Joining Him on the Way

“Let’s get started – when the others come they will find us on the way.”

I don’t know how many times I have heard this at informal Kasana gatherings/meetings over the past year. Probably at least half a dozen.

It’s a common sentiment, stemming from “African time” – the tendency of Ugandans and others to not be on time. If you’re at a place within 15 minutes of the assigned beginning time, usually you are early. ;) At functions out in the village, if the stated start time is 10 a.m., that may be when you leave your garden to go home and bathe before walking to the meeting – you may get there at 11 and still be one of the first.

On Tuesday night I attended Vespers, an occasional evening service that gives JBU students time to quietly reflect on passages of Scripture which they read aloud together. It was the students who slipped in a minute or two late to join the other students which made me think of my Ugandan friends.

Somehow then, my mind made a jump to spiritual matters. The thought flashed through my mind that this is what every one of us has done. God started history thousands of years ago. Every one of us living now have found Him on the way. He has been working His plan and accomplishing His goals for centuries and millennia before our parents (or great great great great grandparents) ever thought of our existence. We all find Him on the way.

I couldn’t help but think a bit about what that means.

To go back to the illustration that started this train of thought: Imagine that the meeting is one discussing an elaborate plan for how to celebrate someone’s birthday. Then imagine that the person arriving over an hour after the official start of the meeting suddenly jumps in and starts expressing her ideas about what ought to be done and how to do it. If the meeting has been productive (also a Western concept – the first phase of a less formal meeting in Uganda can often be visiting and catching up on one another’s lives), then plans have quite possibly already been made – it’s just the details remaining.

I think it is easy for us humans to do something similar on the grander spiritual scale. As we grow up, we start to have our own ideas about things. By the time we are adults, we can have grand plans and Opinions about the way things ought to be.

We feel like we are responsible for coming up with what we do and what happens around us.

We forget that we joined Someone else on the way.

That He has His plans & will carry them out!

That HE is the one writing the story.

That it’s HIS story anyway.

Zachariah, Elizabeth, Mary, Joseph, Simeon, Anna: Each one of them didn’t just find God on the way – they were caught up into a plan grander than anything they could have imagined. Some had to be made to shut up so that they would listen to the plan. Others accepted it with open arms, though I’m sure they were blown away by the enormity of what they were hearing. Each one didn’t set out to make something amazing of their lives; or maybe they did, but it paled in comparison to what actually happened. Instead, they were invited to join what God was already at work doing. They didn’t just find Him on the way, He met them on the way and changed the course of their lives, and human history, FOREVER.

Obviously, I don’t believe there will ever be something exactly like that again. Never again will the eternal, omnipresent Son of God choose to fully become a helpless baby. But I think we can still learn something from this.

On a much more personal note, being here in Siloam has made me think about the “me” that first moved here more than six years ago. An Esther that thought she was going to be a political journalist. NEVER did that Esther expect that six years later she would be looking at Uganda, a distant country in Eastern Africa, as HOME for the foreseeable future. I had no idea what God was going to do. But He invited me to join Him on the way; He worked so many different things together in my life to grow me and stretch me and envision me for something that I in myself would never have seen.

He has a plan that He put into motion thousands and thousands of years ago. Each one of us finds Him on the way. But not because we were looking for Him – He finds us and calls us to join Him on THE WAY. Because it’s definitely not a journey we walk alone. We have the Godhead, each person of the Trinity, willing and eager to walk with us and guide us each step of the way. For Jesus said that He IS the way, the truth, and the life.

Come, let’s join Him on the way.

{God’s} Character and {Man’s} Responsibility

{In Institute[1] the past couple weeks, each of us had the assignment of preparing a Bible story to present to part of the class, as though we were teaching it as a Sunday school lesson to children. We could pick the story and what age range we were targeting. I wrote this with 9-12 year olds in mind. As a challenge, our presentation could only be 10 minutes.}

Today we are going to look at a story that is an example of God’s faithfulness to His people, and how important it is to trust God.

Who were God’s special people during the time of the Old Testament, before Jesus came? That’s right! The Israelites.

Now, our story for today comes from the book of Judges in the Old Testament. Does anyone know what the book of Judges is about?

God had brought Israel, His special people, into their own land – performing many miracles to do so. But the people rebelled against God—they wanted to go their own way rather than obeying God.

