Do I Love my Comfort More Than the Poor?

Just like that, in a blink, we went from living in sub-Saharan Africa to suburban Canada.  I am still trying to make sense of what I am supposed to learn from this abrupt transition.  One thing I am learning about myself, is hard to admit because it makes me feel exposed.

It’s too humiliating.

I see myself through new eyes:  I never knew just how greedy and materialistic I was until we moved to Malawi and back.  I never knew how deep my self-dependence ran.  I didn’t know how high up on a hill I lived in my own glass castle, how unaware.   I thought I was good.  I thought I was generous.  I thought I cared about those who have little.  I thought western ideals didn’t have a hold on me.

It turns out, they do.

Because I am still defining myself by what I have, what I have or have not accomplished, and not by Whose I am.  I see how often I see myself as the giver, not the beggar.  Even still, upon our return to this wealth drenched land, I still think I deserve comfort and that I can push away suffering and hardship.   I want to do good so that it looks like I do good things.  I want to be seen as loving and heroic.  I want to be seen as sacrificing for the sake of others.  I want to think I’m impervious to entitlement.  But under the surface, my heart isn’t really broken for the poor.

It’s just so easy to be apathetic.  If it means to give up my position for others, am I willing? I am comfortable having a home, a job, healthcare.  I don’t really want to experience poverty with others.  I want to avoid suffering, look away from it, push it away because it makes me feel uncomfortable. 

Malawi has exposed me and I’m a fraud.  I end up talking about what Malawians have or don’t have, not about who they are.  The truth is, we are essentially the same: living a broken story that is being redeemed. The difference is that many Malawians know more clearly their need of God daily, more than I do.  Who are really the haves and have nots?

We’d been living without consistent power, water, and electricity in Malawi. To a westerner, these are major inconveniences.  To a Malawian, these are rarely in their grasp.  And I have been relieved to “take a break from this hardship of living among the poor.” 

Meanwhile, our fellow Malawians experience hardships like I’ve never known and still praise their God in His generosity and care for them.

Moving to Malawi has exposed my true heart.  Even here, even now, these things matter too much to me. Am I willing to give generously at the cost of my own comfort?  Or just when it’s convenient for me, or when I have excess?

And there is the difference with Jesus.  He didn’t just see us from afar, or rub shoulders with us, He lived as us.  He took on flesh.  And dwelled among us.  He didn’t just cross into our reality to report back to heaven about our reality- he bore it.  He felt it.  He didn’t make sure we understood how much He’d given up.  He didn’t lament all the riches of heaven he was missing.  He didn’t count down the days to go back to golden streets and flowing streams.  He didn’t talk down to us, shame us because of our lack of heavenly wisdom.  He didn’t look down at us through eyes of superiority.  He served us.  He bandaged our wounds, wept with us. He loved like that.  He didn’t just bear witness to our suffering and death but bore it himself.

He is a true missionary.  He is love. Even in my selfishness, my abundance, He still lavishes gifts upon me that I don’t deserve. In all my fear of losing, of suffering, in all my self-absorption and entitlement, His undeserved grace abounds to me.  I have wept here because people have been so generous to us when I didn’t deserve it.  His abundant love makes me want to love sacrificially.  His undeserved grace wants me to care for the suffering at the cost of my own comfort.  It’s experiencing His lavish love that will break my heart for the poor.  Guilt will not change my behaviour.  Love will.  Why should I fear losing it all, when He has already given me more than I need in Him?

May our hearts know His lavish love for us today and may that love move us to live generous lives.