Universal Truth Mindshift

I do believe in a universal truth and that the universal truth comes from a higher power.  More specifically, I believe in the Christian God of the Bible and that the truth comes from Him.

Growing up in the Assembly of God Church, I developed this idea that our job as Christians is to seek and pray for the revelation of this universal truth and then God would set us on that "straight and narrow" path and we'd know we were in His perfect will.  The problem was, no matter how much I prayed, no matter how much I sought, no matter how much I read, listened, and studied, I never felt that I found that perfect will path.  In fact, I became paralyzed, afraid to even move because I wasn't sure if anything I was doing was part of that perfect path.

I have since changed my mindset.  Instead of believing that if I did enough faithful Christian stuff He would reveal His perfect Universal Truth path for me to merrily walk upon the rest of my life, I now believe that it is a journey upon this earth and He slowly reveals the Universal Truth through our choices in life.  We don't get it all at once and then live life.  We live life and learn it along the way.

This helps me not to fear making choices, anymore.  I am not literally afraid in my laundry room wondering if turning on the warm water instead of washing in cold water is being a bad steward and not saving that half a penny, and stepping off of Christ's path.

I don't have to be afraid of changing churches, befriending someone who doesn't share my beliefs, making decisions.  I can more easily live within the reality of my life here on earth instead of trying to find answers and open doors to a VERY narrow and elusive perfect path that I thought I had to be on.

Discomfiture of Modern Evangelism

You can imagine that being Evangelical meant a very strong emphasis on evangelism.  It was about "winning souls" and "the sinner's prayer" and "going out the collect the harvest."

I always struggled with this.  I'm shy, introverted, and always seemed to either anger people, or encounter those who could out-argue me.  It began to dawn on me that that which I saw and believed so plainly, others could not.  I even began to see the absurdity in believing what I believed.  In the logic of human tangible facts, faith is an anomaly.

Furthermore, I saw evangelical ministries flounder and fail time and time again.  If it was charitable, it was merely used by a community that had no desire to take the bait and join the church.  More often than not, someone who did get swept up into the church would leave after their spiritual high and honeymoon were over.

Around here where I live, evangelical churches have a very very minimal actual growth rate of true converts.  Mostly, they just recycle the same Christians.  They get disillusioned or bored or angry with one church, one denomination, and so they move to another.  A new "church" with a great advertising campaign opens up and perhaps some straggling unchurched join the "revival" for a time, but eventually it peters out.

To press on with my original point, I always struggled with the evangelical model.  It seemed ineffective and even hated (I mean, really, who likes being bothered on a street or have someone knocking on your door asking you personal questions on the spot).  I remember being told to speak about Jesus to my classmates.  Be bold!  I tried.  It was a mess.  Most of them just thought I belonged to some cult.

However, it was doctrinally pounded into us that we must evangelize or else we were saddening and angering God (not in those words) and perhaps even risked entry to heaven (odd for those who believe in once saved always saved).  Up until yesterday evening I still felt the burden of guilt concerning my lack of bold evangelization.

Then, I read Elizabeth LeSeur's diary.  In it, around 1906, she realized something important, profound.  Silence.  She was advised and convicted that she talked too much about her spiritual life.  She evangelized too much.  It was, simply by being a talking point, a matter of egotism.  She saw that it put the focus much on her, was a distraction from true conversion, and was largely ineffective.

Her remedy was silence on the matter.  Should would return to prayers, suffering, and service - only speaking of her spirituality when charity demanded it.  In that Christ could work, the Holy Spirit could move and true heart changes could become rather than people being swept away in contempt, or carried off by emotions only to crash when the emotions and aesthetics lost their charms and wore off.

We are light and salt.  Light doesn't make noise.  Neither does salt.  Our neighbors don't need us knocking on their doors and asking personal questions.  They need us being shining examples of piety and flavoring and preserving good.  That might mean leaving the Bible at home and instead picking up a rake.  That might mean knocking on the door with a tray of cookies or needful groceries, instead of leaving Chick Tracts.  (Oh, how I hate Chick Tracts!)

It doesn't mean hiding behind a veneer of perfection.  It means not drawing attention to our imperfection.  The Bible says that when we fast we ought to suffer in silence, and not make a show of our suffering.  That doesn't mean to lie and be unrealistic.  It means giving of ourselves in joy for God's glory and not succumbing to egotism of self.  We can take care of ourselves without making it a thing.

In conclusion, I write that reading Elizabeth LeSeur's journal helped lift off the guilt I had concerning evangelism.  I never ever "won a soul" by evangelizing.  However, I did have one person come to me years later and thank me for my example and my living and that seeing that one could be a Christian with joy and life helped him become a Christian (and not only that, become a Catholic!).  I was shocked, to say the least, as the time of my example that he was referring to was a time I struggled, and yet it was a witness.  Praise be to God!