Do you ever do things your own way rather than how your parents tell you to do them? That is exactly what the people of Israel were doing toward God. So as a consequence, God grounded them: He turned them over to be oppressed by their enemies.

And that is where today’s story comes in. While I tell the story, I want you to listen for how God showed His faithfulness and how His people needed to trust Him, okay?

                Israel had been oppressed by a king named Jabin for 20 years. Can you imagine that? That is twice as long as some of you have been alive! Now, Jabin had a general name Sisera, and he is the bad guy you’re going to want to remember for this story.

The people of Israel were suffering, and in their suffering they cried out to God for deliverance! Because even though they had gone their own way rather than obeying God, they remembered what He had done for their grandparents and great grandparents. And you know what? God heard their prayers, because He is faithful!

                During this time, there was a special woman of God named Deborah. She was a prophetess, which means God would speak to her and reveal what He had planned for the future! Deborah was also one of the judges of Israel that this book is named after.

One day, she called for a man named Barak, and she told him: “God has commanded you to go defeat Sisera!” Now remember, Sisera was the general of the evil king oppressing Israel. But Sisera had 900 chariots in his army, along with all his soldiers!

At that time, time, having chariots was kind of like having tanks today. Do you know what tanks are like? {Our teacher’s oldest son, age 7, informed us that tanks were vehicles with missiles on them.} Israel didn’t have any chariots, they just had men to fight, maybe with swords and spears. That would be like marching to fight against tanks while only having ordinary guns! But Deborah told Barak, “God is going to deliver Sisera’s army into your hand.” How do you think Barak felt??

                I think he was kind of afraid, because Scripture says he told Deborah, “I’ll go fight, but only if you’ll come with me!” Deborah said ok, but she also told him a woman would get the honor from the battle instead of him.

Barak gathered 10,000 Israelites to go against Sisera’s army, which included those 900 chariots. The Israelites were up on a mountain, and Sisera’s army was in the valley at a river. You know what? I think Barak was still afraid and not trusting God’s promise, because Deborah had to remind him to lead his men into battle. She told him, “Has not the LORD gone out before you?”

So then Barak and his 10,000 men charged towards Sisera and his army with their 900 chariots. And God was faithful to His promise! He totally routed Sisera’s army! That means they became confused and disorganized, to that Barak and his men were able to totally defeat them. The Bible says Barak and his men killed every soldier in Sisera’s army. It was an amazing victory!

                Now, Sisera had run away from the battle because he saw things weren’t going well. He came to the tent of a man named Heber, who was an ally of Sisera’s king—so Sisera thought it would be safe to hide there!

Heber’s wife was named Jael. Jael welcomed Sisera into her tent, her home. She brought Sisera some milk to drink, and then he lay down on the ground because he was so tired from running! Jael covered him with a blanket.

Sisera thought he was safe there, so he fell asleep. But Jael had other plans. She got a tent peg, and used a hammer to drive it straight through Sisera’s head and into the ground; killing him in his sleep.

                When Barak came searching for Sisera, Jael called Barak into the tent and showed him the enemy general, dead.

Even though Jael’s husband was an ally of Sisera’s king, Jael had decided she would trust God’s deliverance of Israel and kill Sisera.

Then Deborah and Barak sang a song of victory, praising God for how He had used them and the Israelite soldiers and Jael to deliver God’s special people from the wicked king and Sisera, his general!

                So that is the story of Deborah and Barak and Jael, which you can read in Judges 4-5. Did you see God’s faithfulness to His people Israel in that story? And who displayed trust in God’s promises by their actions?

Barak was hesitant at first, but he did obey. Deborah and Jael obeyed God too! And God proved His faithfulness by delivering His people when they repented and obeyed Him!

                So how does this impact your life? Have you ever chosen to go your own way rather than following God? We all do that often times, and that is called sin. Bug God loves the people He created, and so did He prove His faithfulness to us? YES!

He sent a deliverer for us, just like He did for the people of Israel! What is our deliverer’s name? Jesus! When Jesus came from heaven to earth, died on the cross, and rose from the dead, He won total victory for us over our enemies of sin and death, forever!

Just like God promised Barak victory over Sisera, God promises us victory through the death and resurrection of His Son Jesus! And like we saw in our story today, God is faithful to keep His promises, isn’t He?

