Of Faith and Choices

This month I had a very special visitor: my girlfriend, Emily. Being with her for two and half weeks reminded me of the past, jarred me awake to the present and catapulted my thoughts into the future. How would all three coalesce into one coherent perspective?

So much of our lives are made up of choices based on faith. Yet before I jump to faith, let me dwell first on fortune. How fortunate to have my girlfriend here in Kenya with me! How fortunate for me to be taking a year to volunteer in Africa!

And yet what do I see through these fortunate eyes? A young gal from West Pokot, no more than 13, taken by an older man of 50 or 60 to be his third wife. A young boy from Ikuza, an island in Lake Victoria, who ran away from his abusive stepfather to live a life fishing for 16 hours and partying the other eight. A man graduating from the university with an engineering degree only to see his family live in the slums as he struggles to find work.


Outside a fishing camp on Ikuza Island, Lake Victoria
As an American I revel in having the freedom to choose. Emily had the option of visiting me in Africa. Together we had the opportunity to visit rural parts of Kenya, fly around the islands of Lake Victoria and walk through the slums of Nairobi; past some of the very persons I mentioned above. And we had the choice to return, she to her home in the US and me to my apartment in Nairobi… and soon back to the US. Most of the people we visited would be unable to leave their present circumstance, if they so chose.

A coworker remarked the other day, “Evans has seen more parts of Africa than me!” I’ve been here 10 months, and she’s lived in Kenya her entire life. Even in the same office, there is a wide spectrum of opportunity.

How much faith do I have if I can just get up and leave when things become too tough? Is there a point in life when having choices overwhelms any need of faith? With the ability to choose, do we begin to live by sight rather than by faith?

As Emily returns, so do my thoughts with her: Where will I live when I return? What will I do? How will I have changed? I plead with God to give me certain things: a comfortable place to live, an interesting job, meaningful friends. But how many of the people I just met can make requests like I can?


Emily and I flying around Lake Victoria
Oswald Chambers astutely notes that if we’re asking for things which we can see, then we’re asking out of our lust and not from the cry of our hearts. Sometimes we want God to show up on special days or dress in certain ways. Perhaps this is ingrained in us culturally, wanting a selection to choose from.

With my thoughts all jumbled about what is to happen in the next stage of life, I think I have no choices, for I want to act on things to come when I all I (ever) have is the present. And then I realize that on some level I can relate to these Africans without choice or fortune, feeling stuck in the drudgery of today. We can say we are bounded by limited choices, or we can choose to have faith that God is moving and will move in our lives, as well as others.

And change does come. The West Pokot girl Sheila is blessed to go to school and then return to teach her younger sisters. The young fisherman Peus (left) accepts Christ into his life, giving up the partying lifestyle and his job, too, and now lives by faith that the morrow will be better. The man Andrew can rest a little longer knowing his wife received a small loan to expand her business and pay for their children’s school fees.

The quality and quantity of choices available often distracts us from faithfully focusing on God’s movements in the Now. We thrive in the present hope, not waiting for change in order to live abundantly, but living in light of what is promised.

If you didn’t know anything is better out there for you, would you search for it? I find belief in God gives me hope in today with possibility for tomorrow. I do not know what is to come, yet I believe God will be present wherever, whenever. May all of us be prayerfully aware of the Spirit’s movement, in all places and at all times.