocks on the door, it’s unexpected. Just like in Ethiopia, far away from my cozy home.

MY ETHIOPIA EXPERIENCE

I had the most intense Point of No Return experience of my life in a slum in Ethiopia. I never wanted to visit Africa. As I said in the foreword, I’m the type of person who tries to avoid pain and suffering whenever possible. Boxing is not a sport I’ll ever try. Instead, I love volleyball, badminton and tennis – all sports that keep me safely separated from my opponent by a net. The worst that can happen is that you hurt yourself.

I steer clear of arguments, obituaries, and wasps in August as much as possible. If I get a splinter in my finger, I’d prefer to have it removed while under anesthesia. In my mind, Africa was connected with images of severe suffering. The mere thought of that continent made me want to turn away, like a reflex. I knew that lots of people there lived in poverty, but I had no need to go there and see it for myself.

My lack of enthusiasm and skill in foreign languages, as well as an underdeveloped culinary curiosity, gave me more reasons not to go there. But my involvement in a leadership training course put me on a plane to Ethiopia – much to my surprise. Just the thought of having to eat things that would keep my stomach in high gear made me feel sick and caused a bout of preemptive diarrhea. But I made the decision to go – mainly because my wife Tamara encouraged me to do it. My stomach cooperated after that, but my emotions were less interested in playing along.

As it turned out, that trip was an appointment planned in advance by God to help me get to know that wonderful continent and its exceptional people – and perhaps most importantly, a chance for me to discover uncharted territory in my own heart.

If I can trust my own journal entries (I usually can because those pages have a better memory than I do), the arrival was impressive. Although exhausted after the long trip, I was amazed by the view from the airplane window as we neared Addis Ababa. As far as the eye could see, there were fields in a strange geometric patchwork, dotted with lakes and outlined by brown rivers. The Ethiopian capital sits on a plateau in the middle of the country, which is about three times the size of Germany. Over 40% of the population is under 15 years of age, two-thirds of all adults are illiterate, and an estimated 49% of the population is undernourished. These statistics take your breath away when you consider the implications for that society.

As I looked out on a sea of corrugated metal roofs and fencing, I had the feeling that 90% of the world’s supply of corrugated metal was being used in Addis Ababa. The endless rows of curvy metal that ran along the edge of the roads turned out to be entrance gates for homes, backyards, or whatever else people wanted to hide from prying eyes. If that city had been a ship, it would have certainly sunk, not just because the houses were so full of holes and dilapidated, but because they were full to overflowing.

People move into the city from the countryside because of extreme poverty. The capital ends up looking like Noah’s ark just before the Flood. According to official statistics, the city has a population of about 3.5 million; unofficial numbers estimate about 2 million more people, most of whom make their home in the slums. But those “homes” are so tiny that much of life takes place on the street. At least half of the city, along with a few goats and donkeys, seemed to be gathered on the road directly in front of our bus whenever we tried to go out.

You couldn’t tell where people were going or where they belonged. They seemed to be wandering aimlessly. Everywhere you could see people talking or gesturing boldly. Sometimes you saw people just sitting, waiting for something unknown. I wondered whether those people even knew what they were waiting for!

As a white person, I attracted a constant stream of beggars. The ones who weren’t begging wanted to shine our shoes or drive us somewhere in their taxis. Other people came up trying to sell something. One man sat on the side of the road offering one pair of tennis shoes for sale. (If he was able to sell those shoes, he would make enough to live off for the next few weeks.)

Even in that slum, people walked around wearing clean, white clothes and smart suits. There was a sense of keeping up appearances. Even if the red clay roads were lined with litter, the space in front of your own door got swept clean daily. In Ethiopia I felt permanently overwhelmed. So many impressions and images flooded over me, like an immense water tank that bursts, sending its contents to wash over you, covering everything. So many colors, so many smells, so many people. Small taxi-vans crammed full of people. The street becomes a living room in Ethiopia, where life happens before your eyes. Deals are made, people greet one another, friends stop for a chat: life is lived.

