Leave Your Country...And Go To The Land I Will Show You

 

A decade and a half ago, I sat in a plane next to a window watching as the more than 7,000 islands that comprised my home country grew smaller until I cannot see them anymore.

I just lost a contest with my wife. She had gone ahead of me six years before to live in the US. She had given birth to our honeymoon baby the next year after she left. I can’t help but think that having my daughter even without me was one of her ways of persuading me to come to the States. Our deal was that if she could prove to me that we would be better off in the US than in our homeland, then I would follow and live with them. Otherwise, they come home and live with me. Perhaps it was the mighty dollar, but I am convinced that it was the LORD’s will, she won.

Let’s spare you the gory details of how I lost even with a college degree in mass communication and a flourishing career in human resources. The big deal for me back then, was that I just met the LORD. I was about a year and a half into my walk with him as I boarded that plane.

What a tempestuous exit it was for me. A couple of weeks before I had to endure a devastating typhoon which caused massive flooding. I literally had to wade through most of it while visiting relatives in the province to say goodbye. Then right after that, a huge earthquake hit and levelled an international hotel in a mountain city, killing many. I was on the fifth floor of a seven-storey building in another city. We could hear the next building banging against ours. And then the day right before the flight, another big typhoon hit. I prayed through the night that it would pass before I flew.

In the morning, true enough, the weather was calm. I thanked the LORD for answering my prayer. I didn’t count on him still having a little more surprise ahead to spring on me. Just an hour into the flight, we caught up with the typhoon. I was seated at the back of the big jumbo jet so I could see how the huge craft teetered like a giant seesaw. I am not a big fan of flying to begin with. I prayed the greatest prayers of my life at that moment. I made my biggest promises to God with respect to being a good servant to him and being a good husband and dad.

I guess the LORD knew what a bullhead I am and that it takes a serious shake up before my stubborn ears open wide enough to hear his still small voice. Shake me up he did. I was just putty in his hand after that. He sure knows how to get anyone exactly where he wants them. I’m sure he has an easier time with most who are not numbskulls like I am.


 

Why, just another decade and a half before, I was a self-righteous young idealist who thought he was smart enough to know that there is no God and that if people just worked on it, we could change the world.

I was a member of an underground movement fighting against a martial law regime that a dictator imposed on our country. (Which, by the way, probably still affects how I write today. I tend to not share too much identifying details about myself and my family. Call it reflex borne out of experience.) I was not brave. I froze every time I thought about what sort of torture I would have to endure if I was arrested while distributing leaflets in the streets urging people to rise up in arms. I felt so inadequate armed only with a fan knife tucked under my belt. I just believed that a grave wrong was done to my motherland and the good thing to do was to lay my life for her.

Well, guess what, the dictator is now two decades gone and grave wrongs continue to be done to my homeland. That would have been hard to take had I not known Jesus Christ as my personal Savior and LORD. Through him I learned about how totally corrupt flesh is. I learned that the best good man can do only amount to dirty rags before the holiness of God. How can the nation’s good then be left completely only in the hands of mere men?

Long story short, my Father in heaven got through to me. He said, “Let me handle the nation things and the world things. Your family needs you. Besides, I’ve got something I need to do with you in this land I am going to show you.” No, I didn’t hear him audibly like you talking to me in your physical voice. I just sensed in the many ways the Father speaks that this was what he wanted to bring across.

And did he do things with me. After two churches, a Christian radio talk show, a worship band, stints as deacon, elder, church board chairman, bible study teacher, on-call preacher, and worship minister, God is still showing me the land.

Where to? I don’t know. It’s not called an adventure if I knew.

You see, it is not where God is leading that matters. It is that he is the one doing the leading.

God bless you.