Back Home in Beijing

We are now back in Beijing. Mark and I are together again in the Middle Kingdom. When I walked into BBC on Sunday after 3 months away, I really felt like I was home. Our apartment, on the other hand, took a little while longer. When I arrived, I discovered I needed to scrub the kitchen, throw out trash, and restore order.

Ironically all this occurred after I had been pondering the idea of investing in eternity. I didn’t do well on that front. I complained and griped a lot while I cleaned. I was more interested in my clean house at that moment than eternity. After all, heaven is clean, isn’t it? JK

But seriously, the Lord did convict me of my attitude. Yet how I wanted to cling to my attitude of wanting what I wanted. I wanted a clean home and I wanted everyone (Mark) in my path to know that. Unfortunately, that bad attitude carried over to other areas. Sin spreads; it affects everything. How is it that I can say I want to obey and glorify the Lord yet at the same time wallow in my sin? How can I have a complaining, griping attitude and say I love the Lord? How can I still feel the tug of a sinful attitude even after I acknowledge and confess it to the Lord? I had to wrestle through this and come to Jesus. Confession and repentance. That’s hard. I had to remember why Jesus died, for me. He took the burden of my sin on his shoulders. His death accomplished the punishment so I don’t have to. In that I find forgiveness – and the freedom that goes with it. I feel Romans 7 very keenly but also know that Romans 8 follows right behind.

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. 

Romans 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.  

On the other hand, it was good to be back at BBC where we belong. I love the people here, some of whom have been here since we arrived in Aug. 2013. I love the tight-knit community of BBC. I love their smiles, their hearts, their love for Jesus in a place that is so different from our home countries. This is the body of Christ, blended from so many nationalities, cultures, and languages. 

Yes, we are home - in Beijing.