So many things here are completely different from Europe. The most unbearable part is the clash of rich and poor. While many are fighting for their daily bread, an exclusive shopping mall worthy of an affluent European capital stands next door to a slum. The prices in those boutiques rival those in Switzerland. The gap between rich and poor is unimaginably wide. People in the slums own hardly anything, but the fact that almost everyone has a television doesn’t make things any easier. TV gives them a glimpse of the world and shows them what they will probably never be able to afford.

We stayed in a compound built for students, in a bungalow, which was almost luxurious by my imagined standards for Africa. The food was great and to my taste – almost everything was fried. The only exception was Ethiopian bread, a gray mass that resembled a wet roll of toilet paper – and tasted like it too, except for the bitter aftertaste. We were lucky to have a real toilet, although it flooded the house each time a heavy rain came down. I will spare you the details.

But we weren’t there just to look around. Let me describe our first full day there. We went into one of the many slum areas in Addis Ababa to try and help the people there. Around the world, a child dies of starvation or a malnutrition-related illness every five seconds. If I calculate how long it took me to write this book, that would be about 200,000 children. And while you’re reading it, you can add another couple of thousand. I don’t have to remind you that these statistics are not equally divided among countries. It’s the poorest of the poor who are hit the hardest. In Ethiopia, poverty is real enough to touch; you inhale it with every breath.

Up until that moment, those 200,000 children were just an abstract number to me, merely sobering statistics. But as I stood there in that slum and spent time with the 300 residents who had lost their homes to fire, my feelings changed. Squeezed together like sardines, they were now living on top of one another in two neon blue tents provided by the UN. Each family had been allotted a few square feet to call their own, including a shared bed – if they were lucky. I couldn’t imagine living like that – my own bed already seems unpleasantly overcrowded to me when my wife wants to cuddle while we fall asleep. It may seem sweet when our kids climb into bed with us in the early hours, but I’m ready to flee after just a couple of minutes.

We were in Ethiopia during the rainy season, and the tents were certainly not watertight; you could see the sky through fist-sized holes in the roof. The rain had turned the ground into mud. We bought wood to help rebuild the houses. Even in the chaos of the slums, we had to wait on approval from various authorities, which delayed the entire process. Apparently, there was something like a zoning plan for the mixture of houses in the area.

I glanced over to see an old woman crouching on the ground, holding a container and trying to scoop up water that had entered through one of the holes in the first tent. One of my female colleagues played impromptu games with the children in the second tent. My heart was warmed by the smiling faces of children, whose clothes were more like rags. But I had to step outside after just a few minutes. The stench was unbearable. I admired my colleague, who managed to play with those kids without showing signs of being completely overwhelmed by their living conditions. As groups of little hands reached out to hold my hand or grab my arms, I felt constricted and conflicted.

But by the second day my eyes had begun “filtering out” the filth, and I only saw smiling faces and hearts hungry for love and attention. The verses from Matthew’s Gospel (25:40–45) became a real-life challenge: whatever we do for the “least of My brothers and sisters,” we are doing for Jesus Himself. Whatever we decide not to do is not done for Jesus either. Suddenly I saw Jesus in the eyes of those around me – despite the smell and the dirt.

This must be what it was like for the father who saw his prodigal son (the one who had turned his back and walked away from his family) returning. He recognized his son from far away and ran to meet him. He probably got a whiff of the pigsty his son had just being working in, but he gathered him in a warm “Welcome home” embrace (see Luke 15). And despite our dirty, stinking, more-than-checkered past, our heavenly Father looks past the greatest filth and worst stench in our lives and welcomes each of us sinners into His arms, again and again.

Our project provided money and supplies for the next four years to 110 children from 44 families. This meant they had a future. It gave them hope and a new perspective. This might have been the only chance they would ever have of getting out of the misery of the slums. As a former teacher, I felt somehow irritated when I saw those shining faces as I handed out bundles of school supplies. But the look on the face of one particular woman, hoping for a handout as her son clung to her leg, broke my heart.

