Lebanon/Syria #2 - The Way of the Lord
*The activities of this day’s blog occurred over the weekend. Encouraging news will be found in blog #3 …
“Commit your works to the Lord and your plans will be established,” says the old Proverb (16:3). For many of us, this writer included, that little morsel of wisdom is sometimes taken to mean something like this in real life: “I’ll tell God what I’m going to do, then ask him to bless it, and with a little extra help from him, everything will turn out just fine.” That sweet little scenario, however, may not be what the ancient sage had in mind.
As Friday dawned on our little team of intrepid travelers, this Proverb kept rolling around in my head, and the Spirit was reminding me all over again that the deeper truth here has to do with my responsibility to commit my intentions and dreams to the Lord and then, after I’ve planned and plotted to my little heart’s desire, the Lord will take over and accomplish what he wants. And what actually happens is not necessarily the same as my scheme and dream.
Our team has come to Lebanon, but our real goal is Syria. We’ve not been able to visit this land since early 2019. But, just yesterday, we learned that our request for visas had not been granted. Many months of planning and many hours of work on the part of dozens of people have come to naught. This has happened before. But this time it felt like it was all going to work out. Surely the Lord (and the Syrian government) would see the beauty and wisdom of our team’s desire to wrap these loyal Christians (and loyal Syrians, by the way) in our love and support. We want to visit with our friends to show them how much we care about them, how much we respect and honor their faithfulness to Christ, and their service to hurting people, whether they are Christian or not. And we know that they, too, long to see us as much as we long to see them. But it is not to be, not yet.
There is a slight shred of hope that something may change, but only a slight one. So, for today, on the day we were to cross the border into the land where so much early Christian history unfolded, we are doing something else. That something else is having a visit with Joseph Kassab, General Secretary of the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon, and his wife, Najla, who herself is President of the World Council of Reformed Churches. They, too, are dear friends and partners in ministry. And they understand our disappointment.
Their understanding, in fact, is much deeper than our own. We are Christians, yes, and we are also Americans. Most Americans are used to setting their own course and having little interference along the way. But here in the Middle East, where Christians are the minority, and where the vagaries of life in such a complex society are beyond the imagination of most western people, the fact that your own plans didn’t quite work out is an everyday fact of life. So, in a deeply caring and pastoral way, Joseph reminds us of the many reasons our request to enter Syria may have been denied. He reminds us of the perseverance required to follow the Lord in a place where just saying “the Lord” has so many different meanings. And he encourages us to look beyond this temporary situation and instead to look for how the Lord’s timing and planning are so much better than our own.
For now, we will stay in Lebanon, and we will enjoy the company of so many dear friends in ministry here. Here, as in Syria, there is much suffering, and there is much for us to learn. Here, the Lord is also at work, and apparently, we are needed here, so the Lord has kept us here.
Lord, we want to do your work, so we commit all our work to you, and then ask you to lead us, even when our plan and yours don’t necessarily match. By the way, we’d much rather you take over, as you have here, because it is only within your blessing and will that anything we do actually matters, anyway.
by Rev. Dr. Jack Baca, The Village Community Presbyterian Church, Rancho Sante Fe, California