The blessedness of possessing nothing

Is there anything I really can't live without?

I have asked myself that question various times in my life - and received different answers!

When I married Jim and left my home and family, I had to reduce my worldly goods to one suitcase and a heavy box.  The box contained mostly my kitchenware that had belonged to my mother, and so held sentimental value.  There was even a kitchen scale with the heavy weights in pounds and ounces.  I no longer used it - but I couldn't part with it.  I left a lot of stuff behind, but I was newly married and in love, so hardly gave it a second thought.

After six years in Senegal it was once again time to pack up and move countries - and continents.  I thought I didn't have much left in the way of stuff that I was holding onto, but when it came time to part with my food mixer, which had also belonged to my mom - I resisted.  How could I let this last vestige of connection with her go?  It was a wrestle, but there was a lady there who loved to bake and could really do with a food mixer, and wanted to in fact make her living with it.  How could I refuse?  (Yes, I left my scale as well!)

I must have gone through my stuff four times, each time being ruthless with myself, and each time thinking "Surely I can't live without this?"  In the end there was so little left, I really didn't care if it followed me to France or not.  I felt free.

One of my latest wrestles has been over food.  Now surely that you can't live without?  Having been on the skinny side for so many years of my life, I honestly thought that if I went a whole day without food I would surely faint and die.  But having gained a few excess pounds I felt braver to try.  So God dared me to fast for four days.  I took up the dare.  I was totally astonished by the realization that I actually don't need to eat three square meals a day.  God has so deisgned our bodies that we can go a lot longer than we think without food.  I felt free in a whole new way.

There is a great scene in the last Harry Potter movie that depicts this.  Harry and his two friends have been camping for days with hardly any food.  They arrive at Alberforce Dumbledore's home and their host puts out a tray of food.  Ron and Hermione fall on it, stuffing the food in their starving mouths.  But Harry stands back and calmly carries on a conversation with Alberforce about their mission, seemingly unaware of the food.   The book explains that because Harry had been fed only sporadically by his cruel foster parents he had become used to going without. While Ron and Hermione came from good homes and were used to regular meals.

I was really struck by Harry's Christlike attitude towards food! It didn't own him.  He was master of his body.  Reminiscent of Jesus at the well when he asked the woman for a drink of water - and there is every indication he never got it.  And when his disciples return and urge him to eat something he says this:  "I have food to eat that you know nothing about."  Wow!!  Oh to be that free from our fleshly appetites!


So is there anything I really can't live without?  I think that would be chocolate!

I'm all alone!

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"          "I will never leave you nor forsake you." Both those statements were made by the same person!  When Jesus was hanging on the cross, the Father had not forsaken him.  It just felt like it!  This was Jesus at his most human.  He might have reasoned like us:  "What did I do to deserve this?  I have loved you, served you, obeyed you - and now I am hanging on a cross, dying.  I am being executed as a criminal, punished for crimes I didn't commit.  Where is the justice?  God, where are you?  Why are you letting me go through this?  Why aren't you saving me?  Why aren't you stopping this pain?  Why, God, why?" Jesus knew why.  He had spoken about His death many times.  He had spoken of "This hour" before it came.  He had said that it was for this reason that the Son of Man came.  He knew exactly why He had to suffer. But I think that in the moment of intense pain and suffering He asked a question that He knew the answer to - but was experiencing deepest human despair.  He had known it would be bad - but he had never experienced quite this degree of pain and aloneness!  Maybe in that question He was just voicing His very humanness? And God the Father understood. And God the Father wept. God said, "It's alright, Son, for you to say that.  I understand that it is said in the midst of incredible pain and suffering.  I am here, I have not forsaken you!  But I get why you feel like I have.  It's OK.  I understand.  I hate to see you suffering!!!  If I could stop it right now, I would.  But my LOVE compels me to leave you there, in pain.  Love has never cost me so much as right now.  Love has never hurt this bad.  I love the world so much that I have to leave you there, in pain, in anguish, alone and crying out to me to save you. This will end, I promise you.  But right now, I hate that I love so much!" When Jesus looks at our suffering, He gets it.  He gets that we can feel forsaken, abandoned.  When we ask, "What did I do to deserve this?" there is no answer.  "Nothing.  You did nothing to deserve this.  In fact, you have tried to do everything right.  Obey me.  Serve me.  Do all the right things.  And this is what you get.  You're right, it's not fair.  I agree with you!  You're asking why, just like I did.  I didn't get an answer, and you probably won't either.  There is no answer.       "You ask why I have left you, abandoned you.  I know it feels like it, because everything keeps going wrong.  Nothing is going right.  The suffering continues.  You figure that if I was there, everything would get fixed, right?  Wrong. I AM there - and yes, everything is going wrong.  And it isn't over yet.  And I am there.  Right there with you.  Just as my Father was there with me, but I couldn't see Him.  I will NEVER leave you, nor forsake.  And yes, it may get worse yet.  And yes, I am there. And I understand your tears and your anger.  Believe me, I understand.  I've been there.  And it sucks.        "I love you SO much!"

