Giving others the chance… yet walking in “restedness’

meekness — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 02:39:40 +0000

Let me share my most recent experience in doing pre-evangelism with a Taxi driver (a few days ago) that led to an opportunity to share some parts of the gospel. I hope that this will encourage you that even though we need each day to give those we meet a chance to take one step closer to Christ, we don’t have to live in restlessness for fear we haven’t done all we can do to lead others to Christ each day!

One of the things that I am trying to learn to do in my every day witness is to rest in God knowing that He will use my words and time to His ultimate glory. As a result, I don’t have to worry that I have to say everything I want to say to someone in the one conversation I have with them. I also don’t believe that I have the ultimate responsibility for someone coming to Christ. With this attitude, I am able to walk in “restedness” in my witness to whoever God puts in my path. This means that I believe that God may call us to play different roles in our witness to others and our primary responsibility is to just be faithful with the time and opportunities that He has given us. He alone is responsible for the outcome of our interaction with others.

I never know when I get into a taxi whether the conversation will move in a spiritual direction in such a way that the driver will want to continue the spiritual dialog once I’ve raised some spiritual issues. When I got into a taxi a few days ago and after talking to the driver for several minutes, I did not see any avenues open for dialog that may lead to some kind of spiritual dialog, despite using the common questions I normally ask such as “I am curious how you can make any money as a taxi driver when petro prices keep rising?” For some reason today, this taxi driver did not take the bait to continue the dialog. He didn’t really say anything in response.

Then God brought to mind another possible door to continue the engagement. I mentioned to him that though I am a Christian, my wife’s parents are Buddhist/Taoist and yet they strived to get rich by buying the lottery. I mentioned that it seems that many taxi drivers who claimed to be “Buddhists” spend their money to win the lottery but end up losing more than they ever thought possible. My point was that not only do taxi drivers have difficulty making money because petro prices keep rising, but also some of them (though they claim to be Buddhists) lose some of the little money they do make by gambling it away as well. Then I asked, “Why is it that some Singaporeans who claim to be Buddhist also seem to also be the first to be in line for their lottery ticket?” His reply was that many of them are not strict Buddhist but a mixture of Buddhist and Taoistic beliefs.

My follow-up question was if many Singaporean Buddhists don’t really give up totally on the issue of desiring (that Buddha taught) then it seems to me that they are taking a little truth from different religious beliefs. Then I asked, “How do they know then what they should actually believe? How do they sort this out as to what is the right way to believe?” He didn’t know what to say to this but mostly kept quiet. However I could tell that my questions were making him think and that he was intrigued by my questions.

I went on further by saying that I’ve even noticed that some who have idols in their homes observed certain forms of rituals and worship not always because they really believe in these gods and want to worship them, but because they believe that if they stop observing these rituals they would be fearful of these gods’ retribution and /or believe somehow they will be exposed to bad luck.

After saying that, the taxi driver then said, “well I don’t have any belief, I am a free thinker.” So I asked in reply “So you don’t have idols in your home?” He answered, “Well I do, but I don’t’ believe in them.” I asked him why would he keep these things in his home and he said that it is more of a sign of respect for his dead ancestors. I responded by saying, “One thing I am always curious about Singaporeans who have idols in their home is why would someone “fear” the lesser spirits rather than the God who created all of us.”

Then I said, “Do you know what I mean by that?” He said “Yes.”

To make sure he did understand what I meant, I said that “Christians believe that there is one God who created the universe and this God is separate from what he created. Consequently we shouldn’t be worshiping different gods.” He did seem to agree that it was pointless to worship these spirits. I tried to discern whether he really believed this by saying, “So does that mean you believe that even if you remove the idols from your home, you won’t receive any bad luck?” He said yes, he didn’t believe he would receive any bad luck even if he removed the idols form his home.

After a few minutes, I asked him this key transition question, “Do you know what Christians believe about the issue of desire as it relates to the concerns that Buddha himself expressed?” I explained that Christians believe that contrary to Buddha, the answer to man’s problems was not to give up on desire but to have the right desire. I explained that Christians believe that when we invite Jesus Christ to come into our lives and forgive us of our sins we are asking him to change our insides so that we desire the good things we know we should desire (Matt. 5: 6; Phil. 2:13). Then I asked him if he has ever heard Christianity explained in this way before and he said no.

I waited to see how he responded to what I had to say and to my surprise he asked me something else about Islam! He asked me why are there so many radical Muslims blowing up innocent people. I told him that one of the major reasons is because in Islam, unlike Christianity, there was no assurance to one’s salvation. I explained that some Muslims teach that the only way to have any assurance to get to Heaven is if they die in a holy Jihad. That is why there are so many racial Muslims willing to commit suicide if it assures them of a place in heaven. However, Christians believe that we can have an assurance of a relationship with our Creator after this life.

By this time, we were at my destination. I gave him my card and told him to feel free to contact me if he had any additional questions.

I could tell from my interaction with him he was intrigued by what I said but was not ready to see the implications in terms of his own life and the sin that that kept him separated from God. Nevertheless, I do believe that our conversation could be a spring board that God could use with future conversations with Christians.

The main point I want to communicate is that we don’t know if what we say at a particular time and in a particular situation with our friends, family, or co-workers, or even strangers, will aide them in taking steps towards Christ. Yet we do know that we have the responsibility to do our part to give them that chance on a daily basis. May God give us the desire each day to make that a reality is someone’s life!

Stories From the Field

Giving others the chance… yet walking in “restedness’