“Live such good lives among the pagans…..” (I Peter 2:12)
Where do you live? For most of my life, the answer was simple. Kentucky! Now, it is a little more complicated since retirement years find us in south Alabama. And we love it!
Indeed, I was back ‘home’ in Kentucky a month ago. It was quite surreal- like an old episode of The Twilight Zone. Lexington wasn’t home anymore. I felt like a stranger there.
But honestly, I don’t really live in Alabama all the time either- in my mind. As I was writing my novel Player’s Progress, I was meta-physically living every day in the Orkney Islands. I woke up each morning and found one of my favorite chairs, transporting myself into another world of fiction in a faraway land.
But this opening question— “where do you live?” — has other meanings, including time itself. Some people live in the past, remembering the glory years of some past success. For me that includes some old victories in a courtroom or the rare win in a golf tournament.
And some people live in the future - always planning but not really getting much done today. Or even worse, living in constant fear of this future- worried about things that will never happen. That also describes me at times. It isn’t easy to live in the present.
So, I now have a dilemma. The physical world in which I live is quite comfortable. We are retired with a nice pension, living at Steelwood CC on a golf course and a wonderful fishing lake. We leave the Alabama heat in the summer for several weeks in the north of Scotland. It appears to be the perfect final chapter to our years on earth. Based on the promise of seventy years in Psalm 90:12, we have moved into overtime with good health and blessings. BUT……………. metaphysically, I live in other places too. For instance, in my mind, I also live in India. We have dear friends there. We are part of a ministry which concentrates resources and energy on helping widows, orphans and more in India. We travel there often but mostly just pray all the time for our friends in India.
The news from India is more distressing than ever. Poverty and persecution are the order of the day. Quite different than the country clubs in Alabama where I now live.
So, I rather painfully live in these two opposing worlds. One is an American life of ease. The other is third world poverty and pain. And these two worlds often collide. I am in the middle. Let me illustrate.
I was playing in a golf tournament last year in Alabama. I was paired up with a local man who I had never met. Within a few minutes, he was discussing how drunk he had gotten the night before, not with shame but with pride that he was able to make it for the early tee-time. He was washing down breakfast on the 1st Tee with a Bloody Mary. He soon got into a story about one of his friends— a pal who was so rich that he could afford to lose $100,000 at a casino in Mississippi and never miss it. What a great guy!
Then, just minutes later on about the 4th hole, I received a text Message from India. Joel Kumar, age 41, had covid19 and was quite sick. Joel spends his life helping orphans and widows. Indeed, he was the future of the ministry we support. I was asked by his father to participate in an all-night prayer meeting. I offered a weak response that we would be praying. I didn’t tell him that it would have to be while I was playing golf.
So, my prosperous first world meets my desperate third world. This meeting is seen by no one. It all happens in my heart and brain. No one even knows it is happening. I am a man in the middle. You could even say torn in the middle on some days.
However, when I got the text about Joel, I found myself boldly walking to my new golf pal. I showed him the message. I told him about my friend in India who might be dying. I told him how great it would be if his rich friend had a place like India to send his money instead of pouring it down a rat-hole casino in Mississippi. I said it with a smile, hoping the offense wouldn’t be too severe. He offered a timid response about how he helps a local Little League baseball team with uniforms. I was wasting my time, or so it felt.
So, I feel like the man in the middle. Rich guy golfers to my left and 3rd world suffering to my right.
By the way, Joel died a week later, despite the prayers. Another question for God—why?
The passing of time has given me some perspective.
Joel is in heaven, waiting on us all. But meanwhile, this guy with the Bloody Mary is more lost than the poorest of the poor. Jesus spoke (Red Letters in Revelation 3) to those who thought they were ‘rich’. “You say ‘I am rich. I have everything I want. I don’t need a thing.’ And you don’t realize you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.” Wow! Five powerful words to describe my new golfer buddy.
Wretched. Miserable. Poor. Blind. Naked.
Ouch. A proud rich man lost in his riches. A poor humble man glorified by his trust in the Savior.
Who is really blessed? Those “who have humble and contrite hearts, who tremble at my Word.” (Isaiah 66;2). Not those with houses and pensions and bank accounts and country club memberships.
So, we close this sorrowful story with some good news. Those of us who follow Jesus must remember that He loves to see his children in the middle- between the rich and the poor- between the Kingdom of this earth and the Kingdom of Heaven.
Indeed, Jesus Himself is the perfect picture of ‘the man in the middle’. He intercedes for us even now. He is the bridge between heaven and hell. His death on a cruel cross opened the curtains of paradise for us poor and wretched and naked and blind sinners.
One of my favorite preachers is Alistair Begg. He pastors in Cleveland, Ohio, but he has not lost his wonderful Scottish accent, which often conveys profound truth. Listen here (CLICK for a four minute VIDEO). He reminds us all that the only way the so-called thief on the cross got to paradise was that “the man on the middle cross said I could come”. What? You mean a man who had wasted his entire life in crime and disbelief made it to heaven? How can that be when he obviously knew nothing and deserved nothing! Yes, indeed, Jesus Himself, the original Man in the Middle, paid a severe penalty so that we could have eternal life.
So, I have finally figured some of this out. I am the “man in the middle” of these two worlds. The poor in India have more to offer the rich in America than the other way around. And they are clearly more ‘blessed’ than the rich boys. The country club crowd needs this “Man in the Middle” named Jesus. But for them to see Him, they need to see Jesus living in us first. We do indeed “live among the pagans”. (I Peter 2:12). This is an awesome responsibility to bridge the gap between proud sinners and a holy God. For more on this subject, listen to my sermonette from 2021 entitled “Living Among the Pagans”.