We Have a Strange King
- Eric Crowley
- Dec 28, 2018
- 8 min read
Merry Christmas to you and your family!
As we celebrate Christmas and the year draws to a close, it’s important to reflect back on the ways we have been blessed, the ways that God has shown up and provided in unexpected ways. This is something I’ve been doing, and I’m reminded over and over of how near He is to us.
When I came back to the Philippines after six weeks in the States, I decided that it was time for me to get a motorbike - a common mode of transportation in Cebu to beat the incessant traffic. But after looking around, I realized that bikes were a little too expensive for my meager budget. I prayed for God to help me find something reasonable. The next day - I kid you not - TWO friends both offered me their motorbikes, without me even asking for them or expressing any interest in getting one!
A week later, I decided I wanted to get bunk beds for our apartment. I started a small “community” of men who can live together, pray together, and serve together. We were expecting a new member, and the bunk beds would help save a lot of space in our small apartment. I began to look, and again, they were a little bit expensive. So I prayed. Two days later, a friend informed me that she had a set of bunk beds that she wasn’t using and wondered if I needed them….
Not long after, I was in prayer and I left my phone in the chapel by accident and headed home. To my annoyance, I realized when I got home that my phone was way back at the church. I knew exactly where I had left it, and so I went back to retrieve it. But when I got there, the phone was gone. I asked in the office, and they hadn’t seen it. Great. All my numbers, contacts, notes, pictures etc. etc. etc. I started getting all angry and frustrated. I went home pretty ticked-off. But then I stopped, realized how silly I was being, and said a prayer: “God, if you want my phone to be lost, I accept that. If not, then please help me find it.” About five seconds later, my roommate walked in the door, stopped, and pulled my phone out of his pocket.
He went on to tell me that he had gone to pray at the chapel, and as he was there a group of little kids came in and started praying. As he was leaving, the kids ran over to him and said, “Do you know Eric?” Surprised, he said that he did. One of them said, “This is his phone,” handed it over, and ran away.
How did these kids know that I had been there? - they arrived well after I had left. How did they know that it was my phone? - there’s nothing on it to reveal the owner’s identity. How did they even know me!
You see, we have a strange King. This God, who is King of the universe, all-powerful, totally transcendent and with absolutely no need of us tiny creatures, cares for us; knows us; likes us; loves us. He knows every detail of our lives, and even the seemingly unimportant things, like motorbikes and bunk beds, are important to Him. Because He is a good Father. Any good father cares about the tiniest details of his children’s lives.
This year on my birthday, as always, I prayed for a Word from the Lord that would guide me throughout the year. This year I received Luke 12:7 - “Even the hairs of your head have all been counted. Do not be afraid.”
We have a strange King. He is not distant. He knows each hair on my head. On your head. So, do not be afraid…When things get crazy in the year to come; when everything seems out of control; when you’re stressed and anxious; when nothing is going the way you had planned, remember: “Even the hairs on your head have all been counted…”
One thing I’ve learned a lot about this year is the difference between receptivity and grasping. They are too ways of life. We can try to grasp at life: at our own plans, at the way we want things to be, at the way we want people to be; or we can be receptive, receiving everything as it comes with acceptance and gratitude. In my experience, grasping brings stress, frustration, and eventually bitterness, anger, and resentment. Because when we grasp, we tend to focus on what’s missing, what could be better, what we want to be different. When we receive in humble gratitude, we focus on the beauty, the goodness, the joy, even in the midst of trial.
Being receptive does not mean being passive. It does not mean losing hope, being lazy, or not striving to better our lives. But it means accepting each person as they are and not waiting until they are more perfect to love them. It means accepting each situation as it comes and not rebelling against it in our hearts.
The poor are the one’s who teach me this lesson. My friend Marilyn is a wife, a mother of three little children, a full-time teacher, and is studying for her masters. She has been in the process of writing her 83-page thesis, in English (her second language) during the nights, averaging one to two hours of sleep for the past month. She lives in a humble little home in the mountains, without beds or tables or chairs. And yet, if you visit her, you would think she’s the happiest person in the world. She always has a huge, warm, genuine smile on her face. How? Why? By the world’s standards she doesn’t have much to be happy about. But Marilyn is a woman who has learned how to be receptive. She receives her life, her situation, her family, her joys and difficulties as a gift from God, and because of this she is free. She can live joyfully, receiving each day and each small blessing as a gift. And because of this she is a gift to many other people.
