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About four years ago, I met my wife Polina. We really didn’t have much in common except for wanting to learn more about God. Her family was from Ukraine, and mine was from a small town in North Carolina. I grew up playing and watching football, and she had never seen a single football game. In my spare time, I loved to watch Netflix and random movies, but her family never had a working TV in her house.
A hard day for me was football practice and maybe cutting the grass afterwards. Polina was raised slaughtering cows on her home farm and processing the meat. A nice date for me would consist of going horseback riding and eating a burger. But she preferred scuba diving with sharks and jumping off of 40-foot cliffs into the ocean.
After our first child was born, she began to speak to the baby in Russian. And I looked at her, puzzled, thinking to myself, “What have I done?”
It’s safe to say that we are polar opposites. But it turns out that the one thing we share seems to make everything fit together — our curiosity for wanting to know more of who God is.
Coming to Christ, what I’ve realized is that it’s not much different from a black person marrying a Ukrainian because we have been in the world for so long that our culture clashes with the culture of the Kingdom. For example, we live our lives based on what we can see: What seems to be the best place to live, what seems to be the best place to eat, and what seems to be the best career choice. But coming to Christ, God asks His children to walk by faith and not by sight.
(For we walk by faith, not by sight:) 2 Corinthians 5:7 KJV
The Word says that man was not meant to live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from God.
But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God MATTHEW 4 :4 KJV
And God says that if we want to experience true riches, we must be willing to give our money and possessions away to the poor. Talk about bad for business…
“Sell your possessions (show compassion) and give [donations] to the poor. Provide money belts for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing and inexhaustible treasure in the heavens, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys luke 12 33 AMP
Everyone thought that there would be no way for Polina and I to get along because of the two different cultures. And they could be right if we allow our earthly backgrounds to define us. But, the cool thing about coming to Christ is that you actually get a chance to change your culture. So in reality, we actually come from the same place — the Kingdom of Heaven. And we are both new creations in Christ.
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new 2 CORINTHIANS 5 :17 KJV
Much like Russia having its own language, the Kingdom of God has its own language, as well. In the Kingdom of Heaven, we have a chance to speak to God in Spirit. Because when we speak out of our flesh and not in faith, He can’t understand us.
6 But he must ask [for wisdom] in faith, without doubting [God’s willingness to help], for the one who doubts is like a billowing surge of the sea that is blown about and tossed by the wind. 7 For such a person ought not to think or expect that he will receive anything [at all] from the Lord, 8 being a double-minded man, unstable and restless in all his ways [in everything he thinks, feels, or decides]. James 1 6- 8 AMP
The truth is, no one thought that things would work out between Polina and I because of the drastic differences of our cultures. But maybe this thought in itself could be the evidence that those same people have never truly adopted the culture of the Kingdom. In the Kingdom, we are required to live by faith — this is totally adopting a lifestyle of trust and belief, being led by the Spirit of God and not by our natural eyes and natural decision-making.
But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Hebrews 11:6 AMP
If we call ourselves Christians and do not choose to live and make decisions based on what we can’t see, we must analyze ourselves to see if we have truly changed our culture.
The question of the day is: If you are trying to live for God but still making decisions based on what you can see, do you think it will work out?