fear of death | South Sudan Traveler

In a week I leave for Kenya. My role has changed in many ways. I’m now not only a gatherer of media, but one of several trail blazers with a new mission in Africa’s largest slum. It makes me think back now on the times when I have been completely out of my element, and especially to the times when an incident caused me to become aware of my own shortcomings.

It was February 2013, and I was in Bor, South Sudan. I was laying in my hammock in a tin building, sweating down my neck and just trying not to let any part of my body touch another. Even at night it was almost 40 degrees. Earlier we had been sitting outside under the stars, but trying to avoid the wind and the dust by sitting in the shelter of the wall. When you stood up, you could hear distant machine-gun fire. None of us knew what was going on, and the man we were staying with hoped we hadn’t noticed. When someone asked, he tried to play it down. This was apparently not out of the ordinary.

As I lay there trying to fall asleep, a gunshot rang out. It was close this time, very close. A second shot rang out, and this time it ricocheted off the roof of the tin building. I quickly rolled out of my hammock and crouched in what little shelter there was behind the unmilled log that formed a support post for the building. It wasn’t much.

Fortunately, there was never a third shot, and I never really found out what happened, but that night taught me a lot about myself. I can honestly say I was not scared by that incident, but what went on in my head that night was far more telling. The thoughts that occupied my mind that night were not of gunfire or violence or whatever was hiding out there in the night. My thought were occupied with my finances when I got home. I have a very cyclical job, and there are times when I simply don’t have a lot, depending on the time of year. My thoughts were about how I was going to pay for my everyday expenses when I got home.

You might think this is very strange, and it probably is. But the fact was that I had given my life both figuratively and literally to God. Please see this previous blog on the subject. https://southsudantraveler.wordpress.com/2014/11/11/im-twelve-years-old-and-im-going-to-die/

But giving my life to God did not mean I had given all areas to him, and frankly, my finances were one of those areas I had not given. I like to maintain control over certain things, especially my finances. Maybe it’s something to do with being self-employed. While it’s strange to not worry about your own life but worry about your finances, I suspect we all do something along this line, just not to this extreme.

The fact is that there is nothing that I can lose that Jesus has not already won. You can’t lose a life you’ve already given up. You also can’t be poor when God is with you, even if you have nothing. It’s only now that I’m learning this. Romans 8 sums it up very well.

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written:

“For Your sake we are killed all day long;
We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

We seek in vain to be free of trouble and danger and poverty, when all along we should be seeking to be within the heart of God. If we are there, then none of the other things matter. We are poured out as an offering before the throne of God, because that is the reason we were placed here. It is not for self-preservation, because there is no such thing. We are not here for self-glorification, because nothing temporal can achieve such a thing. We are here to do the will of God; that good and perfect will. To look after widows and orphans in their distress and to keep ones’s self from being polluted by the world. This is a hard calling, but when everything is put in this perspective, suddenly my finances are not really a worry anymore. If God has called me to do what I’m doing, then the finances will take care of themselves. God does not send his workers without tools, whatever they may be. I just need to be reminded of that sometimes.

In one week I leave for Kenya. I am going with a little apprehension. But no matter what it is, God has it covered.

I’ve put off writing this article for some time now. I thought about writing it last week in Ethiopia, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Now I think it’s time.

When I was 13 years old, my father died after a six month illness. Thirteen years after that, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. She fought that battle for six years, during which time I saw her deteriorate until she died as well. I found myself a young man with both parents dead. So though Loss and I are not on good terms, we have shared a table together on occasion. The problem with watching both your parents die at a young age is that it can take a mental and spiritual tole on you. During the time my mother was sick, and after she died, I began to wake up at night with this awful dread that I was going to die too. It was a fear I couldn’t shake.

Fast forward to last week. The most heart-breaking thing for me in Ethiopia was one boy who was about twelve years old. He came into the clinic because of some medical issues. He had a goiter, and his thyroid problem had caused another autoimmune issue that was attacking the pigment in his skin, leaving him with white patches. This boy had also lost his father about a month before. The boy came in because he didn’t know what kind of illness he had, but he was sure it was serious. I watched as this boy quietly wept in the chair. He was certain he was going to die like his father did. The doctors told him through the translator that he had nothing wrong that was going to kill him, but it took a while for it to sink in. This boy utterly broke my heart, because I knew exactly what he was going though. How terrible to be twelve years old and thinking you’re going to die. Though there were bigger tragedies of the week, this one hit me the hardest.

Eight years ago, I was still praying that God would release me from this fear. Finally He did. At a seemingly random time as I was driving, in an almost audible voice, God told me that I am on this earth by His grace and for his purpose, and I’ll be here as long as He wants me to be. At that point I was delivered from all that fear of death I had been dealing with, and it hasn’t come back.

It was this revelation that has allowed me to be involved with the missions I’m involved with. If I was still dealing with fear of death, I never would have been able to go to South Sudan. If I never went to South Sudan, I never would have gotten involved with missions in Kenya or Ethiopia. But God’s grace is sufficient. I still deal with fear of other things, but I won’t give them validity by naming them. When the day comes that I find myself willing to give them up to God, those will leave as well.

Matthew 10:39 says, “If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it.” This isn’t some trite irony that just sounds good because of its dualism. There is a profound truth in this. The day I gave up control of this situation to God was the day I found my life. After all, you can’t be afraid to lose something you’ve already given up. I hesitated to write this blog because of how I might come across, but I think it’s important that people read this, because I know there are a lot of people going through the same thing that I did. There is life, and there is hope. You just have to give up your fears to God, because He is the one in control.

South Sudan Traveler

Travels off the beaten path in East Africa

Tag Archives: fear of death

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: