20 Enero 2010. Departamento Sarasota, Distrito Nacional, Santo Domingo
“Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains alone. Yet if it dies, it bears much fruit” Jn 12:24.
I share the following hoping that it will help my fellow cross-bearers be Jesus to the “God-fearers” (but not yet “believers”) in our lives in a fresh, real, and personal way. John 3: New Life in the Spirit.
The crisis in Haiti has quickly revealed searching hearts here in Santo Domingo. Tonight I made special arrangements to meet with a Haitian friend who works the night shift as a security guard in a well-to-do area of the city. Our mission happens to have an apartment there, which is where I stayed upon first entry into Santo Domingo and established this friendship with my fellow immigrant. Francisco, enormously built, and dark as night with a wide, sincere smile, welcomed me with a strong embrace. He just returned yesterday from a quick trip to Haiti to find his family and enquire about friends and relatives.
As we sat on white plastic chairs, eating small green mangos in the lamp-lit doorway of the apartment buildings, Francisco shared with me that he feels peace at having found his family alive and well, and that he knows the hand of God is on Haiti. He confessed that he is trying not to think on the tragedy and the destruction, but rather in the possibilities. Though he lost many dear friends and close-knit neighbors in the earthquake, he is assured that this is God’s way of helping Haiti start over again. “Look!” He marveled. “Before, Haiti was nothing. Now the whole world has its eyes on her. This is a good thing. Sometimes, God has to do drastic things to get people to pay attention to Him. I think this was His plan for Haiti.” He has hope that the rebuilding of Haiti will make life there possible, with a new, just system of government, a new, just military system, new, sustainable employment opportunities, and no witchcraft. Because of the past and present crisis in Haiti, Francisco believes that all practicing brujos should be hunted out and burned as a way of cleansing the country and starting a new life of faith in God, who has both the power to destroy and rebuild, to give life or to take it.
As in our past conversations, Francisco continually brought God into the picture. “I believe in God,” he said repeatedly, “and know that my family and I walk in His protection.”As we talked, I kept asking the Lord, “How do I turn this into an urgent plea that he ask Jesus to walk with Him personally??” It is obvious that he is a God-fearer, raised in an evangelical extended family, and has values and good principles. But as in the case of Cornelius (Acts 10) and the Roman Centurion (Luke 7:1-10, Mt. 8:5-13), God is always distant, always external. There is no evidence of a fresh, abundant life in the Spirit, no presence of the Living Jesus in his daily journey. The next thing he said allowed me to turn the conversation. Finally, after three months of relationship building, he confessed his personal spiritual position, his personal vulnerability.
“Alli, more than ever before, I am one step closer to God,” he said. “This event in Haiti has made me take that step. Today I was praying. And I read part of the Bible. I feel closer.”
“Francisco,” I said, “Something is still missing…” He interrupted me with the following:
“Alli! When I am with you, I feel that God is close to me. I feel the love of God is real. When I am sitting next to you, it is as if everything is clear.” I explained to Francisco that this was exactly what was happening.
“Francisco, you feel God close to you because He LIVES IN ME. I have totally turned my life over to Jesus Christ, and His Life flows out of me. I used to talk like you about an impersonal god, because God was distant for me, outside of me. I understood that God walked beside me as a friend, and protected me from danger, and gave me direction for my future. And this is good. It is good to know God this way. But it is not complete, because that is not the message of the Cross. The message of the Cross is New Life.
“When Jesus died, he took all our sins on Him, so that we would be free from sin. But the story does not stop there. On the Third Day He Burst out of the tomb, defying death, so that we could have New Life in Him. He breathed this New Life into his friends, so that they would share in His resurrection and in his power. This is the Holy Spirit, which is the person of Jesus who lives in all who believe in Him and call on Him as their King and the only one person who can save them from spiritual darkness.
“In the same way, the person Allison had to die to my old, sinful self, so that Christ would be born in my life, making me a new creature. When I opened my heart up, gave my sin and shame to Jesus and invited Jesus Christ to COME INTO ME, It was like receiving a blood transfusion. All of a sudden, I was different. I felt life flood through me. I knew that God was no longer walking next to me, nor was He distant. God was dwelling IN me. This was like flipping over a domino, a black-to-white, night-to-day, dark-to-light transformation. This was not a change I made in my head. Something happened in my Spirit. From this moment, Christ blew His Life into me, and I became Alive in Him. Now Christ is everything to me. I am in His Light! He is my water, my sun, my shade,” Francisco interrupted,
“Allison, He is your food, too. He is your whole life.”
“He has completed me!” I said. “Before, I tried to find my own way, my own future. Now Christ is my whole journey, and my future, too. Everything I am is in Him. There is no life for me outside of Him.”
Francisco nodded, and his voice was shaky with excitement. “Allison, I understand everything you are saying to me. I feel God is telling me, ‘Francisco, up until now you have only had a part of me. Now I want to take hold of you and make you totally mine. I want to complete you.’” Francisco continued, “I am very close. This reality is very, very close to me. I understand that I have only had part of my heart open. I understand now that God wants to come into my life and live in me. But this is new for me. I am like a small plant that needs water and fertilizer. When I am ready, God will grab me and make me fully his, and I will live completely for Him. My work will be Him. My future will be Him. And I will preach His Life to others. He will be my everything, just as He is your everything.”
We sat in silence for a few moments, watching the leaves on the trees in front of the apartments flutter in the night breeze. “Just like a little tree, I need to be watered and fed, so I can grow,” Francisco told me. “If you let a tree grow naturally, it takes many, many years to grow tall. But if you tend it carefully, watering and fertilizing it, it will become tall in a few short years.” I smiled and nodded. He could not have chosen a more perfect metaphor for an organic life in the Risen Savior, our Tree of Life. He already understands discipleship. We closed in prayer. I prayed for his healing process and that he would be open to inviting Jesus into his life. Francisco prayed in Creole, but he said this part in Spanish so I could hear it: that God would make him ready to open the other part of his heart, so that God could grab hold of him completely, so that he could start a new life.
I'll give you an update soon.
In the Love of our Risen Lord,
a
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