WINDOWS TO THE SOUL

My wife and I just came from an outing to a local street market fair. Everyone once and a while we love to stroll passed the booths and look for bargains and interesting items they have for sale. Sometimes they have more interesting offerings than usual. Tonight it is close to the end of the summer season for this event so there were less booths and items than say in July.

The one thing they never have a shortage of, however, is booths peddling whatever view of Christianity happens to decide this is a form of evangelism. Personally I am not against using different means to share the gospel, I just get totally bored with those that are far more interested in preaching at you than caring about you as a person. As if God really approves of that approach.

To me the real window to soul will never be open unless you take the time to listen to what a person really believes. That means treating them as a person and caring enough to show respect to their actually having a brain. How can you honestly expect them to listen or care about what you think if you treat them like an idiot.

And unfortunately tonight what I encountered were the “in your face, self righteous, I know the truth and if you don’t agree with me you’re going to hell” types. Not once did they ever bother to ask me a single question about what I believed or anything else about me as a person.

Oh they sure were anxious to brow beat me with their spiritual prejudice, but whether I needed to hear it didn’t matter. This is to me a form of spiritual fascism. The kind hides in the shadow of the cross so you won’t be able to see the hate the truly drives them. They excuse their insulting nature, self righteous attitude and general animus towards any one who might question their motives as suffering for Jesus.

Oh I agree they are suffering. But it is from being spiritually blind. They have no true key to open the windows of another person’s soul because they have never let the Holy Spirit open the window to their own soul.

But as long as hate and love are twins in the minds of those who only want to use their bibles to give you a headache instead of heal or save, this type of behavior will continue to mar the body of Christ and our image. It will continue to serve everything, but God’s purposes and will only truly end with the person deceived into thinking they have truly furthered the cause of Christ.

As for me, well I do always try to start by asking to what the person wants to say. I can’t say I always succeed, but I try. Along the way, once and a while I do see a window to someone’s soul actually open.

It is amazing the number of times doing this allows light to enter that the person would otherwise never see. Mercifully God’s light of truth is not extinguished by the shadows on our hearts.