24th April, 2009

SIU FUNG WU

I don't know about you, but I look forward to receiving the payment from the Rudd government's stimulus package. We went away for a holiday before Christmas, and need to change the gate in our driveway. We need some cash for these bills. But I am deeply aware that about 100 million people across the world have been affected by the current global food crisis. Multitudes of people have no access to safe drinking water. Countless number of women in the developing world do not have adequate maternal and child health services. So I have no complaint about my financial situation. Indeed, I would like the government to direct more money to the poor.

"I wonder whether I would have known God in such a way if I did not have a taste of hardship and suffering. I wonder whether I would have been so profoundly grateful for what God has done in my life. God revealed Himself to me when I was in desperate needs. Through repentance and faith in Jesus, I have become a child of God, and by the Spirit I call Him 'Abba Father'.”

I don't want to be poor

I don't want to be poor. I grew up in a tiny apartment in a working class district in Hong Kong. I walked past homeless people in our streets everyday. From time to time I saw street prostitutes near our place. I saw the plight of the poor, and I feared that I would become poor.

My parents never got involved in drugs. Nor was anyone in my family alcoholic. But the social and financial pressures of living at near-subsistence level got the better of us. I can't remember a week going by without major domestic problems at home. I hated going home after school. The thought of taking one of my parents to the hospital at three o'clock in the morning - because of a domestic dispute that turned into violence - still frightens me. The numerous memories of quarrels and fights - both verbal and physical - still make me tremble.

How I wished we had had money. Money wouldn't have solved all the problems. But at least we would not have to work seven days a week in a factory. At least it meant that I would have had the opportunity of riding a bike or playing sports like the children in Australia. At least mum and dad would have one less problem to worry or argue about. At least I could have had a relatively better childhood.

Now I am in my 40s. I have lived in Melbourne for over 20 years, and life is so much better. But looking back I know that there were blessings in the midst of hardship.

The blessing of meeting Jesus

It was in my desperation that I searched for God. As a teenager I wondered why life was so unfair. Why was I born into such a family, I asked? But that caused me to pray the most important prayer of my life.

One night as I slept in a factory (where I worked during the day) I asked God whether He really existed and that He might reveal Himself to me. And He did! Over the following years I read the Bible from cover-to-cover (a discipline that I still treasure today), and I found a God who loves the fatherless, widows and foreigners. I found a God who listens to the cries to the poor and needy. Most of all, in the Scripture I found a God who himself became poor and walked with humankind to proclaim good news to the poor (Luke 4:18).

I wonder whether I would have known God in such a way if I did not have a taste of hardship and suffering. I wonder whether I would have been so profoundly grateful for what God has done in my life. God revealed Himself to me when I was in desperate needs. Through repentance and faith in Jesus, I have become a child of God, and by the Spirit I call Him “Abba Father” (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6).

The blessing of sharing and solidarity

I had a good job as an IT analyst in Australia. But God called me to become a pastor. So I did. But little did my wife and I know that it was to be so difficult. We struggled to handle the pressure and stress of ministry, and we struggled to pay our bills! In fact, I hated to look at the bills in the mail. We had no relatives in Australia and we felt lonely. But that was where we saw God's blessing. We were sustained by the financial gifts (often anonymous) from Christian friends. We came to know that often it was the poor who were most generous. They gave out of the little they had, and they gave joyfully. And we found that we wanted to be generous to the poor. We had little. But it was because we knew how hard it was to be poor that we wanted to give to others.

Despite the financial gifts we continued to struggle. But we trusted God. On many occasions money came at the last moment, just as we needed it. By faith I applied to study in England for a postgraduate degree in theology, knowing that it would be the best education in the field of study I intended to pursue. The budget for the study was huge. But miraculously God supplied all our needs through the solidarity that the Christian community showed us - and that was without any fund-raising effort on our part!

I don't want to be poor. But it was in our hardship - and desperate moments - that we found God at work. I would not trade those experiences with anything else.

The Scripture becomes real

It is only in recent years that our financial situation has become stable. Finally we bought a washing machine and a fridge that could cater for the needs of the family. Finally we can feel a bit more relaxed with our finances. Although we need to maintain a fairly simple lifestyle, we have no complaint at all. In fact, what I find is that I have to be on my guard against consumerism and materialism, because for the first time in many years we find ourselves having some spare money.

The Scripture becomes real when we are willing to live out what it says. Paul says in Philippians 4:12, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” I do not claim that I know the secret of being content - not at all. But I believe that hardship helps us to grow, learn to love God, and put him first in every sphere of life. I don't want to be poor, and indeed the thought of poverty scares me. But I have no desire to be rich.

The blessings in Luke 6:20-23 are real. “Blessed are you who are poor...Blessed are you who hunger now...Blessed are you who weep now,” Jesus says. If I have always been wealthy, I would not have known what Jesus meant here - or at least not in the same way. But because I have had a taste of hardship I consider myself exceedingly blessed now, even though I am not rich. What is more? I have learned that God's blessing to the poor is not about what I can get out of it. Instead, my experience of hardship has enabled me to feel the pains of the poor, and it leads me to a better understanding of the profound mystery of Christ's identification with the poor in his own life on earth.

“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ...And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:1-5)

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