No One Comes To The Father But Through Me...

 ⁶ Jesus answered, “I am the way

and the truth and the life. No one

comes to the Father except through me.

John 14:6

This morning I went to work at the cafe, a job I spend Monday afternoons at, and, as usual, our family friend came in to see me.  He is a wonderful man, very kind and quite intelligent.  He's also a Baha'i, as is his sweet wife.

For me, this has never really posed a problem.  God calls us to love our neighbours, not our Christian neighbours or our gay neighbours or our left-wing neighbours or our neighbours who are exactly like us, no; he calls us to love all of them.  And all of our neighbours includes my friend the Baha'i, and so I count myself fortunate to have such a kind, intelligent friend.  To love, however, is different than to condone wrong belief, and so although I love my friend, I don't agree with him, and I don't pretend to agree with him or miss any opportunity I can find to talk to him about his beliefs and challenge him to defend them.  I must be annoying.  I hope I'm annoying!

And he clearly does the same with me.  In fact, I would say he's quite a bit more opportunistic than I am about evangelizing the lost for the Baha'i faith.  I suffer from that oh-so-Canadian of personality traits: the desire not to offend anyone.

Which is not a trait a Christian is going to get very far with, let me tell you.  Jesus? He offended practically everybody.  The communion of saints?  Not known for their delicacy of speech.  The amorphous group of humans titled 'church ladies'?  *Ahem* NOT going to become diplomats anytime soon.

So we have 'conversations' a lot.  And because of simple timing they tend to happen while I'm working at the cafe, because it is usually empty and just the 2 of us and I have a short once a week shift.  And he lives next door, as well, and comes in for his lunch time coffee.  And we talk.  And he has never once convinced me of the truth behind Baha'ism and I think it is very unlikely I have ever convinced him of a single Christian truth!

But today was a bit different.  And actually I'm feeling a bit bad about it, which is further proof of my nationality.  Today my friend the Baha'i came in and noticed my new book.



An excellent read.

Anyhow, he noticed my book, which I am loving.  And from the title alone we started a 'conversation' that quickly flew from 'rights' all the way through vocations and landed, as I think we can all deduce, smack dab in the middle of 'Paul condoned slavery and opposed equal rights for women'.  We dusted off that issue a bit and marched into the parable of the landowner hiring workers at the same rate for different amounts of time and whether that was labour relations advice relevant to today and so on and so on.  It isn't really important (although it IS interesting) what we spoke about because the point relevant to this blog post is that....

{i was winning.}

I was.  I mean, yes, yes, you shouldn't think about it quite like that but really, I was.  It was a battleground today.  My friend was in unusually good form and is very well-versed in Baha'i theology and in addition to this was raised a Christian and knows much of what I will say before I say it.  Our conversations are usually a steam-roller over poor Amy who can barely keep her end up while he knocks giant holes in every arguement I have.

Except for today.  Today I was winning.  And it felt GOOD.  Today every parable he brought up I knew inside and out.  I was ready for him at every intellectual crossroads.  His usual smile was replaced by a grimace as we crept up to the half hour mark.  He brought up point after point which I very quickly knocked down.  It couldn't have been me speaking, it had to have been the Holy Spirit, because I'm not that smart.  I was on fire.  I was articulate and concise; I made timely interjections and excellent references.  He argued the historical accuracy of Baha'i teachings, I knocked him flat with the historical accuracy of Christianity.  He kept bringing up Bible passages that I used against him to prove my own case.  He was losing.  He was losing BIG TIME.

And I was jubilant!  I was so excited because I never win.  David is always on top of these arguements before I am and I never get a chance to really defend my faith.  And when I do get a chance I'm usually loaded with fifteen bags of groceries and a crying child and mutter something about 'Grace not works' and scurry away.  I'm never the champion.

This past week at a women's Bible study in town I confessed to the other ladies that I prayed to God to just once let me be the person who harvests the fruit.  Not the person who always 'plants the seed' only to discover that someone accepted Christ as their saviour on some other Christian's watch.  Always the bridesmaid....

I want to feel what it's like to see someone meet Jesus in front of me.  To watch their face.  To cry with them.  To maybe (pride speaking, perhaps?) help them in some way shed an old life and witness the birth of a new one.  I want to be the midwife.

And today in the cafe I was fighting for it.  I really 'let him have it'.  And then at some point the conversation started to involve another Christian in the restaurant who we both knew, and my friend the Baha'i stood up and left.  With purpose.  And all of a sudden I felt awful.

I had tried to force it.  I had felt that prideful desire to prove my point, a point that the Holy Spirit is perfectly capable of proving himself thank you very much, and I had made him upset.  I felt terrible.

Had I spoken untruth?  No.  But truth has it's own power and doesn't gain power through being shouted.  Truth can be whispered.  It can be spoken with a smile.  It gains nothing by being forced.

I'm not sorry to have said the things I said to my friend.  I feel pride, the good kind, I think, at having been able to stand up for my faith.  But I feel unhappy that my desire to win took me beyond where we were both comfortable with the conversation.  And now perhaps instead of thinking on the words I said he will think on the context of how they were said, and he will think poorly of me, and of the truth I spoke.