What's inside a Toothpaste Tube?

Last night as I lay in bed trying to go to sleep, I did my normal thing. I thought about all kinds of things. I think if all the letters, speeches, talks, posts, entries, reviews I create in my head while trying to go to sleep actually got onto paper, I would have written volumes by now, maybe tomes. How many of the world’s problems, or my own, would have been solved if my unspoken thoughts actually made it out of my head? Maybe none!

One of the things on my mind is why we are here in Beijing. Yesterday was a particularly frustrating day. Mark had plans for the day that didn’t happen because other things took so much longer than expected. He went to prepay the electricity so we don’t run out over Chinese New Year. He went to three different banks, all of which asked for a Chinese bank account atm card, which we don't have. Finally someone at the last bank used his own atm card and Mark gave him the cash instead of the bank directly. We had never had that much difficulty before. Then we went to return Nate & Julia’s vacuum cleaner. We intended to take it back and vacuum their apartment before they returned last night.  We couldn’t get a cab so we ended up carrying the vacuum on the subway. I didn’t think to put it in an IKEA bag so we could carry it easily. I never thought we wouldn’t be able to catch a cab. So we took the subway and when we got to Zhichunli (3 stops from getting on, one stop away from our destination), Mark asked if I had their keys. OOPS, I forgot their keys. So we got off  to decide what to do. Mark really wanted to meet up with Hector. We finally just went back to our apartment and texted Nate & Julia to ask if we can return it Monday. Mark punted meeting Hector. However, Mark carried a bad attitude most of the day.  As we walked back to our  place, I told Mark he needed to lock himself in his room with his Bible and pray and not come out until his attitude changed. Finally he just laid down and took a nap.

 

So why are we here? I think God has us here to sanctify us. The minor point is the ex-pats; the major point is us. Maybe here is the only place God can squeeze us and refill us. I feel like the toothpaste tube that gets squeezed. We know what’s inside only after we squeeze the tube. And it isn’t pretty! Life is hard here. Life is frustrating. Life takes time. We can’t get a cab. We travel an hour almost anywhere we go. Events take longer than we think they should. We get home late many nights. We can't understand the Chinese when we ask them a question.

We have to always come back to whom we serve – ourselves or God. If ourselves, then we get upset when things don’t go the way we want. If God, then His plan is bigger than ours. Life is about Him and His glory, not us. I have to remember that Jesus died for my sins, and I have many. In Jesus, we are totally, completely, thoroughly, eternally forgiven. When life is Romans 7, then I have to press on to Romans 8. I must preach the gospel to myself every day.

Romans 7 ¹⁵ For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ¹⁶ Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. ¹⁷ So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. ¹⁸ For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. ²¹ So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.²² For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, ²³ but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. ²⁴ Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.  8 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.² For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. ³ For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴ in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (ESV)

Lord, I pray you will keep us here until we are holy. Never let us go. Sanctify us. Use whatever means necessary. And give us your grace through the process.