Another Narrow Gate: Honesty
I sometimes felt that I won’t have any more communication with the Christian community that I encountered in China. This article, written in mid-March 2024, is a compilation of past snippets, so it is not very coherent. Lord, forgive me that my love is so limited.
I truly lack love. We are all so pitiful, so lacking in love. Even when we believe in the Lord, we often want to show that we know the truth better than others, rather than love them better.
Why can’t we truly love people? Because we don’t understand what people are fundamentally; why don’t we understand what it means to be human? Because we are not honest, always deceiving ourselves and others. Why do we keep deceiving ourselves? Because it’s safe, it’s comfortable, it’s even smart, it’s just. Well, there are too many people to blame for this reality, at least we can trace it back to Confucius.
I suspect Confucius wanted to serve as a counselor to the monarch because deep down, he lacked confidence. So, he sought to validate his correctness by relying on imperial authority, essentially deceiving himself and others. But it’s no big deal that he didn’t become an official; he could still deceive himself and others among the common people. He boasted and pretended, not even writing a single character on his own. With three thousand disciples who served as typists and secretaries, no one would crack down his education and training industry. How satisfying.
Lord, from the moment we elevated a finite person to the position of a truth speaker, we’ve been no longer able to hear you. This land will only be filled with man-made disasters, never able to possess your grace.
Countless missionaries have martyred themselves here. Yet their success lies only in awakening a very small number of individuals. And what I aim to do is to become one of these individuals, being marginalised, never to assimilate into this land.
I devoted all my reflection to overcoming my family of origin without understanding universal human nature. When I decided to no longer participate in fellowship at the age of about 20, I also abandoned my faith. Since then, I have never truly joined any fellowship or church again. But when a sister told me, “Don’t expect others to be as incisive as you,” while continually urging me to attend their fellowship activities again to hear others’ opinions… I really didn’t know what to say to her. I need love, I actually don’t care about any opinion, I just reacted like a stress response to Chinese style moral discipline.
I don’t think it’s a good choice for us to oversimplify things and put oneself into the group first. Listening the testimony of others is a public act, done to practice love, but understanding truth always comes through constantly examining yourself, as an individual. He is subjective and unique, as is each individual created by Him. There’s no such thing as being more objective means being closer to the truth.
The diversity of perspectives is a methodology for loving others. But living in a pagan culture, if we are not incisive and fanatical, we will be swallowed up by it in the daily drip.
Our culture and social norms have already set up another narrow gate for us: honesty, don’t deceive yourself or others. Of course, this is not just a cultural issue, but a universal human trait; it’s just that we’re particularly unlucky… We can gloriously deceive ourselves in the “correct” way.
You do good deeds, worship the Lord, and are humble and grateful, but you don’t even have the courage to hear my honesty.
I don’t know how devastated Peter was experiencing that scene, but every time I read it, I feel quite afraid. I try to cross this narrow gate, but I’ve already made it difficult for myself to move an inch. As for the narrow gate “faith” that Abraham crossed… to be honest, at the moment I dare not even think about it.
If you yourself have not yet leaped over this “honesty” narrow gate, have not established your own subjectivity, then diversity of perspectives is meaningless.
Objectivity, go with the flow and listen to others, are all nonsense; you’re just being lazy in the beautifully crafted “correct” words and habitual notions that can’t withstand questioning; you don’t even know where you stand. How can those who have abandoned subjective free will truly practice love?
Clinging together in laziness is just mutual deception; pretending everything is fine when it’s not. If you are truly the group of people who believe in God and obey God, then why is it that the number of people in this collective is so large now yet still invisible in society?
Finally, if you still don’t have any courage to face this narrow gate, please don’t judge those who come seeking truth anymore, don’t guide those fortunate children who have known Christ since childhood.
They have the opportunity to become unique individuals created by God again themselves. Please don’t become one of the stumbling blocks on their journey to rebirth.