Tears filled my eyes as we tried to explain that we didn’t have anything else to give: no school supplies, no hope, no perspective beyond that muddy street. We’d given out everything we had. Of course, I still had money, and yes, I could have gone and bought more supplies, but in that moment the realization of my own helplessness and powerlessness came crashing down on me. Even if I wanted to, I could never save the whole world. I had always known that there were lots of places in the world where pain and suffering had the upper hand – like in this slum. But here in Addis Ababa, everything felt different. I wasn’t watching images on TV. I wasn’t observing distant suffering from the comfort of my home. I was standing in that squalor, helpless and desperate. The unfiltered impact of that mother’s desperation blindsided me emotionally, knocking me off my feet.

At that moment, all those suffering, hungry and dying people around the world were no longer anonymous, emotionless numbers or sober statistics. I found myself staring into the face of suffering itself – a mother with her son just a few yards away from me. You could almost hear the cracking sound when the hard shell that had blocked my sense of compassion and kept my tears from flowing gave way. All of a sudden the world’s suffering had a face, and it was that mother’s silent look of desperation.

What brought down my wall of complacency further were the other women who implored us to take their children back to Europe. They weren’t asking because the kids weren’t important; instead, their overwhelming love for their children and the fact that this was the only chance they could imagine to give their children a better future compelled them to ask. To me, as a father, this was unimaginable. It was just more proof of the extreme adversity and desperation of these people.

That was my Point of no Return. Everything changed dramatically in that moment. What I saw and what I felt were like a one-way street without any turn-offs in sight. I had tried to prepare myself for what I would see in Ethiopia, but I could never have prepared myself for what I discovered in my heart. I was faced with a tsunami of compassion. My Jesus suffered alongside those people. I even felt their pain and an unfamiliar sense of responsibility toward my “neighbor” – wherever he or she might be. Whether living next door or a couple of hours away by plane, the rapid globalization of our world means that any person can be my neighbor, regardless of where he is.

I cried on the way back to our compound: not because I felt guilty for having everything I needed, not because of the poverty throughout that continent or all the unnecessary suffering, not even over the fallen world that is groaning and suffering – although any of these would have been reason enough to shed tears. I cried over the poverty of my own heart. I cried over my own impotence and limitations. I cried over my hard heart that had deadened my empathy for so many years, and that I had allowed to take place. I cried because I now saw my small problems, which I often dwelled on for hours or days, from a completely new perspective. It was almost embarrassing to think about the kinds of petty worries that had absorbed my thoughts and time until just recently. I cried over my disinterest in the worries and problems of my friends and neighbors. But most of all I cried because I couldn’t get a face out of my mind: the face of a little boy named Nathanael.

THE NATHANAEL QUESTION

Nathanael, one of an estimated two million slum-dwellers in Addis Ababa, took my hand after we had played together and marched with me for over an hour through endless corrugated steel-lined streets, his chest swollen with pride to have me at his side. We bought some bread, visited his neighborhood friends and enjoyed some carefree “big brother/little brother time” together. On the drive back to the compound, God unexpectedly asked a simple question in my heart, a question that pinpointed the source of my tears and made me think about the condition of my faith and my walk with Him: If Nathanael had been given your life, would he have made more of that opportunity than you have?

A simple question at first glance, but it hit me like a sledgehammer as I realized its full implications. It was like running into a tree head-on with no warning. What if Nathanael had been given my life instead? Or what if we traded lives now? What if he could have my wonderful spot in Switzerland, since I certainly don’t fully appreciate all the good things and the many opportunities I have there. What if he were the big philanthropist marching into the slum and I was the one looking at him with wide-eyed admiration? Would Nathanael have made more out of my life?

I was immediately aware of how irresponsibly I had treated the gift of life that God had given me. I lived as a Christian and was involved in my church, but I had certainly focused on living my own dreams and desires rather than the things God had planned for me. It became clear to me that I didn’t deserve my life with all its wonderful opportunities. I didn’t want to cower in a corner feeling guilty or take up self-flagellation with a “prosperity whip”. No, instead, deep in my spirit, I became keenly aware of the value of the gift of my own life.

