Love Has a Name

Living in Southeast Asia comes with many blessings. Great food, amazing people, beautiful scenery, incredible weather (I love hot!) and rich, diverse cultures.

Although there are some mixing of cultures such as Thailand and Vietnam and Cambodia, each country has its own unique flavour and I love each one of them.

There are a lot of people that come from around the world to minister, visit, travel and work, some come just to live and they all bring their native cultures with them.

When it comes to culture I absolutely love diversity and uniqueness. I love how people are so passionate and in love with their country and their people. It is viral almost and the many Asian people take great pride in wearing their country’s flag every day!

It warms my heart to hear stories about people desiring change among the people and in the nations of Southeast Asia and it has been such a privilege to participate in the Lord’s plan for change among the nations.

Having said that, there is 1 sentence that comes up a lot in my day-to-day conversations about God, faith, Jesus and culture.

The sentence usually starts like this, “yeah but in my culture…” This often precedes someone’s explanation about how they are unable to obey or follow Jesus because of their culture. It has become so very clear that culture is a beautiful gift from God but also is easily twisted to become an idol and a way of life which prevents some from being close to Jesus.

An example that I frequently come across involves family. Scripture tells us we must love Jesus more than our families, mothers, fathers and brothers and sisters. (Matthew 10:37 paraphrased) Matthew 10:37 NKJV

In many Southeast Asian cultures, families are extremely close and rely heavily on one another, oftentimes for their very survival. Matthew 10:37 is not calling us to abandon and leave our families high and dry. Indeed I believe many, if not all, Asian cultures are more easily able to obey the commandment to honour thy mother and father because that is woven into their culture.

Instead, this verse is saying in our hearts we must be ready and willing to give up all for Jesus. This is a very challenging point of contention in Southeast Asia and one that takes patience, time and sensitivity in speaking about.

I use this example because it is a cultural topic that goes against the grain of the Gospel. Jesus revolutionizes our cultures in many ways and in this way specifically, Jesus tells us we must be in love with Him the most and certainly challenges us to put our family in 2nd place to Him. Again, not to abandon them nor to leave them without a sincere calling by the Lord.

Multiple times I have had this conversation and nearly always my friend says, “but in my culture, I can’t.”

I fully acknowledge that as a Canadian it’s much easier for me to put Jesus before my family. In Canada and North America, it is expected, and assumed, teenagers leave and move out from home at a younger age and there is no cultural pressure to remain at home or to stay living with family until married or beyond that in some cases.

Now it is easy to explain to someone reading this who does not live in Southeast Asia because their culture most likely does not reflect the culture I now live in. However, as I walk alongside brothers in Christ in Asia the idea of not abandoning culture is so scary that for many in Asia, and most likely around the world, their culture is their God!

One thing that took a long time to resonate deep within me was that the Bible is truly counter-cultural. Regardless of where you live, what you believe and how you live Jesus flips everything upside and down and requires us to lose parts of our culture, and very identity, in order to follow Him.

At the end of the day, I know that when we arrive in front of Jesus to be judged He will not ask me what country I was born in, if I abided by the Canadian culture and if I honoured the customs and traditions of North America.

I will be confronted with the truth of Scripture and be judged how I lived according to that. Nothing else! Each day I seek Jesus and pray I ask to be led by the Holy Spirit so I may not fall to my own ways and learn more each day how to follow His ways.

I consider myself a relatively smart guy. But nonetheless, I wholly concede that Jesus Christ is unimaginably better, smarter and wiser than I.

Isaiah 55:8-9 (NKJV) makes this clear to me:

“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.
⁹ “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.

When I follow Jesus and obey what He has called to me I am able to honour my culture, my family, my friends because I am also called to love them, but I know my access to heaven is not granted by abiding my cultural norms and God certainly will not look at my passport and ask if I have a visa or if I want a visa-on-arrival.