                But just like Barak had to trust God’s promises and go out to battle, so we each have to trust God’s promise that Jesus’ victory over sin and death applies to my life and to your life!

A lot of times, I find myself like Barak: afraid to go and fight the enemy of sin in my life because I am not sure whether I will win or not. But would I really be fighting alone? No!

Remember what Deborah told Barak right before the battle? I’m going to read it from the Bible, from Judges 4:14:

“Then Deborah said to Barak, ‘Up! For this is the day in which the LORD has delivered Sisera into your hand. Has not the LORD gone out before you?’”

We all need to ask God to help us have faith, and to remember that Jesus has promised us victory and goes to fight with us. Because He has already won the war for us!

And God is faithful to His promises to us, just like He was to Barak and Deborah and Jael, which means that we can trust His word to be true.

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[1] “Institute” refers to the New Hope Institute of Childcare and Family, which is basically New Hope Uganda’s ministry foundations and philosophy taught in 20 weeks.

An {Uninspired} Psalm

{Uncle George, one of our Institute teachers, encouraged us yesterday to think about/write a psalm praising the Lord to share with class this morning. So here is a small offering of worship to my King, Savior, & Advocate. A few of my lines are direct quotes or "Esther paraphrases" of Scripture verses, as I'm sure you will notice.}

O God, You are my God.

                You are the faithful One,
                Regardless my wandering heart.

You are the all-seeing One,

Even when I try to hide myself.

                Eternally Existent

                        Self-Sufficient
                                Magnificent Creator
                                        Holy in Righteousness
                                                This is our God.

Yet Christ came, for the glory of His Father:
        Born of a woman, born under the law,
        Bound into the confines of an earthly body;
        Subject to the temptations of humanity,
        In all things as we were, yet without sin;
        You laid down Your life to redeem sinners,
        To show us the Father and bring us into adoption;
        Creator God, Come as a humble Servant
                And crucified;
        Oh my Savior, such a mystery I cannot comprehend.

And when You ascended in glory,
You did not leave us alone.
        You gave us Your Holy Spirit:
                Paraclete, our Advocate and Helper.
He lives within our hearts.

O Triune God, I pray:
        Give me eyes to see;
        ears to hear;
        and a heart which seeks after You;
That my mouth may declare Your glory alone.

One Person's Take

“It was Christians protecting Christians from Christians.”

So ran one line of a short article about Portland believers who blocked Westboro Baptist protestors from sight at a conference for the Christian Gay Network.

I heard about the conference and the protest yesterday from a friend of mine who is attending the conference. Seeing a retweeted picture of one of the conference goers posing with two protestors on either side of her was like a punch in my gut, especially because of her comment that she told them that she loved them all.

“Who is the better Christian here???” I asked myself. Not that I ought to judge “how Christian” someone is…..perhaps the better question is, “Who displayed a more Christ-like attitude here?” Was it the church protestors with their signs of hate and hell condemnation? Or was it the conference attendee who told those spewing such words that she loved them?

Wrestling with this issue embedded itself so much in my mind that I dreamed about it in some sort of fashion last night as I slept. I don’t even quite remember the details of it, I just know that was involved in it somehow.

Then I woke up this morning and went to church, where the sermon was on Romans 14:13-19, which says in part “Therefore do not let your good be spoken of as evil; for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit….Therefore let us pursue the things which make for peace and things by which one may edify another” (vs. 16-17, 19). The sermon came in the context of this new year’s theme at the organization where I work: “Your kingdom come” from the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6, and as I listened to the preaching I couldn’t help but think of the situation in Portland.

Because, of course, the issue is much much deeper than what happened recently at one conference. I am from a country where an immense political/legal battle is being waged about states legalizing gay marriage. I currently live in a country where they have passed laws instituting strict penalties for carrying out homosexual acts. This issue is one of the major debates of our current generation, all over the world.

And it’s not an issue that I will even attempt to scratch the surface of here.

I am very sure I would never have gone as far as the Westboro protestors go. But my conservative background means that I grew up with definite opinions about the issue that were closer to them than to the Portland counter-protestors. It used to be easy to give pat answers to this question…but it is not anymore.

