Can I Rest Awhile Please?

Life is a journey with ups and downs. It is just like electrocardiogram of a living heartbeat. Throughout the electrocardiogram, there are uncountable ups and downs. Therefore, one can be considered as lifeless, if he never encounters any problems throughout the whole life. Personally, I would consider my life is challenging, as there are many problems and challenges throughout the way I am endeavoring to serve for the one I worship. Definitely, my life would be easier if I decided not take this way of living – this path of faith. I don’t need to wake up on Sunday morning; I can spend my time with friends on Sunday for any reasons. I don’t need to preach to the friends around me, I don’t need to put the friendship into risk for talking about the sensitive issues with them. I can save a lot of time to please myself instead of serving the people in need. I can indulge in anything I enjoy without bothering the limits. I can flirt around with any girls, and just get into an intimate relationship with the girl I like without any principle and requirements. I can be happier than ever. Well, life seems to be easier isn’t it? Because I am free from any religion and superstitious belief. But if I choose not to believe in Him, definitely I would never manage to guarantee myself a greatest life with this one and only living God who is so awesome to me. Freedom out of Christ, is indulgence, but freedom in Christ is satisfaction with peace and joy.

Some may ask me: “Hey, why did you choose to believe in Jesus Christ? Does it help to make your life easy? But you seemed to have more problems after believing in Him!” Honestly speaking, I didn’t get richer after believing in Christ; my academic result doesn’t get extremely excellent; my life is not just smooth like how a river flows. In contrary, because of Him, I have to face many problems. Because of Him, many people came to challenge my faith in him by questioning my so-called old-schooled belief. Of course, they are non-Christians, and I shared with them about the reasons of my faith with humility and explained to them why they have to repent and believe in Christ as well as I do. Definitely, I did it without guns and weapons. They were all peaceful conversations thankfully.

Some disrespect me because they think that Christians are all anti-science. They teased and asked me to stop using the devices and inventions. Perhaps some Christians are extreme to that extent but I strongly believe that I am not one of them. I did explain the thoughts of the extreme Christians to them so that they might be able to understand and forgive them. Some charged me for being unfilial because I refuse to burn incense to worship my ancestors. In their perspective, I am seriously rebellious for not following the traditions. They usually would say: “Aiya! What for you bring faith into your life to mess up everything? Why don’t you just follow the tradition, nothing harmful isn’t it?” To them, I explained patiently how seriously I mind all my actions and thoughts in order not to harm my Lord, and how actually the tradition slowly deviated from the original purpose of commemorating our ancestors. By doing so, we may not really want to commemorate, perhaps we are looking for benefits or we do so just because of fear. Undeniably, one of the ten commandments of the Bible is to honor our parents. I would definitely strive to love them when they are alive.

Of course, having this kind of life, it’s really suffering. People may hurt you, but it is worse when you found the people you love got hurt because of your faith. My family did get hurt because of me, because they found themselves helpless to change my mind. My mum was worried after I chose to believe in Christ, she didn’t manage to see the truthfulness of my God and understand me. Instead, she blamed on herself for not being able to bring me to temper and learn some teachings of Buddha. When we talked about faith, she shared with me about her beliefs for trying to win me, while I am doing my part to preach for trying to win her soul according to my belief. I couldn’t really take this pain just by recalling clearly of how we were gently opposing each other. My dad doesn’t seem to be happy with me, perhaps he found me so naïve to believe Christianity and go against our traditions. It was really painful to see how he gave up on me about this problem.

I recalled a conversation with my eldest brother. I shared with him that I am going to introduce my God to my mum because mum doesn’t get true peace in her life; she has a worrisome life just like typical women. Afterwards, my eldest brother raged and scolded me saying that I am too arrogant to think that my belief is the only truth and denying their belief. He scolded me with anger he had never shown to me before. I still remembered how my tears ran down my cheeks in silence; they were just like two waterfalls. At that time I hated my honesty, but I appreciated my courage to be honest. About my second brother, I believe he would probably find me annoying for thinking him as a sinner who has to repent. My younger brother couldn’t do much to help me, but at least he understands a bit. I never want to hurt them, but I couldn’t help. Since I love them, I think I would need to endure the pain of hurting them for the sake of the gospel.    

