Stories From the Field

Moving From Fear To Enlightenment…

October 3, 2007 on 9:45 pm | In Acquaintances | Comments Off

In talking to a young Chinese gal this week who claimed to be a “free thinker,” I uncovered in my conversation that she doesn’t always live her life as a free thinker. She told me sometimes she even goes to the Buddhist temple to pray and that she does believe very strongly in spirits and the power they have over people.

I realize what a barrier this is to Christianity for many here in the East. My (Singaporean) wife once told me that as a teenager (before she became a Christian) she went to church a few times but thought her gods were going to punish her for doing this. Therefore the first important step in removing barriers to faith was to share with her my wife’s story and her fear of spirits. I also explained that when my wife became a Christian, nothing really bad happened to her. I told her that I too have had experiences with evil spirits and that I believe that they have some power but emphasized that they do not have power like our Creator over life and death.

I asked her this important question, “Why should we fear the lesser spirits rather than our Creator who created all of us?” After a few minutes of dialogue, she confessed that she did believe in some kind of god (but she didn’t specify what type). Then I asked her, “Do you believe that evil spirits are greater than good spirits?” She told me that she did, based in part on some of her prior experiences.

To help her understand that her line of thinking in this matter was not right, I probed, “Do you decide what is good based on the standard of evil or rather do you decide what is evil based on the standard of that which is good? Which one is primary?” After thinking for a moment, she confessed that she does decide what is evil based on the standard of that which is good. I continued, “so if good is primary, then wouldn’t our Creator have to be good also since good is primary?” I further asked “wouldn’t our good creator also be more powerful than any other evil spirit?” After a few moments she said to me that what I said did make a lot of sense.

Later in our conversation, I asked her if she had heard of a Christian writer named C.S. Lewis. She said that she did not. I told her that C.S. Lewis was once an atheist and that one of his arguments against God was based on all the injustice in the world. I explained to her that one day C.S. Lewis realized that his argument against God was really an argument for God. I explained that he realized that the only way he could say that the world was full of injustice is if he had some kind of standard of justice to measure the injustice by. Furthermore the only way he could know that something was ultimately unjust is if there was ultimately a standard of justice that he was measuring the injustice by. So he too realized that good was primary and that God must exist and that He must be good. I also told her that he eventually became a Christian.

After removing this barrier in her thinking (that evil was more powerful than that what was good), I told her that as a free thinker she really ought to check out what different religions teach because if there is a God who created all of us, then it really does matter that we believe that right thing. I further asked her one key head bridge question, “If you were coming to the end of your life and you meet Jesus and other religious leaders and each suggested a different path, whose advice would you take?” I asked, “Wouldn’t you take the advice of someone who has gone to the other side and then come back to tell us about it?” After this she smiled because she knew that I was referring to the fact that Christians believe that Jesus rose from the dead. I could tell she wasn’t ready to go much further that day so at that point I changed the conversation topic. I know that I stirred some things in her heart and hopefully the next time I see her she will eagerly embrace another stimulating dialog.

In our next encounter, I would like to build upon my previous conversations by asking her where she thinks evil come from in the first place. Hopefully this will give me an opportunity to help her understand more clearly the concept of sin and explain what our Creator’s plans were for us from the beginning. I was thankful that God allowed me to help her think through her beliefs a little more clearly and remove one possible obstacle in taking one step closer to Christ!