The brief reason for that is having friends whose sexuality does not fit into the easy, simple categories. I have three, that I know of, who have struggled with questions about their sexuality and gender. And as I have heard their stories and the stories of others like them, I have lost my ability to quickly judge people and dump them in a particular spiritual box based on this issue alone. All three of these friends attended the same Christian college that I did – and I know that at least one of them desires very much to know and love God just like I do.

The fact that we definitely do not see eye to eye regarding all topics—particularly this one—does not one bit change the fact that I care about each of them as individuals bearing the image of God, individuals for whom Christ died. I love them, and I pray for them just as I do many of my other friends.

In all honesty, I don’t always know what to say or how to respond. I don’t know how to reconcile the beliefs I was raised with to the questions—and sometimes hurt and pain—that I have seen my friends deal with. Sometimes a small part of me wishes I could ignore their stories and go back to my easy answers.

But life isn’t about easy answers. And life definitely does not rely on me for the final decisions—Thank God for that!

In the end, I am thankful for these three friends of mine. I am so thankful for them, for their courage and their willingness to share about themselves and their struggles. And the real fact is that I wouldn’t change my knowledge of their stories even if I could. Because hearing their realities has peeled another layer of judgmental scales off my eyes.

We are all broken people. We—each and every one of us—face personal challenges that we must wrestle with. And often the decision is at least partly up to us: Are we going to allow our trials and struggles to pull us away from God? Will we try to do life on our own strength? Or will we see those challenges and trials for what they are: a reminder of our daily need to run towards God and to rely on Him for EVERYTHING, to trust in His wisdom and His plan of redeeming ALL THINGS.

Because in the end, it is to Him that I turn when my earthly mind can’t rectify my friends’ stories with my original beliefs. When I don’t know the answers, it’s a reminder to trust the One who does. And so, I do not end this post with a pat theory that will solve all the problems. But I do end it with a call: A call to righteousness and peace and joy in our Paraclete, a call to love and work together to build one another up, not to judge and condemn.

How Long, O Lord?

As a middle-class, urban, citizen of the U.S.A., I have led a very sheltered life. This time I’m not talking about the cultural sheltering, though I was that too. I’m talking about being sheltered from the hurt and pain, from the needs and hungers of the vast majority of the world outside the comfort of “home.”

Sure, I lived in China for more than six months and saw people who swept the streets, probably as their only source of income. But I was only 12 at the time, still pretty happy-go-lucky. I don’t remember it ever affecting me very deeply. Sure, I’ve seen homeless people on the downtown streets of Hollywood, Washington D.C., and Dallas. That can definitely be a picture of true need, and I have wrestled with how to respond. But here I’m talking about something more.

Here I’m talking about living in the African bush, in the rural setting of a third-world country. Where life is so immensely different than what I enjoyed growing up.

Even in China, I only thought it was inconvenient that the washing machines were on the first floor when we lived on the second floor. I only remember one day that the power went off—and we knew it would be off ahead of time. I was sometimes annoyed that I had to use a squatty potty when we were out and about.

The past three months, I have learned to live in an entirely different way. When nature calls, I usually have to walk to a pit latrine—no seat to sit on there. I haven’t seen a washing machine or microwave in the time I’ve been here. Power is off around half the time. Almost everything—plowing, mowing the grass, shelling maize—is done either by hand or with simple hand-powered machines.

But these are minor inconveniences compared to what I really sat down to write about.

Two weeks into my stay here, a friend sent an email asking about disease and illiteracy here. At that point, it made me mad. I was almost exclusively seeing the beauty: the beauty of a culture which remembers how to live in community so much better than most Americans; the beauty of living again out in the countryside rather than feeling somewhat stifled by the big city; the beauty of feeling at home, even in a new place with new people, because it is a common Love which brought us together; even the beauty of the fantastic variety of birds I observed within days.

And it is true. There is an amazing amount of beauty here. God is at work here, of course, and He naturally has people here who seek to love and serve Him. I definitely believe there are so many things the people here “get” that our comfortable lives (or at least mine) “back home” make it easy to lose sight of.

In the subsequent 10 weeks, though, it hasn’t been all a bed of roses.

I have heard people at meals talking about how they had to run, run, run when soldiers came to their villages and started shooting.

I have seen a mother and daughter who come to church every Sunday in the same clothes…perhaps because they have no others. Their hair is not black, but a reddish color that I have read is evidence of malnutrition.

