The Worst Thing That Could Have Happened

"Lead us not into temptation ..." --Matt 6:13


It was the worst thing that could have happened.  For a major in the US Army to be passed over three times for promotion to Lt. Colonel, stung with a bitterness that was not unlike death.  Yes, it was a death, the death mark to a military career that had otherwise appeared quite successful. Everyone who knew him and had worked with him were aghast. If ever there was a major who deserved promotion, it was Major Russell J. Chun.

What no one knew at the time was all that hung in the balance of that promotion. Had he become Lt. Col. Chun, Russell would indeed likely have received the accolades he deserved and completed all the accomplishments he'd planned. But countless lives would have also been left in bleak darkness.

Because he did not make this promotion, he became involved with GoodSports International and began working with orphans in Hungary. As a result I met him, leading to our marriage and the birth of our daughter and the adoption of two children out of the Hungarian orphanage system. But that is only the beginning. His retirement in 2005 led to a consistent presence in the Miskolc orphanage where the children regularly hear and experience the love of Christ. Beyond that, at least four or five other adoptions can be traced directly to Russell's involvement with GoodSports and the Miskolc orphanage.  Still more, thanks to Russell's failure to make Lt. Col, one orphanage boy grew up to work with GoodSports where he met his American wife. Her family has so embraced him that he has discovered what family is all about.  Moreover, another boy who grew up in the orphanage now attends Bible college in Hungary.  And these are just a few of the stories where we've had the privilege to see the outcome. How many more do we not even know about!

Yes, at the time it seemed like the worse thing that could happen to a successful major in the US Army. But in God's economy, it was the best thing that could have happened for countless souls.

When we think about temptation, we think about the lure to sin.  But often we limit our scope to sins like adultery, fornication, lying, stealing and cheating. And granted, we need to pray that we are not lured into such sin.  By praying this, we acknowledge our weakness. We realize and remind ourselves that we are frail creatures prone to failure in our spiritual walk and we desperately need to cleave to our Lord to make it through the temptation.

But temptation can take many forms -- forms that we are all too comfortable with.  And subtle sins can become familiar friends in the landscape of our lives, so much so that if we really understood what we were asking God, our human nature might hesitate to pray this prayer.

CS Lewis explained it well when he said, "'Lead us not into temptation' often means, among other things, 'Deny me those gratifying invitations, those highly interesting contacts, that participation in the brilliant movements of our age, which I so often, at such risk, desire.'"

The prayer "Lead me not into tempation" may well mean, in practical terms, "Deny me success in my career because that success would make me smug and self-satisfied." It could mean, "Deny me marriage, because that relationship would become more important to me than my First Love."  It might mean, "Deny me a house or car because having those things would make me materialistic."

In a nutshell, these five simple words can have long-reaching ramifications.  It can mean, "Deny me all things that I long for and value most if they, in any way, would draw me into sin"

Because at the end of the day, when all is said and done, God is more interested in our character than our career.  His deeper concern is for our holiness more than our happiness.

And so Jesus urged us to pray, "Lead us not into temptation..." So if we are brave enough, if we have faith enough, let's obey and pray it. But let's do so with open eyes, understanding all that it might mean.  Because we may well be asking God to allow that which we think is "the worst thing" to actually happen to us.

But we also may well discover, like Russell Chun, that the thing we deemed "worst" by the standard of our frail and fallen desires may actually end up being a better plan with effects far greater than we could have ever dreamed.

HeartSick

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life.``

--Proverbs 13:12

We entered the summer with hearts dancing with excitement. The adoption seemed to be rushing forward with unimaginable momentum as so many hopes and dreams grew as Levi spent fully six weeks with us during camp season.

Under our roof, we watched as the quiet, unassuming child blossomed into outgoing comic wrapped up in little boyhood, and we emerged as a new kind of a Chun family -- one with five faces instead of four, melded into a kind of clan any human imagination would never dare to assemble. We embraced it as God's better plan, and prayed and hoped that God would grant us supernatural favor within the bureaucracy and Levi would be truly ours by summer's end, able to start school in the fall with us.

It was all a beautiful dream -- until hope was deferred.

The last major step in the process, the psychological evaluation, which we expected to be a cordial meeting, spiraled into a nightmare of hostility, prejudice, and accusation. We emerged perplexed and the follow up meeting with our daughters, Andi and Niki, (fully six weeks later) left me wishing I'd never allowed the psychologist time alone with my children.

The psychologist seemed dead set against us from square one. And now we wait for her official evaluation with sick hearts as so many hopes have been deferred.

But ours is not a unique plight. Hope deferred has become a standard state in this fallen world.

