Thursday, January 1, 2015

Life in Community: Child of Faith

I sat her down with me and took a deep breath. "Do you know why we came to Cambodia?"

"No." She smiled and shook her head.

"We came to tell about Jesus, to give people a chance to decide if they want to follow Him or not."

"I want to follow Him." Her firm words surprised me. "I heard when I was little and even went to that church with the drunk pastor for a while, but I didn't understand. Now I do. Now I know Jesus is so easy."

The Christians in our village are not looked upon kindly. Some who became followers have since gone back to the wat and become more accepted. Christians Dalin has seen are poor and old. Dalin has seen us struggle, has seen our sorrows and our sins firsthand. We have talked about how all people, regardless of if they follow Jesus or not have problems, big problems.

What in the world could she mean by easy?

When our conversation came to an end after we concluded that we needed to honor her parents in this process, I pondered her words again: easy.

Although we have had conversations about our faith with Dalin and even told her many Bible stories, mostly Dalin reads our Bibles. When she has time for rest, she sits down in a quiet place and reads the words aloud. As I consider the beautiful Story of God she is reading, my eyes are opened anew to the ease of our Savior:

No perfection required.

No rituals to perform.  

No status to hold and maintain.

No money to pay.

No fear.

I watched Dalin sit down and read again this morning. I wondered when she would get to that verse about His burden being easy and His yoke being light.

"Exactly." she'll think, "Easy."



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