This month is not a typical month for my team, this month we are “unsung heroes” here in Laos. We don’t have a contact or host organization but instead we seek out people and organizations furthering the kingdom that we can encourage and connect to the world race. It’s been quite an interesting month because Laos is a communist country and closed off to Christianity. Missionaries are very cautious here, and rightfully so as the government actively works to keep Christianity out of the country.
The pace of this month has been drastically different from the last 3. In India, Nepal, and Thailand we were go go go and the little free time we had was filled with fun excursions. This month we have no host to keep us busy and there isn’t much to do around here with free time. Not to say that we haven’t been doing anything this month, yesterday we helped put on a Christmas party for HIV positive children and tonight we are teaching English at a school, but overall this has been a slow month.
All this free time has enabled me to press into my faith. I’ve been reading a lot, which should baffle those of you that know me well. Truthfully I don’t know how to grow in my faith and the only tool I seem to have is reading. Last month I committed to loving others well, and I’ve done a good job of that this month. But it hasn’t grown me closer to God. I’ve recognized pride in my life and I’ve strived for humility. But I’ve realized true humility is unachievable without a deep conviction of God’s involvement in my life. One of the books I’ve been reading this month is Humility, True Greatness by C.J. Mahaney. Mahaney says this about humility “Humility is honestly assessing ourselves in light of God’s holiness and our sinfulness… all genuine humility is rooted in God’s holiness and our sinfulness. Without an honest awareness of both of these realities, all self-evaluation will be skewed and we’ll fail to either understand or practice true humility.” His first and foremost advice for attaining humility is to reflect on the wonder of the cross and after that, acknowledge your need for God. I’m still not convinced of the power of the cross or of my need for God, therefore it is very difficult to practice Mahaney’s advice and for me to attain Godly humility.
Why am I not convinced of God’s power? Well simply put, because I’ve never seen it. Sure I believe that it’s more likely that we’re all here because there’s a God, but that’s not the kind of logic that makes a passionate believer. This world is natural and it seems odd to me that I’ve never seen anything explicitly supernatural when God is by definition supernatural and the bible is laden with supernatural events. I also haven’t found God on an inward level inside of me, although I’ve looked extensively. The only place left to look for God seems to be in others around me, the people claiming to have been radically transformed by a powerful love. I’ve found that many of those people, even believers that have left everything to come on the world race, often live and love no better than me. Where is God’s transformative power in that? A desperate thought lingers in my mind that Christianity is just a self-help mechanism and Jesus is a grand placebo.
I don’t say this to rag on Christians, or to say that there is no evidence to believe in Jesus. I say this because I’m confused and frustrated and I need your prayer. There are so many other doubts as well as reasons to believe that find their way into all this that makes it difficult to present a picture of my faith as a whole. This is just a small glimpse and really all it’s intended to do is give you the understanding that I am frustrated and growing weary. Please pray for me. I need mercy for others, humility for myself, and reason to keep on believing.
