To me, a good spiritual book is one that challenges and causes me, while reading it, to put it down often so that I could pray and get right with God. A great spiritual book is a manuscript of conviction that soldiery one to confront one's own sins and flaws. Gordon MacDonald's book, "Rebuilding Your Broken World" is one such book. Though it was published in 1988, it still offers rich nuggets of truth and great words of encouragement.
MacDonald speaks spontaneously about broken-world population because he is one himself. He writes, "After years of dreaming, preparing, conditioning, and fighting their way to a single point, they have (usually by their own initiative) fallen. This 'world' they have constructed is suddenly shattered."
News From Cambodia
I can recognize with that because I was one of these broken-world people. In 1992, while the peak of my ministry, my world collapsed into sins. To punish myself, I exiled myself in the remote kingdom of Cambodia. The Lord did not leave me alone. In fact, it was when I hit lowest that I found God was waiting for me there. When old friends no longer wanted my acquaintance and fellow ministers were disappointed by my failure, I have found God to be a true friend. while those warm lonely Cambodian nights, when my prayers seemed to rise no added than the ceiling, I realized that God was there in my room. He did not need my prayers to reach heaven because He had brought heaven down to brighten the life of this wretched humiliated sinner.
Exiled To Cambodia
As Phnom Penh was not safe back in the early part of the 1990s, I had a loaded Chinese type-64 pistol in my desk drawer and an M-16 in the cupboard. Satan would come usually and tempt me to use these weapons to kill myself. His cruel voice would mock and taunt at my failure. In the middle of the night, I would suddenly wake up and stare emptily into the darkness. A voice in my head would tell me that God was through with me and had no need for my ministry anymore.
Like a man in a trance, I would walk and sit at my desk, turn on the table lamp, open the drawer and stare at the pistol. The voice would then suggest that it would only take one bullet in the mouth to end my misery. Night after night, that evil voice persisted even in the midst of my prayer. The temptation to end it all was so great that one night, I took out the Chinese pistol and put it to my head. A voice said that it would be great to end it all. I felt that not only the whole Christian community had condemned me... And worse than that, I felt that even God did not want me any more.
I had messed up and deserved to die! That voice kept ringing in my ears, pestering and pushing me into the deep darkness of that terrible night. Before I could pull the trigger, another louder voice suddenly thundered through the sound of my sobbing. That voice was loud but gentle. That voice said that God had not given up on me if I were not to give up on God.
For six years, I put much attempt into building my supermarket and bistro business. It was not all enterprise for me. On the side, I used the money earned and founded an orphanage with my wife and some friends. (Today this orphanage is one of the largest in Cambodia. Two other orphanages were to be established later). I had become a legal Cambodian resident and had planned to live out my earthly life in Cambodia. Like Moses, I was ready to rough it out in this wilderness. However, deep within my heart, I still held closely to the pastoral call of God. Then one day, six years after getting used to being a "Cambodian", God decided to call me back into "civilization".
God sent Pastor Susan, an American minister from the outskirt of Pittsburgh, Pa, to voyage all the way across the globe to look for me. Pastor Susan had never left Usa before and did not have the faintest idea where Cambodia was. She had to find it on a map. Before she left for Cambodia, a word of prophecy was given to her - her mission was to look for a man who would stare her level in the eyes. When she found him, she was to call him back into the ministry. She plan that it would be an easy mission. To her surprise, none of those population she met in Cambodia would hold her gaze. She left Cambodia without completing her mission of finding the "staring" man. She had to come back the second time.
To cut the story short, when she met me at my restaurant, not only did I look at her level in the eyes but the Holy Spirit told her that I was that "staring" man whom God had wanted to restore. The Lord knew that I would have doubted if He were to send someone from Asia. He had to send someone who had no way of knowing my past. This was the second time that He used a someone from a distant land to carry His message to me. The first time was in 1982, when He called me into the ministry. At that time, He sent an Australian lady to confirm the pastoral call.