Predictability - what we all want. Or not.

My childhood years were lived according to a daily routine that never varied.

6am:        Wake up to the sound of the church bells on the radio.  Get dressed.
6:30am:   Go next door to grandparents' house for early morning tea.
10am:      Morning tea with grandparents.
3pm:       Afternoon tea with grandparents.
4.45pm  Open the gates for Dad who would drive through within minutes.
6-7pm:   Dinner with family
7-8pm:   TV show as a family.
8pm:       Bedtime
8:30pm:  Lights out.  Look out bedroom window and watch grandparents' light go out, at the same time every night.

Sundays we would change the sheets on our beds and turn the mattresses.  Mondays and Thursdays were wash days.  Saturdays we would go into town as a family, have lunch at Barbers' tea lounge, George was always our waiter.  He knew my order without having to ask - steak and kidney pie and fanta orange to wash it down!

There was a certain comfort in knowing that every day was going to be the same as the day before.  And we took measures to ensure that nothing unforeseen would crop up and disrupt that routine.  We seldom had people over, never an overnight guest.  Nice and safe and predictable. 

So how is it that my life now is as unpredictable and changeable as it is possible to be?  I never know what time a meal will be, the sheets stay on the bed until they can't stand being with themselves any longer and get up in protest and walk to the washing machine; I have lived in five different countries and speak three languages; if you ask me what I am going to do on any given day, the answer will be "Whatever the wind (and the Lord!) brings my way!"

True, sometimes I long for that sweet monotony.  That sameness.  But usually if I ignore it long enough, that longing goes away. 

If I could choose predictability - or not - what would I choose?  It seems that the Lord is not a lover of it Himself.   He seems to prefer the unknowability of life.  One writer spoke of Jesus' "maddening unpredicability"! He knows the beginning from the end - and He generally keeps it to Himself.  He thrives in the "Gotcha!" moments of our lives. That is when we are thrown off balance and have to deal with the unexpected; that is when we need Him more; that is when He can do His best work.

I subconsciously made seven "I will never" statements at various times in my life.   Here they are:
1.   I will never live in a big city.  (I lived in Harare, then Johannesburg which was 50 times bigger, then Dakar.  The Paris!!)
2.   I will never work with computers.  First job?  Computer programmer. Spent four years in the programming world.  Computer programming, that is.
3.   I will never go to university.  I spent 10 years on Wits University campus.  Ten years!!
4.   I will never leave my beloved Africa.  I have lived overseas for the past 18 years.
5.   I will never live in Europe in general, France in particular.  Lived in France ten years.  Ten years!!
6.   I will never get these stupid French verbs.  I am dropping it and taking Afrikaans instead.  Spoke French (badly enough) for 16 years.
7.   I will never live in a snowy place.  Colorado, here we come!

So I guess God wants me to learn who is really in control!!