GOD WILL PROVIDE
“God will provide”, said the man in the detergent aisle of Spar to a woman the moment I passed by, and she said, ”yes, I know He will.”
How often did I tell myself this or did we say it to each other. “God will provide”.
And He always did. There was no day we had to go without food or a roof above our head. God’s provision is faithful, because this is His character, we don’t doubt it. He provided through wonderful brothers and sisters who gave us money, just when we needed it, without us having had to ask. They brought butter, bread, milk and diesel to our house. It is overwhelming to experience such love and care. God also performed several miracles in our bank account. One night I prayed, God, “if you come through with this, I will never never NEVER ever be anxious about your provision”. The next day the money was there. We still don’t know how it happened. It was a miracle.
God was faithful, but I was not. I am still anxious every time there is a drought. The reason for this is, I don’t trust God with the timing. Because some times the money for the rent wasn’t there and we had to borrow it. This is confusing. How can I trust God, when He seems unreliable? This time it worked, but last time it didn’t. We thought, we were faithful in tithing and giving but now we can’t pay our bills. This is not what God promised us. We argued about the reason for that. Sven always said: “Why, Why, God, why are you doing this to us!? There is nothing more we can do, there is nothing I can learn from this!”
I had my own theory. I said, “maybe He wants you to stop asking this stupid question. Maybe it is God testing our attitude and faith in this. As long as the devil can get us to question God in this situation, we give him the right to mess up our finances.”
I was worried about going to Germany with empty pockets recently. I felt like a failure if I had no money. I wanted to come triumphantly to my rich and unbelieving friends, as the daughter and princess of the most high God. But what impression would I make coming poor and broke? I was worried about God’s reputation, what kind of Father, what kind of King would send His daughter with no money on a journey?
I would have to borrow money from my friends. I tried not to, but I had to. It was no big deal for them, but I had to swallow my pride. It was a humbling experience for me.
Only later, back home I came to some understanding. A friend told me a story about a girl in her cell group. She had lost her job, but she was always faithful God would provide. She said the main motivation was to show her unbelieving sister and husband how faithful her God was. But God didn’t provide and she ended up borrowing money from her sister. She said it was the most humbling experience and she understood that it was her pride that God had to deal with first.
God isn’t boastful; He doesn’t have to prove anything. He can use the struggle in our finances for others to show mercy, to humble us, to give an opportunity to sow, to stand together, and to be an encouragement. God could use my circumstances to show me and my friends the peace and joy I had in my heart only through Him. Which gives Him much greater glory.
After I understood this, He blessed us with another financial miracle. He is an awesome God and He works out everything for good. Even if it is not in our timing, we can trust Him in this. Always!
The Baptism
It was a stunning day. One of those days rain and misery was predicted and then joy and God’s glory was there. The sun was shining, the water was smooth and green and the beach was filled with an uncountable number of sand grains, each of them so beautiful you could cry. It was the day our lovely friend O. from Cape Town got baptised.
How come, I thought, this is so peaceful? How can a day be so blessed and calm and warm and light filled in times of winter storms and just before the longest night of the year? Some of you might remember the day I got baptised at Grotto Beach. The waves were big, so big that in one moment our friend Shannon was washed away while baptised, the next moment I went down and there was no water. I lay on dry ground, Mike sprinkled some water and wet sand over me, we waited in vain for another wave. Was it the seas that were thundering - or God laughing? Believe it or not, that’s His humour. Shannon got kicked in the butt (lovingly), and I had to lower myself in the mud - but was even then too high up (oh puffy pride).
How different to this glorious day in June when our young friend wanted to stop a life of bumping toes, running low on fuel, driving through townships alone at night and surfing Dungeons at Hout Bay as a beginner on the smallest possible board. Yes, that’s how she is, was, a beautiful adventurous heart, but she had to die. She had to die in who she was, to be born again and cleansed from her sins, then in obedience be baptised, to give a picture on the outside what has happened on the inside.
Elke read for her what Paul wrote to the church in Corinth:
But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him” –
With this we commissioned her to be a light and to bring the Good News with the new wisdom God was about to impart in her. That’s what it is all about. God reveals to us incredible beauty and truth through His Spirit.
That’s quite humiliating for someone like me who wants to understand everything with his mind, but can’t. It is even more radical, because we do not even look out for God in our darkness. We can’t. It is He who draws us, saves us, because we are dead in our transgressions. And on top of that He blesses us with His thoughts!
