In the midst of walking yet another temple today, watching old women, men and young children bow down before golden idols and pray to demons, a detached sense of sorrow filled what was left of my faithful heart.
Even looking out my window here in Thailand I am berated by the worship of other Gods--Buddha, wisdom, knowledge. On every corner, in every home, there is perched a small spirit house where offerings to angry spirits are consistently renewed. In the artwork on the streets, the attitudes of the people, the concepts pervasive within the culture...there is so much evil.
There takes place a huge cultural shift that exists for a Christian who, indeed, became a Christian in a country that is most commonly described as "Christian"--how ever false or nominal that may be.
In class we have been discussing--talking ourselves in circles, rather--the complex nature of development work for a Christian. The debate between the dualistic nature of the action. Which is our focus: physical, economic and social needs or the saving of the soul? How do they go hand and hand? What if they don't? All week long the Spirit in side me has been turning upside down and inside out each time the Gospel is lowered or equated with something it should not be. Each time I am humbled by Scripture I do not fully understand, or experience I cannot argue with.
So even when I study, for hours, and run my findings by people with PhDs and years of experience, one simple class discussion later I can be left baffled by both the evil in this world and the fact that I am not quite sure how I, as a Christian, am supposed to respond to it. What if I focus too much on the physical and forget what Jesus died for? What if I preach the Gospel and miss relationship and the chance to relieve suffering or injustice? What if helping hurts?
Of course, these fears and worries and concerns can be paralyzing. But the task at hand is such that it should be taken seriously.
But then, I am reminded simply by songs I've only ever heard in a Chapel in Kirkland, Washington what the Truth is. I think of the girls I saw nervously bowing before the golden hand of an enlightened Buddha and I hear His voice say, with all the power in the world,
"I am Yaweh, I am eternal, I am reigning, have reigned, and will reign forever."
...Those words are no less true a million miles away from the shelter of my suburban home, in an environment that is so clearly anti-Christian I sometimes forget what American churches look like and imagine temples instead.
He has watched me watch broken hearts unfold and not be healed, but remain in darkness. He has seen the same children as I, begging for money on the street so that their parents can support their drug habits. He felt the fear and heartache of my innocent friends when corruption manipulated, exploited and oppressed them. He knows that his children are crying out from every corner of this world for mercy from oppressors and relief from injustice. He sees genocide and knows it the smell of dead, rotting human bodies killed by the force of unbridled sinful nature. He is not stupid or ignorant and, unlike the "serene" Buddha,
HE DOES NOT SIT ON A THRONE WITH HIS EYES HALF CLOSED.
Instead he is here with me, and there with them, and with you. In the midst of our confusion, our overwhelmingly complex systems of ministry and our oversimplification of the nature of human sin and reconciliation to God. He watches me struggle with these ridiculously hard concepts and these new things he keeps throwing at me. He sees pain, feels it in the way that we do. He has experienced it. And my word, he is SUCH a better God for that.
Tonight he reminds me in a gentle voice but with SO much power: "I have never, ever changed. I validate the suffering in this world and without me it has no answer, without me there is no relief. I have come, am coming and am already there. I reign."
Not the corrupt rulers and passive leaders that seem to be in charge. Not the money hungry, power loving temporal humans that make rash decisions and don't care who they hurt. Not the rulers of countries that call themselves Christian. Not the men who make laws to protect the people and kill them in secret. Not powerful who exploit the weak. Not the ones who brainwash for control, or even close their countries to the rest of the world. Not the demons that hurt those who do not know Christ. Not the evil cycles, the enslaving diminished sense of self, the intricate and strategic evil that bears down on humans. Not sin. Not the dichotomy of the Fall. Not the lawmakers, armies, weapons, or brains of this world.
Satan, you are not winning this one; no matter what this world looks like. I know it with all my heart: His eyes are wide open.
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