A couple of days ago I was sitting on a terrace in the Seoul Tower. The night was balmy, and affectionately picturesque. From the corner of my eye, I could see a man carrying chairs for his wife and daughter to sit on. They sat down next to me, and then 5 minutes later they moved, taking full advantage of the many amazing views of the city the observatory revealed at different locations. Then another couple sat in their place. Then another.

I wasn’t moving. I had nowhere to go. I had decided earlier on in the night that my best bet at avoiding looking lonely would be to look occupied. So I busied myself with scrolling through my Spotify playlist, changing it from the slow moving Jill Scott jams to the more upbeat Justin Timberlake song called “Can’t Stop the Feeling”. I was playing “marco-polo” with this creeping sense of disappointment that I felt was ambushing me. But then it hit me — had I really travelled 6,000 miles across the ocean just to be met with this sense of disappointment that I’d fought tooth and nails to avoid in New York?

I’d rationalized my desire to move to Korea with imaginary tales of long endless Summer nights strolling along the Han river with friends, and getting to know more about the place I’d found so easy to love when I visited less than a year ago. But in reality most of my nights were spent alone in the 7 square ft room I’d rented for $350, fidgeting with the wifi router because I couldn’t even watch the television dramas that had helped me build this unrealistic vision of Korea.

Most nights I tried to move myself to tears — to mourn the loss of the empty promises I’d believed this place away from home would deliver. But I couldn’t.

God was forcing me to really reflect and deal with the source of my disappointment. The more I thought about it, I realized that traveling had become to me this panacea for all the ‘problems’ I was running away from. I was avoiding New York because people’s endless enquiries about what I was doing with my life was a reminder that my college education hadn’t provided what I had wanted it to — an immediate ticket out of dependence and hardship as I knew it.

If I packed my bags and moved all the way to South Korea, I could buy myself much needed time and dodge all the questions that were raking at my pride. Plus it would look to my friends and family that my life was headed somewhere. I found myself complaining about my perceived poverty to God. I’m poor and living in perpetual disappointment because I can’t afford to buy the Korea I want — the one where my days are filled with numerous activities across the city, the one where I’m living comfortably in a studio apartment, the one where I can’t find space on my schedule to meet with friends because I’m meeting with other friends and doing grand things that you usually pay for with money.

In the midst of all this God has been ever so gracious and faithful in revealing to me the real meaning of lack and poverty.

I recently started reading the book of Revelations.I’m still on the 3rd chapter where Jesus is addressing the church of Laodicea and admonishing them about their lukewarmness. In diagnosing the source of their spiritual self-satisfaction and lukewarmness, he says “ For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.”(Rev 3:14- 18). It appears that the church of Laodicea was at a place of spiritual dullness because they couldn’t see how desperate they really were. They were ignorant of their true spiritual condition because they were measuring their wealth according to their external circumstances and not in terms of their relationship with God and how much they needed him.

Although I wasn’t blind to my desperation and poverty, I was guilty of the same problem they were because I was measuring my success and sense of fulfillment against a stick of worldly possessions and external circumstances. I knew I was desperate, but not because I had a real vision of my real spiritual wretchedness. Instead I was determined that my college education and travel experiences would give me more than what my union with Christ would. That was the source of my disappointment. I was looking to my Summer in Korea to give me what only Jesus is capable of giving.

The Real Shame

I thought the fact that I hadn’t figured out my life was shameful so I sought cover by moving 6,000 feet across the ocean. I had misplaced the source of my shame and was seeking refuge from the wrong thing. Jesus advises the church of Laodicea to buy from him white garments to clothe themselves and the shame of their nakedness. If ever we could find freedom from the weight of our soiled consciences —from real or perceived wrongs, it would be by reminding ourselves of what Christ has already done for us on the cross (Romans 8:1-5). Freedom from shame and guilt only comes from understanding the weight of Christ’s sacrifice — definitely not from packing your bags and moving to a different country.

No Poverty For Those Who Fear Him

In Psalm 34:9-10 David says “Fear the Lord, you his holy people, for those who fear him lack nothing. The lions may grow weak and hungry but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.” David is not talking about material things. The joy that comes from knowing God and walking with him is the source of the nourishment that keeps the believer in perpetual satisfaction and peace. The problem is not about what God has chosen to give or deny you at the moment, it’s about where your desires lie. In Psalm 16:2, David proclaims “I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.”” God has been faithful in showing me time and again that desiring anything apart from him will inevitably lead to disappointment and if not corrected, death. Real joy only stems from a place of knowing Him intimately.