You might nod and know this, you might really know this through the Spirit, I didn’t. I knew about it but it was not revealed to me fully until some weeks ago. Yes, He is gentle and doesn’t rush me. O slow learner, me!
This is something amazing in our human nature. We know so much and we can squeeze even ten times more in our brain cells than we learn in our lifetime, but how little do we know!
Elke and I read about this young autistic man who was challenged to learn a language within a week. He did it twice. He first learned Icelandic and then German and spoke during a talk show in both languages. God designed our minds to be powerful, but for what without the Spirit? He designed us, but to what when we are without Him?
And contrary to the world’s opinion He does not compromise. As you can only be pregnant 100% or married 100%, He is for us and we are His 100%. Or not. Tell this to your neighbour who kind of believes God is there sometimes anyhow, you know.
But what has this revelation to do with our friend O. and the stunning day at the beach with happy surfers in an awesome surf and a five star meal waiting for us in one of the most stunning houses in Bettys Bay and maybe the whole Cape coast?
God orchestrates, as you know, so I want to tell you how all fitted together to make it so glorious. When Mike (Adant) preached on Mark (Make your Mark) and on John the Baptist recently, I realized the power of forgiveness and the gift of a new life that is given to us for free. All our life we try to earn something. Money, respect, love, health, wisdom, the next Iron man medal, and it is nothing in His eyes. Nix, nada, rien, wertlos, finish en klaar.
Now hear what Jesus says about John, who officially prepared the way: “I tell you, among those born of a woman none is greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” (Luke7:28) Christ did not belittle him, he still is great in His eyes, but He said it to magnify the gift we receive when we are baptised by the Holy Spirit.
It might have to do with the lack of water at my baptism that I only start to understand this mystery now. A mystery no unbeliever can grasp. It became clear just now when our literary agent, who is an outstanding editor, did send our manuscript back not understanding a word of what we had to say about Christ in our lives.
“The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2.14).
Honestly, that’s bad news. Not so much the kind message from our agent. He is right, we must find another way of writing for the pagan backlands of Germany (oh, you heathen tree swingers!). It’s bad news because it makes it so difficult to explain faith to someone who does not believe at all. Yes, that's why only the Holy Spirit can do that - beyond reasoning.
It was still a stunning day when we and O.’s friends from her church stood in a circle and sang to Dylan’s guitar. No storms, no sudden eclipse. Peace. Just very nervous our friend because the Holy Spirit was just about to smack her. Well, at least that’s what I thought would happen at my baptism.
Worshipping there I really had a beautiful revelation of how God’s wisdom is so different to our knowing. Our knowledge has a strange dynamic as you might know from own experience. If a man woke up with an egg in his bed one day and then the next day as well, he might think: Well, that is peculiar, but I always felt different to other people and I never could fit in. I’m glad I found out I am a chicken!
No, this man is not mad, he is like all of us when we think without the Spirit, he presumes. Not that this is wrong, maybe he is a chicken after all, but the difference between our worldly presumption and His wisdom is stunning.
“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up”, Paul writes later on in his letter to the Corinthians, and as you might know, the Corinthians were Greek and known for their reasoning and philosophy. Philosophy however is seeking a truth contrary to: His truth revealed to us. And yet our whole western civilisation is very influenced by Greek thinking (and even the Gospels and Epistles being written in Greek).
I remember many days and evenings with our friend O., reasoning and arguing and discussing and searching and spinning our philosophical minds, and I feel blessed God made us like that. And that He also gave us a fundamental truth, so we aren’t lost like an astronaut drifting through space. Well, one of us was actually a bit drifting, maybe, but only due to a baptismal lack of Spirit.
So does it really happen when you dive under and resurface from the water? Are you really new? Smack Bang Boom? I myself felt no difference but you know my story. So I was very curious when I lifted O. up again from the still smooth and gentle but very surfable waves with beautifully breaking rights and lefts just behind us.
She looked the same. She even spoke with the same voice and was silly as usual and we went on preparing lunch later and surfing and laughing and chatting. She just asked if we also see this light. How bright everything is, how radiant.
Radiant she is, our friend. Ready to be a light in the world that no unbeliever can understand, but clearly see.
Pineapple Evangelism
Brothers and sisters, I write to you from Kei Mouth at 5 o’clock in the morning at the peak of a thundering high tide at my feet and with a mysterious full moon over the hill country of the old Transkei. It’s beautiful, and if the earth is for nothing else then to display the beauty of creation, this part of the world is a perfect showcase.
