By Desmond Kakande

Image : Desmond Kakande

Anyone who has spoken with me will quickly learn about my love for friends and family, and the close proximity and contact i love to maintain with them. And yet, as I put these words to paper, I am sitting in a corner of a relatively small shared apartment in Dubai, thousands of miles away from those I love.

Four years ago, I would never have imagined God would bring me to a season where I would pack up and move to the Middle East, leaving behind all that made up my life, to pursue work.

The Psalmist says “God is in the heavens; He does all that He pleases” (Ps. 115:3); as such, He can choose to steer my life wherever He chooses without consulting (Isa. 40:13-14). For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are [His] ways higher than [my] ways, and [His] thoughts than [my] thoughts (Isa. 55:9).

And so, even when I fail to recognize it, Scripture affirms that even here, in this remote workplace, I’m still in the arms of a wise and loving Father who is working, keeping, and nourishing His created order through my hands.

For sure it’s uncomfortable, I’m distant from those I love, yet it’s not an interruption, but the path God in his sovereignty has laid out for me.   

C. S. Lewis in his “Collected letters” once expressed to a friend, :

The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own’ or ‘real’ life. The truth is of course that, what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life — the life God is sending one day by day. 

Dubai has however come with numerous blessings too, for which I am grateful to God (and should often be). To gloss over the strangeness of living here too would be to disregard the impact sin has on a fallen world, which leaves no vocation untouched, be it in a far land.

“Cursed is the ground because of you, in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life, thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you” (Gen. 3:17-18), says the Lord, and “by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread” (v. 19). 

Distance from home, extreme summer temperatures, pluralistic cultures, predominant Muslim communities, loneliness, limited gatherings with the saints on the Lord’s Day, all can soon birth a crescendo of discouragement and spiritual wreckage, but for God! 

I must confess that at the outset of my time here, I felt stripped of numerous mercies. I was discouraged and scared for my already meager faith. And yet He, in whose book were written every one of my days (Ps. 139:16), held out a plan and sustained me.

After two years here, I can look back and see how God has carried me, not in dramatic ways, but through ordinary means, just like he has always done across generations.

There are times I imagined God only intervened through the super miraculous  parting of the Red Seas, when i’pondered his providence here too, I most found him most in the ordinary. Here are a few other glorious ways he’s continued to sustain me as a sojourner in the Gulf:

Gifted by  Scripture.

Amid busy shifts that change at the whims of supervisors, reading God’s word has been a real battle. Peter’s words to the Lord Jesus have become especially instructive: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68).

Many voices compete for my attention. The enemy tempts and accuses; social media distracts and deceives. Therefore, it has been essential to my relationship with God to return to His Word and hear what He says in my always changing hours. Whether I need rebuke for sin, comfort in sorrow, training in righteousness, or a reminder of the covenant blessings mine in Christ Jesus, I have found God’s Word sufficient!

Gifted through prayer.

Is it possible to find prayer time in the industrious Dubai? For some, the answer is  a resounding yes; for others, a no.This question of prayer, and concluded that  making time  time to commune with God often speaks to  the state of my heart.

For those like myself who see weakness, doubts, sin, and inadequacies within and without, I have found that I must pray, whether I am at home or abroad. Timothy Keller in his book “Prayer” quips, “We must learn to pray”. Like wise, the Puritan prayer book, The Valley of Vision, carries a striking line on the subject.

How do poor souls live who have not thee,

or when helpless have no God to go to,

who feel not the constraining force of thy love,

and the sweetness of communion?

It is a great privilege to have a God to whom I can go in prayer, and to have Him stoop to the lisping of my faith. Yet prayer has also been a tool by which God has exposed the secret idols of my heart, my false comforts and hopes, as well as areas where I have not loved Him and my neighbor well. 

Gifted through corporate worship.

I don’t know of a more magnificent experience than when the Church of Christ gathers to worship on the Lord’s Day. The fellowship between the saints, congregational singing, corporate prayer, and the faithful preaching of the Word of God to His people, are gifts I have grown to appreciate even more here. 

A multicultural worship service is a foretaste of our heavenly hope, with a great multitude from every nation, from all tribes, peoples and languages, practically standing before the “throne in worship” (Revelation 7:9). Through these, the good Lord is teaching me to view my momentary struggles and desires in light of His grand scheme to restore all things. 

The gift of a church community.

I worried about this most before moving, because of the stories I heard before, but God has shattered my preconceived notions and biases by giving me a Christ-centered church in downtown Dubai, which He has used immensely to shepherd and bless me during my time here. As I have considered and prayed about how I can serve the Lord and other believers, He has also provided me with opportunities to do so.

This list is not exhaustive, for God works in countless ways to uphold His people. Time and space would fail me if I tried to speak fully of the growth of His Word in this place, which has been a source of great hope and comfort, or of Christian friends who pray for me and hold me accountable. I would like to conclude my reflections by citing yet another prayer from The Valley of Vision that, despite all my distress, expresses my enduring gratitude to God.

I love thee

for giving me clusters of grapes in the wilderness, 

and drops of heavenly wine.

And as Adelaide A. Procter also once wrote:

I thank Thee…that Thou hast made Joy to abound;

So many gentle thoughts and deeds

circling us around,

That in the darkest spot of earth 

Some love is found.

Amen!