Last Saturday was my first time to go witnessing in Deep Ellum. I tagged along with Jason Martin. We didn't get very far geographically as we ended up engaged in a conversation with a guy named Quinton outside a very popular club for almost the entire night. At first, Quinton's friend, who name is Seven [very cool name :-], was there talking with us as well, but he left about 10 minutes into the conversation. Seven seemed to be troubled by our topic of conversation, I think in a good way though, a way where he was hearing the truth and it was uncomfortable, not in a detached flippant, 'I don't care' sort of a way.
In one sense, Quinton was awesome to talk to. He had lots of good questions and wasn't afraid to ask. Jason started talking to him about God's standard and how if we don't meet it we are going to get what we deserve: hell. He didn't put it quite so bluntly but stresed the point that poeple walk around thinking they are good but the Bible says we are not and if we really took a second to stop and examine us and our world we would see how completely ungood we are. Quinton had alot of application questions such as - if a man were to break into your house and threaten your family would it be okay to kill him, and would it be wrong to not pay your taxes even though the government is corrupt and if a judge were to follow the Bible doesn't that mean that he's supposed to forgive a murderer and not punish him, etc. He had a hard time understanding that God's punishment is just and good. This is understandable because we are confronted everyday by man's punishment of another man which is flawed and often not really just nor good. Sometimes, is hard to understand the otherness of God, and how He can be something that man cannot be.
Quinton's questions all stemmed from the core issues of justice and respect. I think this is partly because of the historical injustices that have been committed against African Americans. I was mentioning to Jason that often African Americans seem more respectful to you and will listen to what you have to say. They seem more conscious about giving respect because they know what its like to go without it - where, sometimes, people like me who have always had respect, demand it without thought. Because of this, Quinton had a hard time giving up his own sense of what justice should be. In the end, he kept asking the same questions wanting a different answer because he didn't like the truth.
Man runs around trying to be his own god. But he did not create himself, he cannot stop himself from dying or make the sun come up or add an inch to his own height. Who are we to decide what is good and what is evil when we cannot even do a simple thing such as cause our head to grow an extra hair?Man deceives himself into thinking he has control when all around him is evidence that he does not. Even as followers of Christ, we do this same thing. The Bible says the wisdom of God is foolishness to man. Quinton's struggles and his questions highlighted in me the constant need to hand over my life to Christ and my ideals of how things should be and to be sure that I am living according to what IS truth, even if its uncomfortable or difficult.
The night wrapped up around 1am with a brief encounter with a homeless guy [I think he was homeless] but I honestly forgot his name. I think it was John (or maybe Steve?) anyhow, he was really cool and was selling candy bars and I had wished that I could've bought some from him but I didn't have any cash on me. This made me resolve to take some cash next time. Who knows but that next time my abundance could bless someone in need?
1 comment:
Of all of the disciplines, it's evangelism that I have the most difficulty with, so I admire that you went to Deep Ellum and had such a thought-provoking experience. Funnily enough, in a conversation about evangelism, the other person mentioned DE, so it's interesting that you were there around the same time.
And you're right, we've got such a skewed human perspective. We try to fit God into our definition of wrong or right, just or unjust and because we can never understand Him fully, in this flesh we can never grasp how He's working things out. But it's a testament to Him and how he made us all the same; we search for fairness, we search for answers instead of just winding along, doing whatever we want and not caring about others or the effect of our actions on them.
Miss you so much - school lets out soon, and I hope to visit you over the break.
Post a Comment