I have heard that parents here simply expect to lose one of their children to death by disease.

I have seen a toddler, usually full of life of laughter, lying almost motionless on a couch. His body, burning with fever; his breath shallow and labored. His parents stand by, seeming unsure of what to do because they have already taken him to the clinic and what they were given hasn’t helped.

I have heard stories of boda boda accidents, where men have been lying on the ground obviously injured badly. That sometimes people just keep driving by them, because if they stop and try to help they may just get blamed for the accident.

I have seen a ja ja (grandmother/elderly lady)—who can walk only slowly, slowly—gently lower herself to sit in the slim shade of a telephone pole to try and get out of the hot sun.

I have heard about the superstitions that are so deeply ingrained into peoples’ minds, even Christians. That if an owl perches in a tree over your house, somebody will die. That if you step over a pile of items arranged for witchcraft, something bad will happen to you.

I have seen masses and masses of people going about their daily lives in Kampala or even in Luwero and wondered on a deeper level than ever before if they have heard about the love of Jesus. {In the States, it’s easier to assume that the general population has had the chance to hear the Good News, in some form or fashion.}

I have heard stories of the death of parents or grandparents, or of poverty from widowhood, or of abandonment, or of broken families. And it could possibly be because I live at a ministry dedicated to helping those who have experienced losses such as these….but I can’t recall hearing a single person’s family history that didn’t include some sort of loss.

I have seen a young lady who wanted to go into the medical profession. But her parents died, and she had to drop out of school halfway through secondary school (high school) and take a low-paying job working at a hotel to maybe get enough money for tuition to go back.

I have heard a Ugandan say it’s true that if you’re in a boat that sinks you’ve got to dive down, swim as far away as you can, and wait until everybody who can’t swim has panicked and drowned before you swim back to find something to float on. Because if you try to help, they’ll just pull you down and you’ll die too.

I have seen that life here seems cheap. That death is easier to talk about plainly than in the States. That there is less sugar coating. No guarantee of treatment at a clean hospital with even basic modern equipment. Here, serious disease and subsequent death are a part of daily/community life, as contradictory as that sounds.

And as I have seen and heard all these things, my heart has wept and cried out to the Lord. “God, don’t You see this????? Don’t You hear the suffering of Your creation?” In my sheltered, developed-world upbringing, I have never been confronted with such a widespread view of the effects that sin and evil have brought into the world.

But in one of the moments of crying out late in January, I sensed the Spirit’s voice speaking truth back into my heart: A reminder that…as strange as it seems to us…God’s withholding of the end of time and suffering is actually part of His mercy. That even the pain that occurs is not yet put to an end because He is still calling people to Himself.

The call is to trust Him and His goodness, even when our human minds don’t see that goodness or grace in the pain.

In the past month or so, I saw this quote posted on Facebook: "Underneath our anger is a certain mistrust of God. Somewhere along the way we stopped believing that God is a God of love and justice. If we truly believed that our lives, our hopes and our dreams were in God's hands we wouldn't be quite so shocked when imperfect people hurt us or let us down."[1] It actually comes from a book about marriage, and it’s referring to a more specific pain than I’m writing about here….but the truth of it remains.

Whether I can understand it right now or not, God IS a God of love, and His character is as the One who is “just and the justifier,” even when He passes over sin in His forbearance (Romans 3:25-26). It is only through confidence in the One who brings beauty from ashes (Isaiah 61:3) that I can face the brokenness of the world.

And as I prayed for the youngest member of our Institute family, that little boy lying there so sick, I felt God asking me to pray with confidence and yet also with humility. Because in the end, He is the one who knows all things. He is the only One who knows what is eternally best for each person. And yes, I am immensely thankful that God brought healing to the little one. But God would be just as sovereign and just as good, even if He had called that little child home.

Several weeks later, this is one of the puzzle pieces God brought together with some others to create a picture calling me into deeper trust of Him. You can read about that here.

So I don’t have answers to the questions about what I am supposed to do about the hurt and brokenness I see. I do know I am called to love and service for my Lord. But even if I did everything I possibly could…even if I were a real-life superhero…I could not eradicate poverty or suffering. Only God can do that, and right now He is not finished with the world yet. Which means there is still greater good and glory which can come from it.

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[1] Susie Larson, Alone in Marriage, Moody Publishers (2007), pg. 24.