Broken World caress
The gist of my story is that God is the God of second chance. Broken-world population can rebuild their broken world again. If we check our Bible, we should consideration that majority of those population who were used by God, had broken-world experience.
Jacob tricked his father and brother by gaining the blessings and birthright. His peaceful world was disrupted when his brother sought to kill him. He escaped to his uncle's place and was right away conned by his uncle. A far greater loss was that he would never see his parents alive again. He then struggled with the Angel of the Lord and had his name changed to "Israel". That encounter left him with a permanent limp. It was only when he became a much older man that he returned to Canaan. From him, God raised up the twelve tribes of Israel.
Moses' world came crashing down when he murdered an Egyptian. He ran and hid for forty years until God called him back to Egypt.
David who had the courage to kill Goliath, fell into sin at the feet of Bathsheba. He did not only commit adultery but murder - he killed Bathsheba's husband. After he repented, God restored him.
Jonah disliked the idea of preaching God's message to the Assyrians in Ninevah. He ran away from that prophetic call until God took him back to his ministry in the belly of a whale.
Peter's world broke to pieces when he denied the Lord, not once but three times. When Peter repented, the Lord in turn, affirmed Peter three times and restored him to become a leader in the early church.
Paul, formerly known as Saul, was a proud Pharisee. His world of religious activities ended when, while on the road to Damascus, he was knocked down by Jesus Christ. He rose from that heap of discarded self-centered dreams and became one of the many apostles of his time.
Two Responses
There are two ways we can answer to our broken-world experience. Like Cain, we can deny that it is our self-will and sin that cause our world to collapse. That is the path of denial. On the other hand, like David, we can face our sin and accept the moral responsibility for it. One of the worst things that we can do is to try and use our own flesh to atone for our sin. In the attempt to show that we have sincerely repented, we rush into activities after activities of good work. The fact of the matter is that no estimate of work can cleanse us from the guilt and discontentment of our past.
The only way is to find peace is by acknowledging our sins and our responsibility for them before the living God. As we humbly kneel in repentance at the Cross, His blood will wash and cleanse us again. It is true that we will encounter terrifying humiliation and our reputation would be fully tarnished! We may lose our network of friends and acquaintances and even our ministries. Some of these acquaintances would judge us severely. We should not be too surprised by that. We have done wrong and all these judgments, gossips and condemnations are part of the fallout or consequences. We should not even interrogate grace from them except, to receive it humbly when it is given. All these are the penalties of our sin and we have to accept them. No matter how painful they are, we know that God will speak to our hearts in the midst of the pain. When we have been restored, let us be rigorous not to fall into the same trap again.
There are five things that we need to recognize as we live a repented life:
1. Our Sinful Nature
Even though we have been saved by the grace of God, we are still in this sinful world. Our sin-nature still affects us and no matter how much we think that we have overcome sin, we still have to be very careful. On 4 October 2003, a seven-year-old supposedly tame white tiger attacked an animal entertainer, Roy Horn of Siegfried and Roy in Las Vegas. It charged at Horn and bit him in the neck. Then it carried the shocked entertainer like a rag doll in his mouth. Our sin nature is like the white tiger. It may look tame but we should not be playing with it.
2. Unguarded power
MacDonald warns that many of us make the mistake of boasting about our strength. We think that Satan can never attack us in the area of our power and so we leave it unguarded. Then to our nightmare and surprise that is the quarter where the attack comes.
During World War 2, the Allied extra soldiery took many German positions because they attacked from areas where the enemies least foreseen, to come. For example, they would scale a vertical cliff wall on a stormy night and overwhelm the enemies when the latter were sure that no attack was possible from that position.
Peter the Apostle fell into sin because he plan that he was the bravest and most courageous of all the Disciples. Instead it just took a small slave girl and a join of other ordinary-looking population to get him to deny Christ. Satan is tricky and he will find us most vulnerable in the areas that we think we are the strongest. MacDonald says: "Talk to broken-world persons who have admittedly faced up to the realities of the situation, and they will admit that they were unprepared when it happened, disarmed as it did happen, and terribly disillusioned about themselves after it happened. Quite likely they will say, 'When I talk about what happened, I practically feel as if I'm speaking about another person. I want to believe that it couldn't be me'".