Many such hopes and dreams are good and righteous and God-seeded in the hearts of people -- still hope is deferred and the heart grows sick. For some it is the child they've hope for, fought for, yet miscarried again and again. For others it's the spouse they've longed for, waited for, trusted God for and still the years pass by and no one comes. For others still, and perhaps most tragically, they've held that longed-for child, or kissed that beloved spouse, only to have him ripped from their arms and torn for their souls by the cruel blade of death's grim reaper.

And so hope is deferred. And hearts reel in the agony of it all.

We respond to this heart sickness in many different ways. Russ avoids breakfast, because Levi and he always shared a special early breakfast together. He naps in Levi's room, so it does not feel so empty. But as I clean that tiny room and it remains clean far too long, we all face that profound void in the absence of what should be.

On August 15, we hope to learn the official result of our psychological evaluation. We have low expectations, knowing there could be long road ahead of us as we fight for our Levi. He may not be our child on paper, but he is already the son of our hearts.

And so for the moment hope has been deferred and our hearts are sick. But we believe there will come a day when this dream will be fulfilled and it will be a tree of life to us and others who witness it.

Not everyone gets to experience their righteous dreams fulfilled in this lifetime. May it be enough to know that our Lord, Jesus Christ is the fulfiller of our dreams for all eternity. For all our hopes are never extinguished, they are only deferred for a season -- until we embrace Him face to face.

Preparing a Place

There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. John 14:2-3

I never thought much about this concept of "preparing a place" for someone until recently. As we have begun the process of adopting Levi, I have poured myself into building his room, an undertaking that involved everything from framing and drywall to painting and building shelves. And as I engaged in this process, one verse echoed through my mind daily. " I go to prepare a place for you."

It has been with great delight I have drilled and hammered. As my back and arms ache from each day's strenuous activities, I can only smile and dream of giving this special place, crafted with him in mind to Levi that fateful day when he becomes our own.

Each time we meet and interact, I probe him with questions to discover what spark's his young imagination that I might incorporate more and more tiny details of who he is into the place I am preparing for him.

The place is a product of our relationship, which is only in its infancy and yet this small room is also a reflection of all I perceive him to be. It has been crafted meticulously out of love and devotion, designed to instill security, comfort and hope into a little boy who has already gone through so much in his nine years of life. It is a symbol that he is ours and we are his for when he moves into that room to stay, he will be a Chun by adoption.

Like the disciples in the verses preceding this passage, life must be very confusing for Levi. Last weekend four of his brothers went to live with their adoptive family for good. We come and spend time with him and then have to say good bye. And when we do, he wraps his arms around Russ and squeezes as if he would perish if he dared let go. But he knows he must, for he is not yet ours.

And when I watch him hold onto Russ I want to say, "Don't worry Levi, we are going to prepare a place for you! A place of your very own where you belong. And when everything is prepared, then we will certainly return for you!"

In this experience, I have caught a glimpse of a heavenly truth. I can now imagine Christ pouring himself into preparing a place for each one of us -- a place of perfect design, crafted out of love and relationship, tailored to perfection to meet our every need. And in this preparation, He takes great joy for it represents what is coming -- us truly becoming wholly his.

So as we face the confusing moments of this life, when God seems to have turned away, we must hold on to the truth that He is never far. He is probing us and developing relationship with us as He joyfully prepares that place that we shall one day occupy as He bring us into Himself completely -- forever.

The Better Dream

"Now to Him Who, by (in consequence of) the [action of His] power that is at work within us, is able to [carry out His purpose and] do superabundantly, far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think [infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, ordreams]-- " Eph. 3:20 (Amplified)

"I have a dream..."

That ubiquitous quote, which fell from the lips of Martin Luther King, Jr. nearly five decades ago, still resonates from the very soul of each human as we all, on some level, have a dream -- a dream for something better, deeper, more meaningful. A dream to make the world better, if not for all, then certainly for some.

I too have had many dreams over the course of the four decades I've walked this earth. In my teens, all was black and white. And I felt destined to whiten all the black that seethed around me. Ironically, my obsession for the white too often blinded me to the blackness within myself.

If you knew me in my twenties, I often rhapsodized about "changing the world." Funny thing was, God seemed more interested in using His world to change me. And so He did.

This last weekend I was reawakened to a dream of my past. A dream of my thirties. Some ten years ago, my friends Andi (now Horvat-Kavai) and Michelle (now Kummer) strolled along a lovely country road near the palatial Lillafured, Hungary. It was a time when God had seen fit to intertwine my heart and soul with the children of the nearby Diosgyori orphanage. On some level I carried the children and their pain with me for they had become so very dear to me.