Leafy palm trees whisper in the light breeze and just 20 metres behind us is a sandy track named Lovers Lane leading through a jungle. Drive slowly they added on the sign board. Which is silly, as our teenage son pointed out, because it is too bumpy to kiss anyway. Elke and I just walk it as part of our zillionth mini-honeymoon.
The reason I write to you has less to do with the captivating beauty of the wild coast, the amazing sweetness of my wife or that my talkative and always hungry kids are still asleep. I write to you because I don’t get something out of my mind that could have been a scene from a movie with Stiller, Diaz etc. It was only 5 days ago when we headed from Grahamstown to East London. Nothing in the dry and pale landscape warned us that behind the next bend we would be attacked by pineapples. The first barrier of picnic tables that latched on the N2 came as a surprise. On top were huge pineapples in a neat row. Then came the next and all of a sudden there were pineapple roadblocks every 20 meters. What made this even weirder were the people that jumped up and waved like crazy as if no car has been here for days.
At the 12th stall we stopped and woman jerked up from the roadside with a cry of surprise, running towards us. She couldn’t believe her luck when we bought 3 of these ripe,sweet, monstrous and cheap pineapples (the are called Queens because they take so long). Excuse me Sir, she said, I’m hungry, don’t you have something to eat for me?
This was nuts. There she sat all day with the best and juiciest pineapples of the world and yet she was starving. We only had two apples and a banana and before we even left she had eaten them. The picture of this hungry and desperate woman among all these sweet beasts of tropical fruit did not let go of me and I did not know why. Until this morning at the Kei Mouth.
The world is crazy, utterly crazy and the pineapple roadblock is just a picture of it. Once I was a full member of this world and I felt like this lady. I was always hungry in the midst of abundance and never found satisfaction. I never got enough love, could never give enough love, never found enough good waves to ride and enough good books to read and had never enough time to read them and could never even travel the world enough and fall in love enough to be satisfied. To tell you the truth, I even stopped smoking because cigarettes were not big and long enough anymore to really satisfy my thirst for life, adventure, lust and peace - till I found the water that never leaves me thirsty again! … Never again! Money back guarantee! … Sorry, just sounded like an advert. Sorry unbelievers, I know this sounds like a folly to you: Water that never leaves you thirsty again!
They even put up a cross here in Kei Mouth on top of the Lovers Lane Hill where an inscription reads: “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” (I Corinthians 1:18). The cross, by the way, is not facing the animistic Transkei on the other side of the river, but the own village.
Now what haunts me, besides giant pineapples, is that either way it’s folly, especially as I am in Christ AND in the world. I know I am saved and I grow into it, but the reality is, that I am still a hybrid. Like these new cars, combustion engine AND electric driven.
It’s not that I have not seen enough miracles, healing, forgiving, changing of heart miracles through Christ. I am rather surprised when there is a day or two without miracle. But what gets to me since I believe is, that I feel more and more stupid every day, realizing the greatness of God contrary to my own being. The more I believe I feel like the old Zim Dollar. Devaluation every day! (Die, Sven, die!)
Excuse me, hey! Yes, you, unknown and unbelieving reader who just googled the key words pineapple combustion lovers out of sheer boredom and found my letter to the beloved church in Hermanus. Yes, I am German, hence the accent, and all of my happy clapping friends of Live the Life church are crazy. You read right, we feel like aliens in the world, want more of Christ, feel unworthy doing so and want even more!
Don’t worry, I also used to be afraid of Christ and his followers and felt like in the Invasion of The Bodysnatchers (aliens replacing you and your friends with emotionless doubles - if you dared to fall asleep). But now as I love Christ more and more and get transformed, I am shocked by the foolishness of the world, the lostness, the blindness. For it is folly the world keeps as wisdom, as Paul writes to the Corinthians.
Now feeling stupid in my old self and seeing the folly, I get what I would call Evangelism Block. I am often asked if I as an author experience Writers Block. No. That only happens to first-book-a-huge-bestseller-authors. But I get Evangelism Block, because I see the world as lost and crazy, and I see how the world sees Christ in me as folly. So I am blocked.
