The Isaiah 52 Blog

Paul is great guy. Kind, witty, and intuitive, Paul has the kind of sparkling personality that grabs a hold of you and demands your attention and awe. Anyone meeting him would not believe his violent, mentally unstable past, or that he works in a factory and just lives day to day since being released from the mental institution in Stockholm just a year before. No one just meeting him would believe his stories of electro convulsive therapy, or that he still takes medication to deal with his depression. There is only one mood for Paul – happy to be alive. He claims that the reason he has for living is just to be happy, and the way he does this is by learning to love himself, and to love the situation he is in, not regretting the past and not looking anxiously forward to the future. In God’s divine providence last night, I was given the chance to meet Paul and sit and talk with him, trying to understand his thoughts on life, love, and the reason for the hope he has in a seemingly hopeless future. He tells me that he needs to leave Sweden, because everyone here that has lived here all their life is terribly depressed, constantly asking questions like “What is the meaning of life? Why are we here?” – questions that he tries not to ponder anymore since being released from the hospital, because it was just those thoughts that landed him there in the first place. I told him that I too have struggled with deep depression, and for a time I thought that the answer was in modern medicine or in just putting the thought away and compartmentalizing my life into neat little sections, avoiding what I did not know and focusing on the trivial and the every day occurrences. I told him that I have found something better, though. I have found that every season of life came to pass. I found that “…where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled;” and “where there is knowledge, it will pass away”, (1 Corinthians 13:8, NIV) but that the Love of Christ is eternal. It is the one thing in this life that I truly have to hang on, and the one constant that cannot be changed – not by any power, nor by any act of will, nor by any change of time – Christ’s love is eternal. We spent the next two hours asking the question “Who was Jesus? What did he claim? Why is this world so screwed up? Is there an answer to all this pain?” I laid out that there are basically three conclusions one can have to the first question, and the answer determines your thoughts on all the rest. Either Jesus was a) a lunatic, b) a liar, or c) the most fantastically captivating human being who ever walked the face of the earth, and truly God in the flesh. 

Paul has never met a Christian who walks unrelentingly with the Lord. He has never met a Christian that claims that Christ is the answer to everything – good and bad – in this world. He has never met a Christian who loved on him unconditionally, who was willing to walk with him, and willing to be his friend despite any differences of opinion. I am very glad to have met Paul, and praise God for perfectly placing myself and Paul together last night. For causing me to leave dinner early to go with Scott, a mutual friend, to get a movie, and for convicting me to leave my roommates to spend the night with the two.

The truth of the matter is that Paul may seem like an extreme case, but Paul is the perfect example of the modern Swede. Not willing to think about the meaning of life because they are convinced that there is none. Living day to day with one goal – be happy. That is all life is about. Nothing more, nothing less. Paul may as well be Jonatan, or Marin, or Inga, or Frida, or any other post-modern Swede. They find not because they look not, and they look not because they fear what they may find. 

Paul, Scott, and I talked until almost two in the morning last night, and it was the absolute highlight of my stay here in Tranås. God has answered my prayer, giving me an opportunity to preach the gospel in no uncertain terms, and now all I can do is pray that the Lord would effectually call Paul to His presence, that my new friend would bow his knee and accept the personal Grace and Love offered by the God of the universe. I ask that you join me in praying for Paul, and for the Swedes that I come in contact with – that I may be a light in a hurting place, but over all that the Lord would be glorified in all that I do. I want to thank you again for giving me the opportunity to be here and to serve the Lord in Tranås. I hope to be in contact with you when I come home on furlough in December, before heading back in January. 

To Him be the Glory,

Mark