Of course, all of them don’t believe in Christ and it is normal to have them challenging me throughout the way, because I claimed myself for having the only truth of living. However, some Christians could somehow trouble my heart. I still remembered a conversation with a sister in Christ, I talked to her about how importance it is to know the Word of God and practice them in our daily life. She didn’t show much appreciation but charged me for being too radical instead of spiritual. I didn’t defend much for my broken heart, but explain to her how the word of God can help us to be more spiritually strong. I wonder if I was doing it aggressively, but I did make sure I was very careful when I was speaking.

I still remembered another discussion with a girl who is from different denomination. She told me that Church shouldn’t celebrate Christmas because that is not the birthday of Christ and we are not asked to celebrate the birthday of Christ. In order to clear her doubt, I chose to explain to her that the importance of utilizing the day of Christmas to spread the gospel and having a gathering on Christmas is not prohibited by the Bible while preaching the word of God is the commandment of God. However, this discussion turned to be a bit aggressive since our bibles have some differences and our teachings are different. I was explaining to her with the scriptures of the Bible while she supported the belief of Assembly without really giving me feedback to my explanation. Sadly, she denied the truthfulness of those Church that claimed themselves as Church instead of Assembly. I didn’t get angry but upset, because she doesn’t know that it is not because of the name of the Church/Assembly that God will save a person, but instead because of the name of Christ, one can be granted salvation by grace through faith. I got offended at the end. If you were to give me another chance to choose whether to explain to her again, I would definitely do that even though I would probably get offended, because it is my duty to explain my faith and belief with humility as an Apologist.

I volunteer myself to help the believers around me to grow in Christ. Perhaps I would tend to destroy their conviction of thinking that their church is the best and the only true church in the world. Many do make the mistakes of thinking that way, because bible never says that the Church is immune of mistakes even though when they explain the word of God. A church can never please God if it is against the Word of God. Regardless the modal and the effectiveness of the organization, church can always get astray from the truth if they do not honor our Lord Jesus Christ alone. There have been many churches growing to a certain extent that they come out a set of traditions to govern the church, but slowly it replaces the highest place of the Scripture. This would be really a big tragedy.

If one accepts blindly the church’s teaching without having themselves to examine the truthfulness of the teachings with the scriptures, one can go astray in faith if those teachings are not from God. Don’t we know that Bible teaches us to be alert of the false prophets? God permits this thing to happen, and the only person we can rely on is our Lord Jesus Christ, the best teacher ever. Through the Bible and non-stop examination with the scriptures, I believe God will reveal His will and word to us! I am taught to search for the word of God for the sake of the Church; because I love the Church God has given to us. But I wouldn’t think that loving Church more than our Lord is the teaching of the Bible.

Some days, I teased myself for being too frustrated for preaching the word of God all these while to try to lead them to obey Christ alone. This is because I seemed to be doing unfruitful things as no one really responds positively to the appeal and not even one appreciates my advice that don’t sound good to them. Why don’t I say something that they like to listen? Why am I doing all these things that do not benefit me at all? Why do I choose to put a lot of things into risk by being so preachy? I don’t want to! I never want to! But I can’t help! It is all because I know how much my savior had done to pay for my sins to show his love and claim back my life, and I just know that I have to do all these not because I can have any awards but because he loves them as well and never wants them to leave astray in their lives and faith! I am the servant of God, and for the sovereignty of the Word of God, I would fight not with the physical weapons, but the Sword of Holy Spirit, the Word of God. But Lord, can I rest awhile as I am so frustrated of all these?