Seriously, I wish I could tear apart a phonebook in one go and then shout Jesus is Lord! I’d also like to stare down shop attendants and policemen and after that they just fall on their knees and are saved. Oh Jesus, can’t we blow Gospel poisoned arrows so others feel the glory of God? Yes, I know it’s wrong. But I’d really like to know a spell how to make random people in the street read Paul’s letters to the Romans aloud.
Instead I did not even tell the desperate pineapple lady that there is food forever in Him, Christ, who came to die for us because we are lousy sinners who need a once and for all forgiveness. Oh Lord, could I not have told the Xhosarian woman at the pineapple well that the man she is living with is not her husband so she can run to all the other pineapple sellers and spread the Good News? I am not joking, I wish this would have happened. O Lord, bless this women, I pray, bless all of the sellers and forgive me.
Brothers and sisters, I repent because I know what Christ has done for me. He has saved our love and marriage and family and hearts and writing and our very lives that were wasting in the narrow and lifeless world of googling pineapple combustion lovers. Christ, You have changed what no man can change. Everybody who is married and believes in You, knows that. Please smack some urgency into me, because I am fool. Either way.
Prayer
About three years ago, I was sitting in the Hermanus Library, reading photo magazines, when a man started talking to me. He told me that he was a teacher in Hawston and how much he loved to teach but that he could not handle the students anymore. Too much violence and destruction and nobody listening to him and he became sick and weak and had no strength and had to drag himself to work every day because he had to support his family. The work he once so loved became a burden he almost could not carry.
My heart broke for him but I didn’t know what to tell him. I felt all I could do is pray for him, I was only a young believer and too shy to pray out loud for strangers in public places. I didn’t even know if that was acceptable. I mean, are you allowed to do that?
I know, this is ridiculous and these are only excuses, especially because only shortly before, C. had shared in our life group how she and her mother went shopping for shoes and while she was busy looking around in the shop for the right shoes she found her mother praying for the shop girl as she wanted to leave. The girl had just had been diagnosed with cancer and her mother immediately had picked up her sadness and talked to her which led her to praying. C. said how convicted she felt being on her own mission and I was so grateful that she shared this story with us. I thought: “Wow, I could never do that”.
I didn’t pray for the man in the library, only at home and for a long time I asked myself, does it make a difference to God, whether we pray out loud or later in silence?
I found the answer today, when we were jogging this morning through our little village. We met a friend who had recently almost cut off his hand and he said he was still in a lot of pain. I asked, if we could pray for him. He said, “yes, always”, I said, “No, I mean, now”. He agreed and we did. He was so grateful for our prayer he couldn’t almost believe we did this for him. He opened up and we had a great conversation and I realized how God can open the hearts of people when we pray for them.
There was a time when I doubted the power of prayer. I said my prayers but when I honestly looked at my heart, I said them with an attitude of wishful thinking, without real faith, like: It would be really nice, if that would happen. I wouldn’t pray aloud for people because I didn’t believe it would make a difference even though I loved prayer, I wanted to believe that prayer makes a difference, I wanted to become a prayer warrior. Shortly after that God sent me to the hospital to train me.
It was hard sometimes to bring up enough faith to go there and pray, because I thought what difference does it really make if I go from bed to bed saying my prayers. Every time I started doubting, God did something special. No healing miracle, but seeing people so grateful for a little prayer, seeing faces lighting up, feeling God’s love and compassion in my heart, starting to see people through His eyes.
I didn’t have enough faith to believe that the young paralyzed man would stand up and walk through my prayer. I knew God could do this however, I doubted He would do it through me. I questioned my ability to heal people.
I learned that there is nothing I can do, I have no ability to heal people and this is exactly the place where God wants me to be. All He needs is my obedience and availability. All I have to do is to empty myself and trust God to use me in the most effective way. I have to remind myself of this every time I go there and it still is a great training in humility.
Only the other day, there was this lady; she looked at us suspiciously when we asked, if we could pray for her. She told us her food was already getting cold, so we said we would come back later, after she had finished her lunch.
As we were leaving I remembered her. I didn’t really want to go back, because she didn’t seem keen at all, but I knew I had to, and so we went back to her. She was still not very friendly, but she agreed that we could pray for her and we did.
After we finished, she opened her eyes and it was as if a light had been switched on inside of her. Her eyes were beaming and she looked like a different person. God had touched her heart and what a privilege that He was using us to do this. It made my day. That is the difference to silent prayer. God is able to show His love to His people through us.
