When Cultures Collide: He Gives Us the Balm of Heaven

written by Pastor José Portillo

I have been an immigrant for a quarter of a century. I grew up in Central America, formed by the heart, flavor, and rhythms of Latin culture. Arroz, frijoles, y plátanos maduros was my love language.

Then God’s plan carried me and my family north, to Texas, to a little town of 1,200 people just outside Houston. That’s where my whole life collided with a cultural wall I had never experienced before.

For starters, I was no longer José. Suddenly, I was Hose. Hosea. Hoseh. “No way, José.” Or worse—José Cuervo. Overnight I was transformed from a boy with a name and a story into a category: Hispanic, immigrant, Mexican.

Overnight I was transformed from a boy with a name and a story into a category: Hispanic, immigrant, Mexican.

Cultural collisions leave wounds. They bruise dignity. They disorient identity. And like any collision, sometimes you need professionals to help tend the damage. But even with counselors and mentors, only God’s grace truly carried me. Jesus met me in the crash, binding wounds that I didn’t even realize were bleeding. Some scars healed quickly. Others became invisible but still present, because I never brought them fully to Him.

Twenty-five years later, I have become what I call a collision specialist. As a pastor, I walk with people through the injuries and disorientation that come with being immigrants—or simply with being human in a world of clashing cultures. The church, after all, is God’s family drawn from every tribe, tongue, and nation. And with that beautiful diversity come misunderstandings, pain, and the constant need for healing.

The question is: should we be surprised? Or are these painful collisions meant to point us toward a greater cultural collision—the one Jesus is preparing for us?

THE GOSPEL IN THE MIDST OF COLLISION

The Gospel never promised to leave our cultures untouched. It demands change and transformation. It calls us to take off the old and put on the new. It promises that we will be delivered from this body of sin, from our old ways of being, because Jesus has purchased for us a new life, a new body, a new city, and even a new center of orbit: Himself.

That is the ultimate culture clash—between the kingdoms of this world and the Kingdom of God.

The Bible itself is full of these moments:

• Peter, confronted for refusing to eat with Gentile believers, forgetting his own Gospel freedom (Galatians 2).

• The early church forced to reckon with widows from a Greek background being neglected while Hebrew widows were cared for (Acts 6).

• The disciples bewildered as Jesus healed outsiders and praised their faith as greater than anything He found in Jerusalem (Matthew 8).

Each of these moments shows the Gospel breaking down barriers and reshaping people into a new identity.

THE NEW CULTURE OF HEAVEN

Our present cultural collisions expose the limits of human norms. They reveal prejudices and deficiencies in our traditions. But they also spotlight what only the Gospel can do: fix, repair, and redeem.

Jesus is preparing us for a day when we will no longer be Guatemalan or Texan, Honduran or American, insider or outsider. We will be fully His, orbiting around the brightness of His glory. That future culture will undo us completely and remake us entirely.

Until then, every cultural collision is both a wound and an invitation. A wound that needs healing, and an invitation to remember that Jesus is forming us into one family, one people, one body.

So let me ask you:

How is your current cultural collision displaying that which only the gospel is able to fix, repair, and redeem?

A PRAYER INVITATION

Maybe this feels far from your own story. Perhaps you’ve never crossed borders or carried the immigrant label. Still, the Lord is able to open your eyes to the collisions inside your own journey—moments where wounds linger, where misunderstanding bruises, or where your identity has been shaken. Ask Him to give you understanding. Ask Him to show you how His healing does not leave us merely “okay,” but fills our lives with the saltiness and brightness of His presence—so that we display His aroma, His taste, and His light.

And to those who read this and recognize the need for healing: pray for the balm of Gilead. Ask for it, wait for it, and trust that in time it will be applied. Jesus alone can tend to the wounds that remain invisible, the scars that seem unchangeable, the collisions that feel irreparable.

As we explore our stories in the light of the gospel story, we find Jesus—our ultimate need, our final hope, and the One who is making us whole.

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Pastor José, his wife Anna, and their four children (Daniela [8], Benjamín [5], and Felipe & Ibrahím [3.5]) live in Charlotte, NC, where Pastor José is the church planting pastor of Vive Charlotte Church, and serves as the Executive Director of HLI. Currently he is working with HLI and others to initiate and launch the first of many Capillas Reformadas to help reach and equip Spanish speakers and Hispanic Gospel leaders. Pastor José has also started and helps run a non-profit organization for immigrants in Charlotte, Cities of Refuge. He has started the ministry of Multiplicadores, and has helped to train leaders in Charlotte, Houston, Virginia, Colombia, El Salvador, Bolivia, Mexico, throughout the US, and across the globe.

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