Living among choice saints disguised as regular folks

 

I’d always planned to chase the American Dream—I’d marry a guy who’d earn more money next year than this year. And more money each year after that. And we’d get a bigger, nicer house every so often. And increasingly nice furniture and carpets. New cars, too.

 

And I expected we’d continue our pursuit of happiness—which the Declaration of Independence says is our right. I assumed gaining more and better possessions would lead to that happiness.

 

Abundance. Upward mobility. Living the good life. During my lifetime, the American Dream has been so pervasive in our values, assumptions, and expectations that we have allowed it to be a comfortable, acceptable part of Christianity.

 

In my circles, including my church circles, that was the thing to do—that was the way we lived—so when I was a kid and a young wife and mother, I assumed all of that would be mine. I never questioned those goals. I never questioned my motives for pursuing them. 

 

What a shock it would have been for me if, back then, I had read David Wilkinson’s words in The Prayer of Jabez: “Do we really understand how far the American Dream is from God’s dream for us? We’re steeped in a culture that worships freedom, independence, personal rights, and the pursuit of pleasure.” 

 

And then God sent me to Lomalinda in rural Colombia.

 

Lomalindians thought little of North America’s material trappings. For the most part, they had freed themselves, choosing to be satisfied with skimpy physical creature comforts, willing to overlook inconveniences.

 

I sensed no competition to outdo each other in vehicles, possessions, houses, or décor. They built homes where marriages and children could thrive, where they spent fun times with friends-that-became-like-family.

 

If they’d ever craved a big income, a fancy house, and early retirement, they’d set aside those dreams. They lived at peace with themselves.

 

Our population included charming, good-looking men and lovely, capable ladies. Most folks were clean and attractive but had little concern about the latest clothing trends. People returning from furlough brought back the latest fashions and hairdos, but the materialism frenzy did not flame throughout the community.

 

People worked hard—sometimes too hard. They showed kindness and gentleness and generosity.

 

They enjoyed playing volleyball and softball and taking motorbike trips and singing and playing instruments.

 

They also cried together and prayed together and rejoiced together and grieved together and cheered each other on.

 

God had sent our family to live with some three hundred colleagues who, I would soon learn, served Him with zeal. It’s not that they talked about God all the time or spoke in hallowed tones or prayed a lot in public.

 

No, they were ordinary souls who chose a humble lifestyle so they could live a radical faith, despite consequences that would come their way.

 

“While Christians choose to spend their lives

fulfilling the American dream

instead of giving their lives to proclaiming the kingdom of God,

literally billions in need of the gospel remain in the dark.”

(David Platt, Radical, published in 2010)

 

Half a century or so before Platt penned those words,

the Lomalinda bunch had begun addressing those needs

by translating the Bible, and doing so much more,

for some of those billions.

Lomalindians knew from experience

the meaning and implications of Platt’s words.

 

Now, looking back, I don’t hesitate to call them

spiritual giants,

choice saints.

But I didn’t recognize that in the beginning.

They were camouflaged as regular folks.

 

Saints. What are saints?

 

In the Bible, saints are described as God’s faithful servants, consecrated people, and those who worship Him (2 Samuel 2:9, Psalm 50:5).

 

Henri Nouwen describes saints as “people ‘set apart’ by God to be light in the darkness. . . . What makes them saints is their clear and unwavering focus on God and God’s people.”

 

Set apart, indeed.

 

And yet, Nouwen says, “Although we tend to think about saints as holy and pious, and picture them with halos above their heads and ecstatic gazes, true saints are . . . men and women like us, who live ordinary lives and struggle with ordinary problems. . . .”

 

“Most of their lives are remarkably similar to our own.” (Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey)

 

“Remarkably similar to our own,” he said. That’s what I meant when I wrote that Lomalinda’s people “were camouflaged as regular folks.” (From Chapter 10, Please, God, Don’t Make Me Go: A Foot-Dragger’s Memoir)

 

God handed me countless blessings when He sent me to Lomalinda to work alongside choice saints.

 

He gave me a chance to sit around their dinner tables and to invite them to gather around our family’s table.

 

He gave me an opportunity to laugh with them, cry with them, pray with them.

 

In the commissary, I shopped alongside saints.

 

Some of Lomalinda’s saints worked as my kids’ teachers.

 

Saints piloted our fleet of small planes.

 

Saints staffed our clinic, our offices, and our childcare so moms could work during morning hours.

 

And then Henri Nouwen turns the focus away from the saints and instead forces us to look at ourselves: “The saints are our brothers and sisters, calling us to become like them.”

 

While I agree with Nouwen’s statement, I have a hunch genuine saints are not aware they’re calling us to become like them. Lomalinda’s people never even hinted that they were inviting me to be more like them.

 

After all, each of us—even a choice saint—is a recipient of God’s grace, His favor, His loving blessings we don’t deserve and can’t earn. Grace is a gift He gives us as we slog along on our daily journeys through ups and downs, failures and successes.

 

God was handing me one gift after another

and, among the finest, were and still are

His grace and His saints in Lomalinda.