Let’s talk about Sex
Brothers and sisters, we found a secret formula for life and we would like to share it with you. Are you ready? Do we have your attention? Are you sure you want to hear this? Here it goes:
The more something is precious to God, the more the devil tries to warp and twist it.
Take baptism. It seems the devil just loves to tempt you shortly afterwards. He always pulls the same tricks – even Jesus had to go into the desert immediately after his baptism for testing
Or take church. The devil just loves to make you see all the worldly flaws others have. Not to mention family and marriage. Also one of his favourite shooting ranges. Or why do you think is love and family often is so difficult when it is supposed to be joyful?
That’s where sex comes in. Sex is most precious creation of God, and yet it is an issue in most of all marriages because your intimacy is the first thing to go when the devil comes in. Not to blame the devil for everything, but he sincerely lusts for the most beautiful things God created: love, marriage, sex, fellowship, parenthood, nature, arts, friendship, music etc. The more potential God gave it, the bigger the attack.
Ever wondered why so many beautiful songs have not only appalling but also stupid lyrics? Or why people throw coke cans down Table Mountain when they stand next to a trash bin? Or why we smash plates and argue over nonsense when we love each other? Or most shockingly, why sex is sold in bulk next to chicken feet in your local supermarket when it is supposed to be good and precious?
For centuries it was preached that sex is only for our multiplication to fill the earth as God commanded us to. Again the devil was at work to make sex “dirty” and therefore a sinful temptation. It was banned and therefore helpful to control all who felt guilty.
It begs the question, what was Gods real intention?
Genesis 2,24-25: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
Can it be more clear? Two people in love, always naked, holding fast and commanded to be one flesh? The Garden of Eden was truly a paradise. The point is that they were one flesh, naked AND completely innocent and that’s where the snaky gatecrasher took advantage.
I write this to you not because of the great sex in our marriage. Thanks for asking. Truth is: All of Gods gifts are an issue in any marriage: Kids, communication, ministry, love, work, money, sex, health. Only Jesus Christ can improve, heal, and make grow and prosper what no man (or woman) can change for the better.
I write to you about sex because I gave a short speech on intimacy recently for the hostel kids here in the village. I told them that we are good as we are created, loved, set free by Jesus Christ, and that our bodies are temples not to be touched and harmed by anyone. It was an absolutely “A” rated speech much needed because the deceiver attacks these and all kids in two angles:
Firstly through their families and environment. Many kids nowadays are molested and abused or simply hurt by the sexual confusion of their relatives.
Secondly he attacks them with guilt in their puberty. In their awakening of their sexual awareness he makes them painfully attracted to all harmless and dangerous nonsense the world has to offer.
My speech on God’s creation and holiness of our bodies sparked several interesting Question and Answer sessions with the 13 year old boys I chat with once a week. I was so naïve thinking they are still in a mental kids zone and was surprised how many of them have seen and experienced things some grown men do not even know or dare to ask.
The access to porn and other cheap illusions is so incredibly easy nowadays your child in the backseat might be trading Romanian sex slaves while you think he is on Mix It. You are laughing? Go and see what they are up to!
God loves children because they are still so much His original creation. They often do not know the difference between good and bad and the deceiver floods them with scum. I remember myself laughing about the silly things adults do in the porn magazines my stepfather hid in his closet. Very interesting and I wanted more!
Now these boys I know, some naïve and protected, others exposed to the worst, where absolutely flabbergasted when they heard about Gods original intention for sexuality. Sex, I told them, was created for a married man and women in love who become one flesh and to be a unit. No exceptions.
You should have seen their faces. Some laughed as if I was cracking a weird joke. Others just stared at me. One even ran away to hide behind the janitor’s office. This revelation was just too shocking.
We all know this and yet ignore what God wrote on believers and unbelievers hearts alike. Like children we sense sex is something very beautiful and fragile, has to do with love and joy and excitement and that it is definitely heavenly. But the devil continuously whispers: “Come on, sex is fun, and it’s for free and for everyone! Try it and your eyes will be opened. Ok, sign here, and here. And here to accept terms and conditions.
Almost all boys and men nowadays do sign what seems to be divine freedom and in the end just warps all understanding of real intimacy.
I grew up during the Sexual Revolution and found the new freedom most exciting, till I got lost. No life came from it, just confusion. What was true and what false? Why were love and sexuality not as easy at they seemed? How do you know to do it right?