3. Zone of Temptation
One of most dangerous situations is to place oneself in the Zone of Temptation. Christians or non-Christians alike, have to make choices and decisions every day. There is by all means; of course no excuse for manufacture decisions that would lead to sinful actions. MacDonald observes that everyone may make choices in safe bet situation that they would probably never make in another situation.
Business travelers are especially susceptible to temptations because of loneliness and supposed anonymity of the foreign place. The apparently innocent enterprise trip becomes a Zone of Temptation. When it interacts with our sinful nature, it may cause us to behave and act in safe bet ways that contradict our beliefs and faith. All temptations are like that - they seek to challenge us to violate our God-given laws, law and values. There is admittedly no excuse for any Christian to use this Zone of Temptation as a justification for sinning. The only way is to adopt preventive portion if we cannot avoid entering that single zone. For example, some enterprise population voyage with their spouses. Others voyage with a godly companion. If these are not possible, some enterprise travelers immediately associate themselves with a church in that area and seek fellowship with the Christian community there.
MacDonald also encourages us to warn our Christian brothers and sisters of these Zones of Temptation so that they would be aware and not fall into the traps of the devil. He also asks us to be more kind to those who have fallen in the Zone of Temptation so that we can help them recover.
4. Decision In Weariness
Another factor that may cause Christians to make sinful choices is weariness. MacDonald says, "I spoke of weariness when I wrote Restoring Your Spiritual Passion because I had experienced firsthand what it was all about, and I had become sensitive to the estimate of population who were signaling that they had the same problem. I did not say in that book what I might have: in the context of weariness I made a series of very bad choices that led to falling flat on my face into sin and hurting many people. Weariness is never to be construed as an excuse. It naturally suggests that a someone may make safe bet choices in one environment that he would probably never make in another".
Rick Warren, the pastor of the renowned Saddleback Church says that some times the most spiritual thing to do is just sleep and get rested up.
5. Rear-view Mirror Journey
In as much as it is difficult for one to drive by finding at the rear-view mirror all the time, it is just as difficult for us to make good decisions if we were hampered by the events of the past. MacDonald identifies three safe bet influences of our past that might blotch our decision-making process.
The first negative influence could accumulate from a tragic background. Some population make bad decisions because such background emotionally handicaps them. They could have experienced a lack of love, protection or affirmation in their childhood and therefore, they do need help in manufacture the right decisions.
The second negative influence from the past is un-addressed or un-confessed guilt. MacDonald says that such "guilt may cause a someone to misinterpret reality and reduces that person's confidence in meeting temptations of the present".
The third negative influence is the "untreated pain" of the past. When hurting population do not receive any help, they have no way of recovery. Their wound would become aggravated in time and they would make unwise decisions in life. Therefore it is important for whatever with an untreated pain to seek medical so that the poison of the past will not destroy the possible of his or her future.
Repentant Lifestyle
God is admittedly the God of second chance. We must all the time remember that He will elaborate the repentant sinner but never the sin. After we have been restored, we must ensue the education of our Lord to "go and sin no more". MacDonald says that a repentant life is a lifestyle.
A repented life does not only regret the sin of the past but is fearful of possible sin. We must be willing to make changes to the behavior that has initially led us into sin. We must renounce all the thoughts, ideas, habits and attitudes that have created the broken-world experience.
Certain relationships have to be broken and safe bet places we have to stop going so as to preclude ourselves being tempted and falling into sin again. We may not be able to change the past but we can by all means; of course preclude the broken-world caress from occurring in our future.
God's grace is admittedly far greater than all our sins combined. The beacon of hope is that by God's grace, we all can be restored and forgiven and we can rebuild our broken world.
The God of Second occasionSee Also : todays world news headlines
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