I was equally impressed with a new awareness of my responsibility to make the most of my life. My life was not my own – it was a precious gift entrusted to me. The question now was, what would I do with it? I was sure that God wouldn’t be waiting around to greet me with tepid applause when I somehow managed to stumble into heaven one day.

The story that Jesus tells in Matthew, chapter 25, clearly shows that God has given us talents that we are expected to use and not bury. The story tells of two people who use their talents and increase them, along with one person who buries his talent out of fear of losing it completely. The last one misses God’s plan altogether. It’s interesting that a talent was a unit of weight or currency when the story was written, but for us it also describes an ability. God has entrusted valuable gifts to us and given us specific talents and aptitudes. The question is whether we are willing to invest our talents so that they grow and bear fruit, or if we want to bury them out of fear or self-centered motives.

Now Africa matters to me, because Africa matters to God. This change in me was long overdue. Doing nothing is no longer an option. I have a new appreciation of the responsibility God has given me for the people around me – and even those beyond my neighborhood – because I have it so good. I have to become a voice for those who have none.

For the first time in my life I consciously cried over the suffering of others and over the emptiness of my own heart. I cried over how unfinished I still am, even more unfinished than I realized. Discovering this new empathy shook me up – in a good way. I wrote in my journal: “God has given me access to a part of my heart that I didn’t even know existed for almost three decades.”

It really feels strange to see these people from the slums in church. When I was preaching to about 1,000 Ethiopians, the translator interrupted me in front of the crowd to ask why I wasn’t shouting. I was a bit confused at the question, but I answered him that Swiss people don’t usually shout. He didn’t accept that answer, replying, “If you love Jesus and have experienced freedom in Him, then you can’t help but shout!”

That got me. So I started shouting. But only until he interrupted me again to ask why I wasn’t dancing.

I didn’t dare ask him why a preacher was supposed to dance, since I could already imagine his answer. So I started dancing. (Not too easy for a non-multitasking man like myself.) I forged ahead, and in the end I was preaching, shouting and dancing. And the entire congregation came to life in the same impressively loud volume as a flock of birds in the tree outside my window at sunrise. (A natural reaction for the birds, but my day usually begins two or three hours after the morning chorus.) You don’t need much of an imagination to picture the dumbfounded looks on the faces in the congregation when I tried shouting and dancing during a sermon in Switzerland!

When you consider the poor living conditions in Ethiopia, it becomes clear why people spend more than four hours at a church service celebrating the hope they have in Christ. Really celebrating. Not like us who just sit there and celebrate “inside.” When I “celebrate” the Lord’s Supper anywhere in Europe, it usually happens in a prayerfully silent, somewhat oppressive atmosphere. The contrast to the joyful, hopeful music and the message of the gospel in Ethiopia could not be greater.

Then I understood why people here cry out in shock when they see the crucifixion scenes in the JESUS film. The thought of the death of the Hope of the world and the utter hopelessness that this loss implies became clear to me when I saw these people, who didn’t have much else to hope in. I laughed with them. I cried with them. I cried quietly for myself. Never in my life had I shed so many tears for myself and for others.

The joy I saw in these materially poor people and their devotion to Jesus overwhelmed me. “Ethiopia may be financially poor, but Europe is spiritually poor,” was what I wrote in my journal that same evening. I was shaken up. And that was good. Sometimes being shaken up is necessary to generate enough energy to change something in your life.

 

Have you ever passed the Point of no Return in your own life? What changes have you made? What concrete results can you see in your life? Would Nathanael live differently if he traded places with you? What opportunities would he take advantage of that you have simply overlooked? What changes would he make, what problems would he tackle, what challenges would he take on? What’s stopping you from doing the same?Would Nathanael make more out of your life than you have?

FEELING TROUBLED

Being troubled or disturbed by something is one of the strongest motivations for change. The flood of reports of people from around the world killed in wars or other disasters can dull our sense of empathy, but when it happens locally we are suddenly involved and touched because tragedy has struck close to home – literally. Every day countless people lose their lives around the world, but when a plane crashes somewhere near you, everybody is horrified. It could have been my vacation flight. In no time, people are coming together to demand more security, more justice, more of whatever they think they need.