Children teach me this lesson as well. If you’ve noticed, I like to reflect on children because I really think they have so much to teach us about how to live our lives, and how we are in the eyes of God. After all, Jesus did say that “The Kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these…”
I recently took my newly-acquired motorbike out of the city and down the coast for a little joy-ride. I stopped in a town right on the sea and began to explore. Almost immediately two boys on bikes came by and starting talking to me. I asked them how to get to the famous cliffs in their town, and they sped ahead of me leading the way. We ended up spending the day together, hiking up the hills to the cliffs overlooking the Pacific. We did our best to communicate to each other, I with my broken Cebuano and they with their broken English. But mostly we just enjoyed each other’s presence. My two little friends guided me back down in to the town, and I invited them to come and pray in the old Spanish church. They followed me in and knelt down with eyes tight shut, energetically whispering their prayers. By the end of the day we were like old friends. These little children had received me, just as I was - no walls, no pretenses - and I was able to receive them. They taught me how I am to live my relationships with all people.
There is great poverty in Cebu, with many families sleeping together on a piece of cardboard in the streets, and even many children living in the streets without families. So we decided to start a new ministry, going to the streets at night and bringing food and drink to the homeless families and children. These people are a huge gift to me. I receive something so precious from them each time I have the opportunity to encounter them. We’ve met an old woman with twelve children who has been sleeping in a cemetery for eight years. We’ve met a man who’s out of work and cares for his family on the streets, having his wife and kids sleep in the side-care of a motorbike he drives around. We’ve met kids who’s parents send them to the streets to beg the moment they get home from school until after midnight every single day. And yet the one thing they have in common is the joy, the openness, the human-ness that they emanate. Do they wish their lives, their situations, were different? Of course. But they don’t get stuck there. They don’t get paralyzed in their own problems, focusing on what they lack. They accept each day as it comes, and receive the countless blessings that many of us miss. And this brings a freedom and a joy that all of us desire. We have much to learn from the humblest of our brothers and sisters.
Yes, we have a strange king. In the book of Isaiah it says “The Lord will have his day against all that is proud and arrogant.” How did He do this? By becoming a tiny infant. He humbled pride by becoming small. He defeated strength by becoming weak. He crushed arrogance by allowing that very arrogance to crush Him. Isaiah goes on to say that “He will arise to overawe the earth.” He did this by lying in a manger in a poor village in a forgotten part of the world.
Let’s take some time this Christmas season to sit with that little baby, in the dark, silent cave with Mary and Joseph, and be “overawed” by His presence. Imagine those tiny fingers, that hold the world. Those little feet that would walk on water. Those eyes, shining with divine light. That little beating heart, that would one day be pierced so that we can enter within.
Thank you for all your prayers and support for our mission here in Cebu! In 2018, by the grace of God we were able to reach 5,011 young people! Since my last update, we were able to serve about 1,240 young people on almost 30 missions! We started a weekly Theology of the Body study group, began our outreach to the poor on the streets, and filmed 10 episodes for our Youtube channel. We had a Missionary Formation weekend, celebrated Thanksgiving, and had the joy of seeing three of our members get married. We also celebrate the fact that four of the woman we reach out to in our ministry to prostitutes and sex-trafficking victims have left this lifestyle.
And we have a lot coming up in the New Year:
-January 13 to 29: World Youth Day - 9 of us will be spending one week in Costa Rica and one
week in Panama with Pope Francis and the rest of our Corazón Puro family!
-Feb. 3 - 9: Week-long mission in the Diocese of Dumaguete
-Feb. 16: Annual Pure Heart Commissioning ceremony - servers dedicate themselves to one
year of service with Pure Heart, to serve and to live a life of purity
-Feb. 17 - 18: Mission in Manila to Enfants du Mekong students
-Feb. 23 - 24: Mission in Butuan to Enfants du Mekong students
-March 10 - 15: Week-long mission in Maasin, Leyte
-March 29 - 30: Mission in Tuguegarao to Enfants du Mekong students
-And many more!
These upcoming months are the busiest of the year for us, and we are hoping to speak to approximately 3,000 students by March. Our goal is to reach 7,000 people next year, and thousands more with our soon-to-be-published Youtube channel. Please continue to keep us in your prayers so that we may follow the Lord’s will with courage and joy!
Many blessings to you and your family this Christmas season!
In Christ,
Eric
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