the test

^{I've been trying to make sense of some stuff we've been going through, and I think I've got something.  Not particularly happy, but somewhat settling, anyway.
At group conference in July, the theme was "Strength through Weakness," or something like that. The speaker talked on several passages in 2 Corinthians, which I found very encouraging. One day included the following verses:
24}Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. ²⁵Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; ²⁶on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; ²⁷ in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food,^[a] in cold and exposure. ²⁸And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. ²⁹ Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant? (2 Corinthians 11:24-28)
Ironically, this was the same day we were to give our testimonies, and I had chosen these verses to describe our life since our last conference, some three years earlier.  I should mention (as I did then) the caveat that (as the speaker said) our struggles were not to be compared with those of Paul -- we have never been actually lashed or beaten with rods, for instance.  But what strikes me about these verses is the manifold nature of the suffering. Paul encountered danger from all sorts of angles: from men (Jews and Gentiles, and people who don't care, but just want your money); nature (city/wilderness/sea); physiology (unmet needs for sleep, food, drink and covering); and psychology (anxiety for the churches).  While we have not suffered the same events, I've found the number of different angles we get hit from to be exhausting.
While undergoing burnout therapy during furlough, we were counseled to try to limit our move to the field to as little as two weeks, if possible.  This is because of our long history of moving (some 13 moves in our first four years of marriage?), which has been very stressful for us. But manageable, assuming most other things are under control. We are now in our sixth month in Congo, after some six weeks in Nairobi, and we're still putting up the ceiling on our house.  We've been in this house some four months, one of which I was off doing an alphabet seminar, and another of which was taken up by an overland trip to conference in Kenya.  We've done a lot to the house so far, with now fairly reliable water and electricity, a dining room table and chairs, a few desks, and a living room couch. But we still feel the need to seal the rest of the ceilings and get a few bookshelves and some kitchen counters (and a bit of tile on the cement in the kitchen and bathroom would be nice, and Kim would add to this list. ː-)) We go to sleep at night often exhausted (emotionally and/or physically), asking when it will end.
We came back from our first term on 70% of our support quota, which meant we were cutting meat and cheese from our diets, and looking for other things to cut. Which is, again, manageable, assuming most other things are under control (this was when we were still trying to figure out why our four year old was having loose stools and wetting all the time). This also came up in our burnout processing, where I realized that this was more stressful than I had realized at the time, and we renewed our commitment to raise 100% of the funds needed for our work and life. So after we got our burnout more or less under control, we got to talk with our partnership about finances.  God provided amazingly, through small and larger sources, and we got up to 100% (of our new quota, which was larger for our new location) before a delayed return to the field.  This was during the economic trials everyone was going through in 2008/9, so we thought that would be fairly stable.  Then there was apparently another wave of economic trouble, as several people have stopped giving. Last month, when we were expecting annual gifts to cover debts, we received 60% (our lowest in over 12 months).
Neither our house nor our finances would be as stressful alone as they are together. If we had more money, I would hire more people to help, and just order and pay for bookshelves, etc. and get it done. On the other hand, if the house were set up, I would have more time to get stuff done (the stuff we were sent here to do, not the house setup stuff I'm doing now) and write to people back home about it, and they might get more excited about supporting us.
Speaking of what we were sent here to do, we completed alphabets and charts for three languages in June, and I have yet to finish writing up that work.  There is at least one interesting paper to write in what we did, in addition to processing what went well, and what didn't, for the next workshop.  There is also the follow-up.  There was a guy who was interested in coming by to work on a dictionary in his language, which I would love to have him do, but there are some legal and logistical hurdles to get over first, and I haven't finished those.  It would also be nice to catch up with the guys who were at the workshop (some of whom are in Bunia) to see what they've done with the Alphabet charts we gave them, and to encourage them. And that's where I hear Paul writing "the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches."  and I'm not yet to thinking much about the work we're planning for FY2009-10. I want so bad to see this work done.  I hate so much that I'm a barrier to seeing it done, and that our needs as a family are a part of what's keeping some things from moving forward. So it's not just living with bat dung falling on you, or not having as much money as you'd like to fix it, but knowing that the time you're wasting in this transition period could be used for other things.
Anyway, not as impressive as "shipwrecked and beaten," but those are our big three right now, as they have been for some time.
Enough with the sob story.  Yesterday we read 2 Corinthians 13:5,
Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! (ESV)
I've seen this verse many times before, but never connected the test so closely with the presence of Christ in the believer. At least, it is clear to me now that the necessary and sufficient condition for passing the test is having Christ in us.  That is, the test is passed if and only if Christ is in you.  So what is the test? Paul had talked earlier about persistent suffering as a mark of the ministry:
 ⁷But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. ⁸We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; ⁹persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; ¹⁰ always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. ¹¹For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. (2 Corinthians 4:7-11 ESV)
And as I read this, I am so puzzled (and sometimes angry!) that God would leave his servants at the brink of death, but not let them die.  I have so often felt so close to cracking, yet somehow never do.  We have often relied on the verses in chapter 1:
For we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. 9Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. 10 He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. 11 You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many. (2 Corinthians 1:8-11 ESV)
The theme of continued peril, while escaping death, seems recurrent.  And these two verses shed some light on why. We have for some time insisted that peril makes us rely on God, and depend on the prayers of others, as in these last verses from chapter 1. But what of chapters 4 and 13? "We who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh."  So perhaps it is not just to make us rely on Christ, but to show the life of Christ in us.  Is this the test?  Is God showing us, by persistent, manifold suffering, that Christ is in us -- proven by the fact that, though we feel like giving up, we haven't?  I'm not sure what forces kept us going until the end our our last term, but this makes a lot more sense than our bootstraps. How many times have I said, I would die right now, if Christ were not compelling me on (ch 5:13-15)? I have long said that God uses suffering to prepare us for worse trials later, and several times I have stopped and said, "If this is what we're going through now, what is God preparing us for?!?!" But it is somehow strangely comforting to look back at all those times we bent but didn't break when God took us through hard stuff before. As John Piper wrote:
Why does God allow this? No, that is not quite the right question. We have to ask, Why does God appoint this? These things are a part of God's plan for his people just as the suffering and death of Jesus were part of God's plan for salvation (Isa. 53:10, Acts 4:27-28) (Let the Nations Be Glad, ed 2003 p 84)
Reading through his "Six Reasons God Appoints Suffering for His Servants" again is humbling. I won't quote them all here (though they're well worth the read), except for the first sentence of point six: "The suffering of missionaries is meant by God to magnify the power and sufficiency of Christ." The chapter on suffering ends "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.  And the supremacy of that glory shines most brightly when the satisfaction that we have in him endures in spite of suffering and pain in the mission of love."  Wow.  May that be said of me.