The month of March has been spent in the gorgeous country of Malaysia! Having admittedly not known much about it before coming here, I have been pleasantly surprised to fall in love with this Asian jewel of a country!
My team and I were blessed with a week of rest and rejouvination upon arrival here, and had the joy of being poured into by some amazing local families. Here now, reflections on my first impressions…
The Islamic call to prayer wakes me at 5 am, echoing throughout the streets of Kuala Trenganau, Malaysia; it is a small but bustling costal town about a seven hours bus ride from the capital city of Kuala Lumpur. The sounds of these prayers can be heard from every corner of the city, five times a day. There is something so beautiful but equally haunting in their melodies, as I realize that behind that sound is a cry of captivity for so many hurting souls.
“Freedom” is a word often thrown around the United States easily and carelessly, like a ball tossed about on a child’s playground. It is a word commonly used to win points in political debates; a concept sometimes seeming so vague and hard to grasp. Freedom is a mountain climbed and conquered by those who have gone before.Those of us who are heirs to their labor and sweat, we stand at the top, unable to remember or even at times comprehend what life is like back down below; that life down in the valley of chains and slavery.
In that place I lovingly call home, The United States of America, we enjoy freedoms of press, of expression and speech, and yes, the freedom, of religion.
I can only write only what I know, and the insight gained into the world of Islam thus far is from personal experience here in Malaysia- a country where 60.4 percent of the population consider themselves Muslim. While most people are born into it, I’ve been told that to leave Islam is surly excommunication from your community- all of your friends and even your own family. For those who try to leave the religion, they can be sent by the government to Islamic prisons where they are forced to study the Koran, and confess their allegiance to the religion once again. In some of the worst-case scenarios, to leave Islam is a death sentence.
Bibles and other Non-Islamic religious materials used in this country must have printed on them, “For Non-Malays Only” . I don’t know if its the same for Buddists or Jews or Hindus, or anyone else for that matter if they tried to share with the locals, but for sure, telling people about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is a sure cause for deportation, with the possibility of a first stop off at a Malaysian jail along the way. Coming back into the country again someday is not an option.
This is darkest depths of the valley.
These are the chains.
Islam is considered a “cousin religion” to Christianity. They both, (like Judaism, as well) have the same beginning. Genesis. Adam. Eve. The Garden. Sin. Regardless of where you think the history of the relationship between man and God takes off after that, we gain a lot simply from this same, basic beginning. We can tell a ton about the nature of God, even through just the way the story begins.
We know that:
-God gave Adam the choice of free will in the garden. Why? because he didn’t want to force man to love him.
-God desired, (not forced), the return love from man. God desired that it be of his own accord.
-The nature of God is unchanging, and unwavering. So today still, God wants our hearts, fully, completely, and of our own accord.
Forcing people to stay inside a religion with these same basic beliefs is something my mind can’t even begin to wrap my head around. I can’t possibly understand the fear that lay behind such an idea, with this knowledge that the nature of God is relational, and therefore interested in us. It is an understanding that God cares about the content of our hearts, more than any sacrifice or offering.
(A further example can be taken from Cain and Abel, another shared history between Christians and Muslims. Another example of God caring far more about the content of their hearts than anything they could ever offer.)
After all,
“For we brought nothing into this world, and we can take nothing out of it”.
(1 Timothy 6:7)
Offerings, sacrifices of material objects or sacrifices of a way of life, the clothes we wear or the things we eat, I leave you with this simple question:
What do we possibly have to offer the God of the universe that is not already His?
This, my beloved friends, family, and dear readers, is where I have come to find absolute, complete, and
t r u e
f r e e d o m :
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.”
(Romans 8:1-5)
