A needed shake-up

Since my roommate moved out in July, I’ve done some deep cleaning, including under the oven for the first time in my three years here. While it was moved, I was puzzled and then disgusted to find an opening in the oven’s back, filled with egg shells, mango peels, bell pepper stems, and other things that didn’t get there by themselves. Maybe this explains all the nasty smells that used to linger in the kitchen even after I’d taken out the trash! Here’s photo evidence of its contents, on the shelf and then shaken out onto the floor. You’re welcome. 😉

Sometimes it takes a shake-up to expose nastiness. Though my life has been less disrupted by COVID-10 than many of yours, with few cases in Cambodia and minimal restrictions on daily life, I’ve still had to respond to the change, ambiguity, and suffering prevalent worldwide these days. When will borders reopen so my team can reunite? What do I do about the fraying relationships in my life, my community, my world? How will economic decline affect already-vulnerable Cambodians? What’s my identity when I feel alone and my dreams for life and ministry seem elusive? Rarely has my first response been to bring these legitimate questions before God. Instead? Anxiety. Cynicism. Pride. Not what I was hoping to find lurking in my heart and mind.

I don’t have a self-cleaning oven, or a self-cleaning heart. The decaying trash didn’t go away until I tilted the oven back and scrubbed it out. Likewise, God has used COVID’s shake-up not just to reveal my foul attitudes, but to invite me into an unequal trade. His peace for my anxiety. His joy for my cynicism. His humility for my pride. Though I still resist, it’s always a relief when I say yes. I’m learning to lament these broken places with God, waiting and trusting that he will weave them into his story of hope and redemption. And in several areas, I've spotted encouraging developments outside of me as well as inside.

I don’t pretend to know why 2020 has unfolded this way. But I do know that God doesn’t waste opportunities to pull us closer into his embrace… even when he knows we stink.

Create in me a pure heart, O God, 

   and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence, 

   and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation, 

  and uphold me with a willing spirit.
-Psalm 51:10-12