My first morning in St. Vincent I walked out onto the balcony of a hotel where I was staying [1] and witnessed an incredibly breathtaking view of the ocean.
That night my field administrator with Baptist Mid Missions who spent the first four days with me took a five-minute walk to the beach, and came back with the most beautiful picture I had ever seen.
When we think about St. Vincent or the Caribbean these are the kinds of pictures that come to mind. In a sense that’s true since beauty is all around you on the island. But in a deeper way St. Vincent doesn’t turn out to be the paradise that you envision in the pictures.
Oh don’t get me wrong…St. Vincent is an awesome place to be. But just like every other place in the world you see brokenness .
- Broken people trying to find their identity outside of Christ
- A broken culture that builds itself on mans ideas of what justice should be instead of God’s Truth
- A broken way of living that could never truly satisfy
This brokenness finds it’s source in a curse that Scripture calls a “Sin Nature.” Basically that means given the choice between doing things the way God wants to do it and the way we want to do it, we will choose our way every time.
Of course when faced with brokenness and rebellion against God most of us try to make an excuse for our sin nature instead of admitting we need Christ as a Redeemer.
While it’s not possible to list all excuses most of them use the if only I __________ then I would live for God pattern
If only I had more money
If only I had a better job
If only I was in a relationship/married
If only I had that one thing I really wanted
We create an idea of perfection or paradise in our mind, believing if we could just have that thing then everything would be okay. But we realize too late every paradise is like St. Vincent
beneath the beauty and excitement is the curse of a sin nature
Walking through my small community of Barrouaille (we would pronounce it as “barley”) I saw many people living in what lots of people would call paradise that were incredibly sad and filled with hopelessness. My prayer is in the short time I’m here I can explain to them hope isn’t found in any “paradise” but a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
I expect living on the island to teach me many things about life and God, but if it only teaches me this one lesson it’s enough….There is no such thing as paradise.
[1]: Spent the night at once since the flight had been delayed, and didn’t get there till after midnight
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