As we strolled the rural path, taking in the pastoral landscape, we came upon some beautiful old, yet abandoned and deteriorating, homes. We each chose one and dreamed about what we would do if we had such a house to restore. I vividly remember chosing the red brick one. In it's day it must have been truly lovely: red bricking laced by wooden beams with a turret-like tower on one end. "That's my house," I had said." And it can be a children's home for all my kids." The melancholy faces of those orphanage kids flashed through my mind like a slideshow. It was my dream. It was a good dream.

On Saturday I found myself walking that same country road in the Bukk mountains. I saw the stately place Michelle had chosen for her dream that day so long ago. And then, just before we turned around to go back to the car, a lovely red brick edifice caught my eye and I was taken back to that dream of long ago.
When I walked this path before, I was a single woman with big dreams. We all were.

This time I stood before the house with an exceptional husband at my side and three children scurrying around, picking flowers, collecting snails, and splashing in the mud. One of the children was Andi, named after the friend I had traversed this road with more than decade earlier. The second was our adopted daughter, Niki -- adopted from that very same orphanage that stole my heart so long ago. And the third was Levi, sweet Levi, whom we are working to add to our family in the next few months. He currently lives at that same orphanage.

I don't expect I will ever live in that red brick house in Lillafured. But at the end of the day, it's just a facade of red clay and mortar, crumbling in its imperfection over time -- not so different from the malformed dreams I've crafted for myself over the years.

The three that stand before it are the better dream fulfilled -- "far over and above all that we [dare] ask or think [infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, hopes, or dreams"

Let's face it. God, Himself, crafts the better dream -- the dreams we never knew we had. Let's be willing to let go of our feeble, malformed dreams, however good they may seem, that we may not miss out on the better one.

To Be Chosen

Ahhh, to be "chosen"!

What an awe-inspiring concept. To be special, set apart. Our adopted daughter Niki knows something of what it means to be chosen. Adrift in an orphanage, rejected by the only home she ever knew, she had her basic needs met -- food and shelter. But she had no one to call her own.

Through adoption she discovered the concept of being chosen. SHE was the ONE! SHE now had a family who loved her! SHE had been chosen. But being chosen does not come without costs.

Consider what being "chosen" meant in Bible times:

Abraham was chosen. He had to leave his homeland and everything he knew to travel to -- only God knew where! Along this pilgrimmage he had to deal with a barren wife and no hope of offspring -- except for God's promise. Then when the promise was finally fulfilled, God asked him to sacrifice his son!

Moses was chosen. Set adrift in a basket as a baby, raised by strangers, he committed murder. He fled to the desert for many years, returned to face Pharoah and witness the plagues, and then after the parting of the Red Sea, he had to deal with a bunch of complainers in the wilderness until he died.

David was chosen. And he had spend a good portion of us life fleeing the king's wrath. When he finally became king, his son, Amnon, raped his daughter,Tamar. Later his other son Absalom killed Amnon, bringing the concept dysfunctional families to a new height.

Mary was chosen of God. Pregnant before marriage, she gave birth in a stable with only her husband to help. Then she had to flee to Egypt and live like a refugee until they could return to Israel, where she would raise that child only to watch him be tortured and murdered publicly.

Paul was chosen of God. And he suffered countless beatings, stoning, and tradition suggests he was ultimately beheaded.

The list could go on and on. Chosen of God most often means Chosen to Suffer in this life. It just doesn't seem fair, does it?

Niki too feels the sting of the "chosen" when all the kids at our village ministry "Kids Klub" are allowed to act like monsters, being rude and disrespectful with no consequences, and if she even uses a tone of attitude serious punishment awaits!

She senses it too when all the other kids are free to goof around and play and she comes home to study under the malevolent dictatorship of her mother.

It's not fair, she must often think. But she was chosen.

Like Niki, we often do not understand the circumstances we must walk through in this life. Indeed, being "chosen" doesn't seem to be all it's cracked up to be. But we cannot see this world as it truly is. We can only "see through a glass darkly." (As 1 Cor. 13:12)

Has God chosen you? It's no reason to be smug or self-righteous. Being chosen is no panacea. It's hard and it hurts -- so much it may make us wonder if we really wanted to be chosen in the first place.

But perhaps here is where we misunderstand most. CS Lewis summed it up nicely in The Great Divorce:

“‘That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, ‘No future bliss can make up for it,’ not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say ‘Let me have but this and I’ll take the consequences’: little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man’s past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man’s past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of all things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed will say ‘We have never lived anywhere except Heaven,’ and the Lost, ‘We were always in Hell.’ And both will speak truly.’

Can we catch a glimps of heaven in the trials we face today? Can we hold the title of "chosen" in humble surrender so that He who makes all things new may use even this present suffering to work heaven in our lives?

We are chosen.