To Walk Humbly

A little over a year ago, I took part in a labyrinth walk as part of the “Capstone” class at JBU. My intention of posting my writings from that class on this blog failed after about a month…but I wanted to go back and post the response I was asked to write about the labyrinth walk (edited a bit). This is because a couple weeks ago God put together several puzzle pieces in my life, including this experience from last March. To read more about the picture I saw take shape from the pieces, check out this post on my other blog.

A bit of background: The Capstone class primarily looked at six “streams” or traditions of Christian history/practice.[1] I’ll have to do a post some time with a bit about those. As part of our examinations into these types of orthopraxy,[2] we also had speakers come in or outside experiences. The latter included the labyrinth walk.

Labyrinth response                        written March 6, 2013

                I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the labyrinth experience. To be honest, I was apprehensively looking forward to it. {The apprehension part came from preconceptions I had and opinions I had heard expressed about such things.}

                I am really glad you {Dr. Burch – a great teacher!} went over the idea of the labyrinth some on Wednesday before we went out there {on Sunday, March 3}. I had expected it to be more structured, for Ben Hill {the homeowner who had built a labyrinth in his yard} to give us more specific “how to” suggestions so we would do it the right way. Of course, looking back, I realize that idea deals with one of my misconceptions…that things such as this are some sort of magic charm that you go through the right steps and get the perfect result. It makes sense that he did not give us specific guidelines, because this is more of a personal experience. At the same time, I appreciated the basic suggestion you had given us about going in with our hands closed and coming out with them open.

                Going into the experience, I had a good bit on my mind. On Thursday, I had a very low-point, sad experience and a more exciting, happy occurrence. With the former, there were questions of “why did this have to happen this way???” and with the latter, there were questions of “how will this application turn out? Will I get the internship that seems so perfect to me?” I knew that in both, God had a plan and had His reasons, even if I couldn’t see or understand them. But I always tend to question why—I always want to know what it is that will happen.

                So that’s what I was holding onto as I entered the labyrinth. God has been asking me a simple question over and over throughout the past year and a half or so: “Do you trust Me?” Usually my mind jumps to the “yes” answer, and then I try to align my emotions to that truth. But at other times I honestly have to say “no,” and then try to surrender whatever it is that I am trying to hold onto control of.

During the first few minutes {of the labyrinth walk} I was thinking through all of that. Then a verse “just happened” to pop into my mind: “What does the Lord require of you? But to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before your God” (the Esther paraphrase). My mind latched onto the “walk humbly” bit, wondering what that really meant in practicality. I continued thinking about other things, and then suddenly right as I was making one of the turns I nearly stood stock still – because the truth of that really struck me.

Thinking that I deserve to know why things happen the way they do—or wanting so badly to know what will happen ahead of time—is a sign of pride. God calls us to walk humbly before Him – that includes trusting Him and surrendering our “right” to know why and our ideal plans and dreams.

