It has taken me 47years to assess the difference between the gospel and the real truth of life. Those were one and the same for ages—no take-backs, no prisoners, no holds barred. I filtered the kingdom through my African ,Malawian born disadvantaged, denominational lens, and by golly, I found a way to make most of it fit!

But then God changed my life, and everything got weird. I discovered the rest of the world! And other cultures! And different Christian traditions! And people who were way, way different from me! And poverty! Then the system in which God operated according to my rules started disintegrating.

There is a biblical benchmark I now use. We will refer to this criterion for every hard question, big idea, topic, assessment of our own obedience, every “should” or “should not” and “will” or “will not” we ascribe to God, every theological sound bite. Here it is: If it isn’t also true for a poor people .The fact of the matter is we are all living a lie, the biggest lie the devil told us is we deserve to have a better life. In truth we are where we need to be with the opportunities and personalities that we have been afforded to.