If I manage not to get carried away by these pleas, then it’s usually because I’m not upset enough, not close enough to the topic to feel personally involved. Whatever it is just doesn’t get through that suit of armor surrounding my heart. This armor can offer real and necessary protection – otherwise I might just collapse under the weight of all the suffering in the world. But it can also be an obstacle that prevents me from responding to God’s call to take action. Those tears in Ethiopia started to wear away my suit of armor.

At the beginning of 2015, Pope Francis spoke to young people in Manila and said, “Dear young boys and girls, today’s world doesn’t know how to cry. The marginalized people, those left to one side, are crying. Those who are discarded are crying. But we don’t understand much about these people in need. Certain realities of life we only see through eyes cleansed by our tears. I invite each one here to ask yourself: have I learned how to weep? […] Unfortunately there are those who cry because they want something else.1 The question is whether my crying is self-centered or not. The Pope also spoke about the disease of a hardened heart instead of a heart of flesh. This is exactly what you can read in Ezekiel 36:26: “And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart”.

This verse describes my transformation experience perfectly. If I had to describe the difference Jesus has made in my life, this is it. I got a new heart – my hardened, self-centered heart was replaced with one that can feel and empathize with others, and God’s Spirit began leading me through life.

Sometimes crying is the beginning of the softening process in your heart. Sometimes it is the result of that process. Nehemiah was deeply moved when he heard that Jerusalem, the city of his roots, was lying in ruins and that the people there were really struggling to survive: “When I heard this, I sat down and wept. In fact, for days I mourned, fasted, and prayed to the God of heaven” (Nehemiah 1:4).

It’s not just Nehemiah’s fasting that impresses me (I am quickly reminded of two past failed attempts at fasting, both of which followed the pattern, “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak”), but I am even more impressed by his fervent prayers for his people. Nehemiah was troubled by what he heard, and he let himself be moved by God to take action – and his actions took on a scope and scale beyond what he could have imagined.

He was able to mobilize lots of people to rebuild the city walls; not just a group of professional bricklayers, but instead anybody and everybody – Hananiah, a perfume maker, Uzziel, a goldsmith, and even Shallum’s daughters worked with their Dad (Nehemiah 3:1–32). As the father of four daughters, that last one sounds especially good to me! Together, they managed to do in only 52 days what no one had been able do for decades. God shakes us up, moving us to realize His dreams.

Like Nehemiah, I was also moved by what I saw and experienced in Addis Ababa. But at the end of the day, I didn’t rearrange my life because of the horrible conditions in that city; instead, I changed my behavior because of the brokenness of my own heart. I didn’t really cry over what I saw in Africa, but over what was missing in my own heart. I crossed the line from “overlooking” to “looking,” and there was no going back. If you’ve seen color TV you won’t ever go back to black and white, even if you still like the old shows. I learned to feel in Technicolor in the slums of Ethiopia.

I was startled at how much compassion I had continuously suppressed. It’s no surprise, since I hadn’t really bawled my eyes out since childhood. I flinched every time somebody poked at a chink in my armor, my shield of indifference. It irritated me to realize how comfortable I had become, spiritually well-fed and snoozing self-righteously in my La-Z-Boy faith-recliner. Sure, I was involved at church in a few projects and all my motives seemed godly enough, but so much of what I did was just self-realization and striving to achieve my own dreams and desires.

It’s like the “Party Effect.” Somebody throws a great party. Everybody eats, drinks, dances, talks and enjoys themselves all evening, until you make the mistake of stepping outside for a breath of fresh air. When you come back inside, the stench of stale air slaps you in the face and you feel queasy as the room starts to spin. You’re surrounded by a deadly cloud of B.O., mixed with all kinds of other smells you can’t identify: a toxic cocktail guaranteed to kill any houseplant in seconds. But you only realize it when you’ve been outside. The people inside only get the idea when you, one of their own, fall face forward onto the carpet, your complexion a strange yellow hue.