For most of the rest of the walk in, I was reflecting on that and confessing the sin of pride that I hadn’t really recognized before then. In the center—and then coming back out—I mostly prayed for the willingness to learn more of Christ’s humility. And I was able to just spend some time worshipping too, singing songs of praise in my mind. As I neared the exit, another thought came… “This is not the end goal, this is simply the preparation.” The fact is, I don’t know what’s going to happen in my life. What I do know is that God is transforming me to fulfill His purposes. And I truly am thankful that He’s the one in charge of all that and not me!

~~~~

So so true! And still such a lesson I need to be taken back to and reminded of over and over again….

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[1] The six, in the order we covered them in class, are: Contemplative {think monks/meditation}, Holiness {think Methodists}, Charismatic {obvious}, Social Justice {think “liberal”…to some extent}, Evangelical {what I considered “the best”/“mainstream” five years ago}, and Incarnational {think Episcopal}.

[2] “Orthopraxy” has to do with what a group of people views as correct religious practices. It can be compared/contrasted with “orthodoxy” – what a group of people views as correct religious beliefs.

The Likely Disciple

I’ve been walking around in a bit of a daze. A few minutes ago, as I write this, I finished reading a book. A book that I am still processing. It’s a make-Esther-stop-and-think kind of book. So what do I do in response?? I write.

Imagine this: a young college journalist from Brown University—the Ivy League school, not “my” JOHN Brown University—decides to spend a semester at Liberty University, a Christian school founded by Jerry Falwell of the Moral Majority. No, the student is not a Christian. He doesn’t believe much of what Liberty University exists to teach. But he goes as an experiment, to see if these conservative evangelicals are as crazy as the secular world thinks they are.

And, like any good journalist, he writes about his experience. The result is the 300-page book (in the Kindle edition) that I finished reading this evening—The Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner's Semester at America's Holiest University. My mentor and high school teacher/boss told me about the book and then sent it to me as a gift. Over the past week, in my down-time (sometimes just waiting for something on the Internet to load, or just for the Internet to work again) I dove in.

As I said above, the book made me think. In some ways, that is to be expected. Like the author Kevin Roose, I have practiced journalism. I attended a Christian college. But those are the similarities, not what made me think. What tickled my brain and made me feel the need to do some processing-writing were the differences.

He came at his project as an outsider. He did everything he could to blend in at Liberty because he wanted to get the real flavor there—but he did not naturally buy into any of it. And by the end of the book {SPOILER ALERT}, his experience failed to convince him that he needed to become an evangelical Christian.

If he is the Unlikely Disciple, that makes me a Likely Disciple. Not only did I grow up in a Christian home, I was homeschooled in a conservative Christian home. In all my 23.5 years, I’ve only been outside of the Christian bubble for about nine months—seven months living in China when I was 12 (though the type of community I was part of there makes it hardly count) and two months in a secular study/internship program in Washington, D.C. I attended a Christian college (that was actually less conservative than me), had a second internship with a Christian organization, and now find myself in the African bush with missionaries because God called me here when He shut the doors I had planned on.

So while we have a couple similarities, Kevin and I are worlds apart. What stopped me in my tracks tonight was the fact that he went through all the motions of being a good student at a conservative Christian university—one that was a lot more strict in its rules than where I went! The only thing he admits to getting reprimanded for is falling asleep in the chapel service. He tells about some of the Christian students there who were doing worse than he did during his “study abroad” semester at Liberty University.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that his book made me stop and think about what it is that makes me a Christian, and why it is that I do the things I do. It’s unnerving to think that it was so relatively easy for Kevin’s dorm-mates and class-mates to assume that he was a believer because of where he was and what motions he was going through. No, his book is not making me question my faith or doubt my salvation. But it certainly serves as a reminder that sometimes only God knows the heart, and that no amount of outward good deeds or rule following makes one a child of God.

It was enlightening to read his book because of his outsider-passing-as-insider status. He wrote his tale very well, tailoring it to be accessible to any audience. As he tells of struggling through taking Bible classes and learning the ropes of an evangelical community, he explains things that we Christians just take for granted. He did not naturally approach things with “biblical worldview glasses,” so his book is a chance to see my comfortable environment the way a non-Christian would. He’s honest—sometimes brutally so—about what bothers him; about where his real views clash with the persona he took on for a few months. He doesn’t pull punches, but at the same time he went through the process with a fairly open mind and he came out the other side with a somewhat-revised view of the conservative Christian community.

What I read in that book ranged from convicting to embarrassing to exciting to discouraging. At times, I wanted to cheer as he talked about his dorm-mates who encouraged him spiritually, even when they didn’t know they were witnessing to an unbeliever. In other sections, it bothered me—as it often does—to read a secular opinion of conservative Christian views about homosexuality, creationism, or environmentalism. Those are things that even my Christian college education have made me wrestle with over the past four-to-five years.

Of course, there’s a difference between how I have wrestled with it and how he did. Unlike Kevin, I am convinced of the truth of Christianity. That naturally does not mean that I have everything figured out theologically, or that I always live out/apply what I believe to my daily practice. At the end of the day, our starting points do make a big difference on where we end up on things.

And when I finished the last page of the book, before the swirling thoughts took over my brain, I prayed for Kevin. Because whether he believes it or not—and regardless of the fact that I believe some of his critiques were valid—I know he needs a Savior. We ALL do because we are all sinners. He spent a semester doing all the “right” Christian things. But that’s not going to save him, just as that is not what saves me. Whether unlikely or likely, Christ calls each of us to be His disciple. To follow Him on the path of spiritual transformation—to be conformed to His image. And like it or not, it’s a journey that never ends in this life.