Into The Wilderness (Pt.4)

Lord, was Jeremiah called when he was around twenty years old?
He was so young.

In the past, whenever I thought about how Calvin experienced conversion at 23 and published Institutes of the Christian Religion at 26, I’d feel crushed by how much time I’d wasted.

But now, I just feel terribly young, the calling far too heavy, and myself utterly powerless—yet still too afraid to run.

I’m more like a child, learning to walk with stumbling steps.

I don’t know why I’ve always subconsciously compared myself to the great saints you once used so mightily.

Even though I tried to live out my faith in worldly ways, if you hadn’t pushed me forward with increasingly impossible revelations, I probably would’ve never dared step over the line.

But I must admit—from childhood, during every moment I was consciously aware of your presence—I was always comparing myself to Augustine, Luther, and Calvin.

I used to think it was ambition, vanity.
But now I see—it was simply my soul’s innate thirst for truth, a glory not yet refined.

For truth, and for your glory, we must write—we must cry out.

Another Sunday service, like all the others.

I still tried to find your will in the pastor’s passionate sermon, but felt only emptiness.

When the sermon ended, soft music began to play, and the auditorium entered its usual “emotional atmosphere.” People stood up to sing I Surrender All. I caught sight of that female elder in the front row, arms wide open, utterly immersed.

I couldn’t help frowning.

That elder, who had no reverence or awareness of the Kingdom’s advance—how could she sing so tenderly and loudly, I Surrender All?

Abraham on Mount Moriah, Job on the ash heap, Jeremiah in the cistern, Jesus in Gethsemane—
None of them sang I Surrender All.

Martin Luther could not have sung like this on the day granted by the Pope at the Diet of Worms.

Nor could Calvin have sung like this after being struck by Farel’s spiritual intimidation.

Anyone who has truly surrendered knows—it’s not a song.

It’s death.

I squinted, recalling the things she had said to me—words completely detached from Scripture. In her, I saw the Grand Inquisitor from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, interrogating Jesus.

Turning my head slightly, I saw Tina a few rows back. She no longer had her arms raised like she used to.

I remembered our first trip together earlier this year, how in a church atop the mountain, she looked up at the dome and said, “God and the saints in heaven are watching us gently.”

My first reaction then was shame:
“Woe is me, for I am undone! I am a woman of unclean lips.”

I was baffled at how she could so joyfully partake in the glory of heaven. Now that I knew she was lying about her past at that time, I felt even more puzzled.

I’ve also never been able to empathize with why she looks at the Jesus statue with such deep affection every time she enters a church, touches its feet, and uses an AI-generated image of Jesus as her phone screensaver.

It’s not the real Jesus, after all.

Instead of being appalled by Jesus’ suffering to the point of repentance, she caressed those sculptures, reveling in a “moved by suffering” intoxication. Meanwhile, the Jesus in her screensaver was bloodless, unblemished, with idealized features, glowing softly.

Later, she showed me some notes she had written about God’s grace for her. The language was shallow, almost as if she had turned God’s sovereign acts into affirmations of her own personality.

Then one day, she said, “God created me because He needed a thoughtful lover.”

I replied sarcastically, “If I call God my Father, should I call you ‘Mom’?”

She didn’t even notice the sarcasm. Instead, she beamed, “Sure! You lack motherly love anyway—I can be your mom.”

“I saw you as a sister in Christ—and you want to be my mother.”

When the truth was finally dragged out of her, there was no remorse for the falsehoods, but rather a carefree display of pride, going so far as to exploit Christ’s glory to feed her self-obsession.

Eventually, when she stopped pretending kindness and began using spiritual jargon to trample my sincerity from her pedestal, I saw clearly—and exposed—the logic of survival behind her lies.

I don’t blame her, nor any thirsty soul.

I blame the whole system.

Because looking back now, I realize with horror—

The culture of modern evangelical churches is nurturing narcissists!

At the end of the service, when the lead pastor closed with his usual words,

“Don’t do life alone—we are a family,”

I stood up without hesitation and strode out of the auditorium.

The moment I pushed open the doors and stepped outside, the sunlight struck like a trumpet blast from heaven—
silent, yet undeniable.

I walked through the bustling crowd,
following the One who walked alone into Gethsemane,
and into my own wilderness.

You had been waiting there for me, for a long time.

I’ve come to keep watch with you.