Take a test with any man who has kids. Would he want his son to get some sexual experience before marriage? Most men would say yes. Now ask the same man if he would allow his daughter the same experience? Absolutely no ways, he will shout. I’m gonna kill that guy that touches my girl!
Ask any guy if he ever realized every girl in a porn movie or magazine is a daughter of someone. Ask if he really believes the lies of the old leviathan that girls actually like to be in porn for men. Or in a transparent bikini advertising coarse liver spread.
My wonderful wife just said that I am writing a sermon. But I assure you this is also an adventure in faith because I see my and many other kids exposed to the weirdest lies of the fury stinkball.
I told the boys that men and women are very different and they whistled and yelled. God, I said, created us male and female, so we have good companionship for a lifetime. Now they were baffled.
They just found out how to “dump” their “girlfriends” with an SMS. (Some don’t even know they are girlfriends).
They think its funny and in the same time they know it’s wrong, but guilt just keeps them trapped. Many boys just masturbate more when they feel guilty, tell more dirty jokes and even molest girls and girls just allow more molestation, feeling guilty that they allowed it in the first place. Guilt makes boys hit girls hard, because they are ashamed not to know how to handle their affection and girls, ashamed that they cannot tell them how to do better, often commit the most stupid things. I remember well my school days when a lot of kissing, fumbling and even real sex was happening out of sheer desolation, not having a clue.
Guilt is the barb that keeps a sinner hooked and that is something I encounter everywhere that people stick to sin because they think they are too deep into it and not worthy being rescued. Oh how much Jesus was needed back then and now.
My lecture for the kids has been weeks ago, but the Primary boys, puberty driven like a Maserati with jet fuel, still think that I am pulling their leg: “Oom, Oom, you were joking, right? You were not really serious with the married couple and the love. Sex is for all of us, right?”
It is so incredible they still think this is the prank of the century. So often have they been lied to, been betrayed and deceived, that the truth just sounds too crazy. “No Oom, this cannot be true, because then we all go to hell!!!” they shout again, and again they just cannot take the fact that Jesus has bought them free from condemnation. The news is just too good and they bounce and swing from the trees and run in circles.
Why are we set free from condemnation?, they ask. Why is God not spanking us like a good hostel father?, they want to know.
The answer is love my boys. God wants us to understand the potential of His creation. We miss out in our world of laws and regulations. That is why he set us free.
Now I have to wait till they recover from this exciting news and I pray that among their shouts and cries they will listen and not suffer from sudden nose bleeding when I tell them this:
Sexuality is so precious that the most explicit Songs of Songs of Solomon’s courtship and love is still regarded as the holy of holies among Torah teachers. An intimacy only shared between God and his chosen ones, between Christ and his bride, and between one man and one woman that become one until death parts them.
The ultimate mindboggler, I know.
Keep on Knocking
How does God speak to us? Do you know? In a Steve Martin comedy God speaks to the main character through digital road signs, telling him what to do. In “Bruce Almighty”, God simply appears as Morgan Freeman. But none of that ever worked for me.
Yes, I know, God works in mysterious ways and considering his almighty size we are like potters’ clay, wondering why he has to spin and squeeze us so much all the time.
Often I pray and ask him something and then miss the answer completely. Like Pastor Michael Eaton, who once asked God to make him understand the worries of the average Kenyan to whom he preached. Shortly afterwards, he lost his car, had to commute with taxis and was caught in legal battles. Like so many others in Kenya.
We normally can’t see what God sees, and so we don’t see God’s answer to our prayers. I tell you this, because strange things started to happen at our house.
My desk is right in the enclosed stoep. A few days ago I was looking onto the beautiful dorp straat, just recently tarred, enjoying the view of the mountains and the early clouds forming above them. Then I dropped my eyes to a tender row of poplars - and then a man with a University of Boksburg T-Shirt. He and an elderly woman were looking at me, waiting patiently a few steps from our door while I was typing.
When I stepped outside and asked the man what he wanted, he said his name is Willem and that he had brought his mother. I nodded and the mother nodded as well. Then Willem shook my hand again and showed me a long receipt from Spar which I had to examine. Then he came closer to say that he needed electricity, pointing to his mother.
Well”, I said, “I do not have any electricity for you and your mother unless you bring a plug to get some.” Ag no, I did not say that, but I should have because I realized he had spent his money on drinks.
