The Older Brother

Today, Wednesday, November 17, 2010, I made my usual trip to the Aloha restaurant for a real American hamburger. As usual I prayed that I would see God’s hand at work. I sat there enjoying my food, but nothing spiritual seemed to be happening, so I prayed some more and asked that someone would cross my path. Almost immediately an English speaking Chinese waitress came to my table and boldly started talking to me. She said, “Christians from the west come to me and tell me that if I am to be a Christian I must do certain things and obey God’s rules.” She continues, “Something doesn’t seem quite right to me. What do you think?”

My mind shifts into overdrive and I visualize the American church filled with “Older Brother” types as described by Jesus in Luke 15:25 – 32. It is true that many of these “Older Brothers” have been saved, but they still tend to display the old characteristics. The church has sent some of them here to China to work and that work is influenced by their background. These are the ones that have been talking to my waitress. In a way they are trying to get her to join a Christian religion, not a relationship of love with God from which she would then be obedient.

With all the warmth of God I felt just then, I said to her, “God is love and his love can be described by eight characteristics. If a person has asked God into his or her life and his love is active within that person then you should experience these characteristics when you are with that person. Those characteristics are ‘joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control’ (Galatians 5:22 – 23). If you have God living in you and his love is active within you then you will automatically out of love obey God and as a side benefit, enjoy these characteristics.” She looks at me and says, “It is because of those characteristics I see and feel when I am around you that have drawn me to talk with you. Can I have your phone number so we can continue to talk?” Since I will be leaving China in a few days I gave her my email address so we could continue our conversation.

I come up against this western philosophy again and again in the coffee shop. It is beginning to chafe at me more than the restrictions from the Chinese Government. This American Christianity is like a business with its programs and projects, goals and evaluations, and those rules you must follow that we teach in our classes. It also has a time frame in which we feel things should be accomplished. As I spend time with God I am beginning to believe that he is more Chinese in his time than he is western. The things I find missing are a fullness of his love, a humble spirit showing mercy, and a walk of faith with demonstrations of his power. In America we are way too self-sufficient and as a result we have little idea of how to let God work. The work we try to do for God is nothing compared to the work God wants to do through us if we would let him according to his time table.

It seems that in China children are taught that there is no God. In America they are taught that we must work for God. Both miss the point and are very hard to correct. In China there are two things I have to work hard at. The first is to convince the Chinese that there is indeed a living and intelligent, loving God. The second is for me to stop making plans and working hard to let God make the plans, tell me about them, and then execute those plans through me. Surrendering to him, in this, is I believe the reason this has become the best China trip yet.