“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
― Plato
Some people would say I have some wild and strange ideas about life, but what if...
I met a man at a coffee shop and he invited me to his church. He wanted me to teach there and I wondered why he chose me. Before he would take me to experience his church, Paul asked me to join him in a different kind of experience to help me understand why his church was different. I agreed.
We pulled up in front of a haunted house. I looked around hoping we were not about to go in. I am not one who likes to be frightened. The world is scary enough. But, all the hoping and silent prayers did not work, because he led me inside. He grabbed my arm and led me through a maze of zombies, monsters with chain saws and what was supposed to be several ghosts. I found my heart racing as I was happy he was leading me through quickly. About the time I wondered what the point of this fear filled stop was, we entered a completely dark room. I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. Fear gripped my throat and to make it worse, this was when he decided to release my arm.
"This is the part I want to show you."
I had to speak loudly to be heard over the groaning and screams in the room, "I can't see anything. What could you be showing me?"
"There is a place on the wall that you have to push to open the door to get out. Can you find it?"
As I reached for the wall I grabbed a person and they let out a loud scream. I immediately let go. I didn't want to reach out, because I did not know what I would touch. I was afraid to stand still because of what might grab me. I would work up the courage to reach out, but every time I did I touched a person and we both screamed. There was a couple times when I touched something strange and an evil laugh or moan would come from it. The longer I was in the room, the more afraid I was to reach out, to look for the escape button.
Then suddenly, someone hit the right place on the wall and a small door opened slowly to what appeared to be a crawl space. Because of the amount of time we had been in the room, the light through the door was too bright. I actually found myself shrinking away from it. The light also fell across two terrifying beings who scrambled to close it off again after only one person escaped. The sight of these monsters caused me to cower back into a corner of the room where I slid down the wall and covered my head. I wanted out, but I didn't know how to get out.
Then I heard what I believed was Paul's voice, "Reach out to me and I will lead you out of here."
I was afraid, but I slowly reached out in front of me and I felt him take my arm. We walked only a couple steps from where I was and he hit the wall causing the small door to pop open. The scary beings immediately rushed toward us to close the door, but Paul raised his hand to them and said, "Stay back. I'm getting her out of here." To my surprise they did and I hit my knees to crawl through the doorway and into the light.
I was relieved to be outside and it took several minutes for my eyes to adjust fully to the bright sunshine. Paul was already on his way to the car and I hurried to catch up. We rode in silence for about five minutes while I tried desperately to shake off the feelings left with me from the darkened room. A couple times Paul reached over and patted my shoulder and flashed a smile.
We pulled up in front of a house. "Let's go in." Paul paused a second smiling at me and I knew he knew exactly how I felt.
I soon realized we were at Paul's house. We went inside and he grabbed a bottle of water for each of us, before he led me to the basement. There I saw a few mismatched chairs and a table with a coffee pot and bibles.
"This is where we meet, where we have church." He sat on one of the old chairs and took a long drink of water. "Not what you expected?"
"Not really."
"We meet here three times a week. People come on the day they need it. When we are too many for the room one will open their house and we branch out. We are meeting in about 12 homes right now."
"You asked me to teach? Why me?"
"We are all teachers. We make disciples and send them out."
"So, with all these families coming to 12 houses are you close to find a building to meet in?"
"We have no plans to pay for a building. We keep cost down so we can go out and minister to the lost."
"I don't get it. How do you bring in new people?"
"I'm about to show you." This time we walked to a house 3 doors down from Paul's house. "This is the one place we rent."
We stepped inside to house full of people. Some were cooking, some were loading a van parked in the back alley with food, and some were talking with obvious homeless people. I stood back and watched people praying together and one woman going through racks of clothes in what would normally be a dining room. She held a shirt up in front of her daughter to see if it would fit.
"This is where the money goes. We cook here every day and bring it to families down on there luck and to the homeless. We disciple them, lead them to Christ, get them back on their feet and then turn them loose. Who better to minister to the lost than the found?" He laughed as he picked up a hot pan of stew and walked out to the van. A women handed me two bags and nodded after Paul so I followed.
After we set the items in the van, I asked, "This all looks good Paul, but what did the dark room have to do with how I see your... church?"
"Well, many times we make sure our church buildings are filled with comfortable chairs, hot coffee, separate services for the children and greeters, but how many unbelievers walk in off the street to experience all those comforts? Mostly it's a stale Christian taking up that chair and complaining that the coffee is too weak. Who really needs to be fed? The dark room was where the unbelievers are. We have to shine the light into their lives for them to see their way out. Of all the people in the room, we saw one find his own way out. Most of them need somebody with the light to not only go in and get them, but to war against the forces trying to close the door on them. You felt it, didn't you? You felt the fear of the light, because it exposed what was in the room. I saw you shrink back into the comfort of a dark corner and cover your head. That's what the unbeliever's do."
I thought back to the short time I spent in the darkness. How it took Paul to come and get me, take my hand, lead me to the light and demand that the spooks let us leave. He spoke with an authority I was not feeling at the time. I was suddenly embarrassed about the church I was attending, with it's comfortable chairs and espresso. It was nice, but how many people could be fed with the money it took to purchase all those luxuries provided to a crowd of people who were not going out as disciples, but were constantly and consistently showing up to be fed. Maybe we should be passing out baby bottles instead of coffee.
The Lord has not called us to be comfortable. He has not promised us recliners and sushi. He has not promised us this life would be easy, in fact the opposite is true. This can and will be difficult, but He is with us. A $5 mocha every day can feed a person, every day. The time is short and people are dying. They are feeling around for a way out of that dark room, while we sit in the room next to them complaining that the screaming is too loud for us to hear the TV, the food we were just served is cold and that car payment is really stretching us. Really? We will live in the lap of luxury for eternity, while people are starving in the present. How many times do we ask, "Why does God let those children in those other countries starve?" And God asks, "Why are you letting them starve? I have provided to you more than enough."
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
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