The village is a peculiar place. Some people walking by pretend not to see me, because they are not supposed to. Others wave and some stare because we have John 14:27 written in big green letters on our wall. Or they have never seen a writer at work. I tell you the truth, some people think books are completely made in factories (our own kids once believed that).
But besides the usual jobseekers that knock as gently as they keep on knocking, others kept on asking. The next time I looked up from Twitter pretending to work, an elderly, unshaved man and a young tall man in a yellow T-Shirt were waiting outside. The old man handed me his ID and some bankcards he urgently wanted me to look at and then to keep in my house. As you can guess, I told him that I already had an ID and even if I hadn’t, I could never have looked like him. But he insisted. “Ask the Madam!” he shouted, “Ask the Madam!” He obviously had no idea what Madame Elke thought of weird old men who wanted R20 deposit in exchange for their IDs.
Yes, I felt sorry. And no, I had no R20. Not even R10. “Ask Madam!” he said angrily but then left. Relieved, I turned around but the young man in the yellow T-Shirt was next in the queue and asked for bread.
No bread, sorry.” I replied honestly. “I am Bantu!” he insisted. “Really, nothing to chew on except onions and dry pasta. I am serious.” He just smiled and pointed to his stomach. “Ek es baie hunger,” he tried in Afrikaans.
What can I do?” I asked my wife. “I can’t even work with him standing there. How am I able to ever concentrate with all these people?!” Finally, I found a carrot and half a slice of old toast, and luckily he was happy with that and left. “What is going on here?” I looked at my wife because either she knew or God preferred her for some wisdom, as usual. “Maybe it’s your board.
My board?” We have some boards with scripture Elke had made. The only one I ever made was Luke 11:9-10, white paint on old chipboard. I went back to my desk and there it was. But it did not face me to remind me of what I had to learn in my relationship with God. My son had turned it towards the street for everyone to read.
Keep on asking and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will opened.
Strong in our Weakness
The other day we had lunch with our dear friend. We met for a sandwich for no longer than 15 minutes. But we had to sit in a dark corner, hidden behind the counter, because he was worried that someone would see him having lunch in the middle of the day, sitting down, at a place that was not his working place, chatting to people that were not his clients. How dare he!
I have never met a person who works harder than he does. He actually has two jobs, both with a huge amount of responsibility. The weight on his shoulders is enormous - too much to bear for him, too big to just hand over to Jesus who said “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”.
No rest for him. His eyes are red and swollen from too little sleep, surrounded by dark circles. His skin is white like bread. This has been going on for years. Now his wife wants to divorce him. He said he feels suicidal at least once a month, and I wanted to tell him what I always want to say: “Quit! Run! Now!”
He said he knows that God wants him in this position. He has placed him there and as long as he doesn’t hear clearly from Him to leave, he has to stay. He said “Maybe I have to get better organized. There is so much to do that I never find time to finish anything.”
Sven said “How can you be better organized when you don’t have time? And how do you think God will speak to you? He is speaking right now through me: Quit, leave, do what you always dreamt of. Take your wife on a holiday. There is no joy, no peace, no love in your life.
He said “No, I have to learn to have more faith”.
We prayed for him and we still do every day. It gave us a lot to think and to talk about. What is obedience? How does God tell us to leave, to move on, what does He want from us? I know that obedience is key, but I also know that God is not interested in our performance, on how hard we can work, on how much we can endure. He wants to see us grow in our character. What I still want to ask my friend is this: “Is your heart growing? Because God is only interested in our hearts.”
He told me that once, to my surprise, and I had to learn it the hard way too. I think there is no other way. The tougher we are, the more we are willing to take on, the longer it will take. God doesn’t put more and more load on us to see how much we can carry, how long we will be able to stand. He wants us on our knees, crying out to Him.
I thought “What could he learn, being immensely clever, successful and a hard worker? To learn more, work harder, succeed? To become stronger in his strength?”
What a challenge it would be to admit that this is too much for him. To tell God that he can’t take it anymore. To “fail” in the task he thinks He had ordained him to. To be a failure in the worlds eyes. Wouldn’t this be the most humiliating experience he could imagine? To lose everything he has built up to and is holding on to?
Paul says that in our weakness He is strong. This is the place where God wants us, admitting that there is nothing we can do in our own strength and maybe this is what He wants from our friend. Not to get better in what he is already good at, but to do what he fears most. Not to endure, but to give up.
But what do I know!
Sometimes when you give up it is not because you are weak but because you strong enough to let go.” Anton
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