Last night I was thinking about "lens" of the spiritual sort,
and then over a Guinness Draught (off campus, JudCo. boys and girls) I started thinking about it even more.
You see, everyone wears lens -- whether if it is the background they come from that says black people are inferior and that white people are superior, maybe the lens some people wear tell them that homosexuals are hated by God and should be avoid at all costs... Whatever the lens you and I wear, they affect our interactions with people on a daily basis.
My friend Jim* and I were talking last night about a mutual friend of ours, in which she is a Muslim whom Jim would really like to see become a follower of Christ. I too would like to see Rachel* to become a follower of Christ, but I confronted Jim about the lens issue. I did not spell it out as well as I could have, mainly due to the fact that I was tired and sometimes to get the cogs a'movin' in my head I need to think it out alone...with or without alcohol.
Anyway, I started thinking about how Rachel views (her lens) Christianity; She sees Jim as a nice, well-mannered, deep and thoughtful individual who knows her well. She sees his following of Christ as something serious and deep, which isn't wrong of course, but sometimes I feel like Jim is thinking/believing with his head and not his heart.
Rachel also knows another person Jim and I do, Simon (to me, a fiend of sorts) who has hit on her and has professed to being a follower of Christ, yet... If going by actions, the lens that Rachel perceives Simon's 'faith' or whatever you want to call it as rude, abusive, weasel-like, tenacious, disgusting and revolting. I mean, if I were in Rachel's shoes and Simon did that to me, I certainly would not want to be a follower of Christ if that's what Christians did.
Then there's me; Rachel's lens of followers of Christ by way of me is one of understanding, kindness, spontaneity, love, compassion and mystery (of the good sort). Rachel is very honest with me, both of how she is and how she REALLY is- sometimes it takes a bit longer to get her talking about what she's really feeling, but with time, patience and love, she comes through.
***
Now Jim is a smart guy, a cool guy, a good looking guy...eh, I'm off-track. Yet the lens Rachel sees is one of him trying to win her over to Christ by way of head knowledge, a I'm-right-you're-wrong sort of way, which Rachel... Rachel isn't too interested in giving up everything Muslim from this angle and certainly I wouldn't want to either if I were in her shoes. My friend Jim, I wish he could get it when I explain to him that he should win her over with heart facts not head facts, he is very passionate, but he needs to move some of that head knowledge down to his heart.
Right now, Rachel is going through some hard times, in which I would say is that she's becoming a bit bitter with her current circumstances, but as a devout Muslim, her allegiance is to her beliefs and her parents, in which the latter is giving her trouble, but as a Muslim, she really can't raise a fist.
Rachel and I are close friends, and while Jim knows her more, he seems to know more of her by head. I on the other hand, know her heart, and while Jim doesn't like this aspect about me, I really don't know how to get it through his head to think/feel more with his heart.
***
So the lens that Rachel sees Christianity and followers of Christ is rather skewed, I am saddened by some of the internal quarrels I have with other followers of Christ, because when it comes down to it, shouldn't the only lens others (by others, I mean those who aren't followers of Christ) see is Christ?
I'll leave you with that thought.
[nv]
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Spiritual lens
1 comments:
You've said a lot here, and all of it quite true. Your Muslim friend, well, yes, like I said in one of my blog posts, I love the Muslim people but not the religion of Islam. I also said I don't love the religion of Christianity either. But if our love for Christ is true, really sincere, then we have no agenda for converting anyone to Christianity whatsoever. If we love Christ and not just our ideas about Him, we have nothing at all to do but love our neighbors, without respect of race, religion, sex (and sexual orientation), age, culture, education, class. We just simply love them, as is, no strings attached. Why is this? Because we just do what we see Jesus doing. Jesus loves us, all of us, not just Christians, not just people of the book, but all of us. Whether we call Him God, prophet, great teacher, or even say He never existed, He still loves us, and intercedes for us before the Father, Who alone can draw mankind to Him. So, back to your friend who is a devout Muslim. Your other friend, who wants to see her "saved," if he's taking the position of "we're right, you're wrong," that simply won't do. The Orthodox way is to love others as Christ loves us, to give ourselves, our lives, for others because Christ gave His life for us. We believed in Christ not because He was right, but because He loved us while we knew we were still sinners. The Orthodox way is, as you say, the way of the heart rather than the mind, as such. Christianity in the West has often let itself be shaped by its various creeds. In the East, we have let ourselves be shaped by the Maker because He is our "creed." As you know, rightly translated, we do not even call the statement of Orthodox faith hammered out in Nicaea a "creed" but instead, a "symbol", that is, a pointer to the Truth but not the Truth Itself. Expressing our faith in this way, we have learned that the first work of a missionary is to love by acts of kindness and courage, to plant the seed of the Word by living it, and leaving the Lord the prerogative of giving the increase. It's all in the Bible.
I have hope for your Muslim friend, because God is faithful to answer prayers. If we pray to the Father, asking Him to draw her to Christ, we can depend on Christ's promise that "anything you ask for from the Father He will grant in my name" (John 16:23 JB). If we pray for the salvation of a close friend (as Brock and I pray for two of ours, one a devout Hindu, the other a traditional Japanese), and love that friend as Christ loves him or her (in other words, not with the ulterior motive of seeing them saved, though we pray for that), then we can be at peace, knowing that the Father will (in His time) save that friend, whether we see it or not. We can depend on it.
I will also continue to pray with you for this friend, because I already trust, by faith, that she will be saved by the good God, the only lover of mankind. Go with God, my brother.
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