Missionary Anointing

 

rusaders were often reminded that our weekly meetings could not fill the role of a church and that we all ought to find one to become a part of while in college. I tried attending a few different churches, but most seemed dull, dry, and useless in my radical pursuit of the kingdom. I even found one church to be downright appalling in that they had a female pastor which is quite unmistakably contrary to the Bible’s edicts. Then again, so is having any pastor to begin with—male or not. Jesus condemned such practice of appointing other human beings as spiritual leaders in Matthew 23:8-9, but that did not stop the church from adopting and appointing leaders to replace God and being quite misogynistic in the process.

I never particularly saw the church as sexist where men dominate women; I simply saw clearly defined roles set by God himself, and I believed that we should be so desirous of obedience that we would honor these roles. Not following these roles is blatant disobedience which is a quick way to be denounced when attempting to enter heaven. Such mistakes had dreadful consequences.

Now, however, I see a pattern throughout many religions where women are placed in roles of lesser importance or value. They are to be naught but followers of men. A god would certainly have the right to choose roles if he so desires, but now, seeing through the lens of all religion being of human origin, I can see this for the appalling nature it is. God did not demand this—man did. Men made women property long before they followed God, and they simply carried on this behavior by pretending that God demanded it. At the time, I saw it as God’s great plan and perfect structure for harmony, but now I can see throughout the entire Bible that women were often treated as slaves and organic sexual objects. They were spoils of war for the taking and forced into submission. Under the guise of God’s requirement, however, it simply seemed as natural as can be. And any church going against God’s natural plan could certainly not be trusted.

             I managed to find one church that I liked fairly well. Pastor Paul sported a thick Boston accent with a forceful tone as he emphasized the “wah” (or war) against Satan that we faced. He believed in miracles and in the power of God. One Sunday, he asked everyone who wished to be a missionary to come to the front of the church. We were actually in a school auditorium at the time since the church still had yet to purchase a building. I hesitated at first, unsure if his request to approach applied to college students, but after seeing a fellow Crusader join the ranks, I triumphantly waltzed up with excitement. Pastor Paul prayed over each of us and anointed our heads with oil marking the shape of a cross.

             When Paul had finished anointing us all, some people began to make a fuss about our hands. People were claiming that certain people had golden glitter on their hands. I looked around confused for a while trying to see this glitter on the hands of others until someone grabbed my hands, pointed my palms upward, and told me to take a look with a gasp of delight. As sure as can be, my palms were sparkling and glittering like some kind of heavenly sign of approval—I had indeed been anointed by God as a future missionary! I could hardly contain my excitement at such a sign. I had heard about things like glitter and random golden teeth appearing, but never had I seen it right before my very eyes.

It turns out that I had never really looked at a semi-sweaty palm under direct lighting. The way light reflects and refracts through sweat, it indeed looks like glitter. I spent many months checking my hands to see if the glitter still sparkled and most of the time I saw it with ease—especially outside in the summer. For some time, I believed that it continually demonstrated my anointing and God’s special approval. I would compare my hands with those of others every so often to ensure that my glitter signified something unique. Lucky for me, I have unusually clammy hands so I could almost always see the glitter in sufficient lighting. Most everyone else had entirely dry hands which would not show the sparkles.

Eventually, I began to realize that the amount of sparkle had a lot to do with the amount of moisture on my palms and lighting above. Up on stage in front of all those people and being anointed as missionaries, no doubt everyone had some amount of unease and thus also had moist hands. We also happened to be directly below spotlights to provide the perfect shine. It gave me immense joy while the facade lasted, but it brought me great sadness at my own stupidity and lack of God’s approval when I recognized it as a simple matter of science: everyone’s moist hands glittered under lighting. Unfortunately, everyone that day will likely remember the supernatural sign and never hear or know of its true mundane nature.

Despite the anointing of glitter being less than miraculous, l still had hopes to one day become a missionary. I gave it significant consideration and looked at many Christian schools. Nothing stood out as God’s immediate leading so I decided to stay at Tech for the time being. Perhaps God wanted me to get some more real-world experience before embarking on a journey within such a pure Christian bubble. Perhaps God even wanted me to encourage others to do likewise before I went. Maybe he wanted me to find some partners to go with me or even to find the one partner who would stay with me for life.

The summer between my sophomore and junior year, I went to Virginia Beach for a program with Crusade members from all over the United States. I understood that we would be relying on God for support and that we would be witnessing to people on the beach. This sounded right up my alley of missionary work and a great controlled opportunity to get some experience. I also anticipated the meeting of other missions-oriented Christians and similarly hoped to find “the one.”

This program required that we each raise a significant sum of money around the range of $3200. That is quite a bit for a poor college student. We were to raise these funds by writing to our friends and relatives about how we intended to serve God if only they could send us some money. Being as I had no money to speak of, I obviously could not attend any other way. I had only a few friends and family to write to, but I trusted that God would somehow provide since everyone continued to express that he would. We only needed to raise a certain portion before we went and then we had to work a part-time job for more while requesting further support for what would remain. Surprisingly, I did make it to the cutoff mark and thus I managed to attend.

             We stayed at the Cherry Motel which came complete with filth and cockroaches. I later heard that the city condemned the building and tore it down the following year, but we had a great time despite the lack of comforts. I learned a lot about myself that summer: I was passionate, knowledgeable, insecure, committed, and entirely impatient with others.

We all had regular Bible studies led by a dedicated corporate Crusade staff person assigned to each room of four people. I found myself hating the format of reading worksheets and answering obvious questions. I would often respond quickly to questions with a tone of, “duh”, and hoping to get on to something more worthwhile. The leader later had a private discussion with me and explained that the answers were not so obvious to everyone and that I was, for lack of a better word, being an ass. His word choice astonished me in that he would describe me of all people in such a way and let alone use the word to begin with, but I took it to heart and I learned from it. Unfortunately, this realization of my failure proved detrimental to my already suffering self-esteem which likely derived from the constant disapproval of others regarding my outrageous desires to follow God’s will.

             I remember being quite self-conscious prior to my trip to Virginia Beach, but this is where I recall my first deep feelings of depression. I felt as if I did not fit in well and that others were given preferential treatment for their presumed coolness despite my greater aptitude in the faith. Most people appeared to be focused on fun rather than on the mission of why we were there. I could not have cared less about fun; I took interest in eternal accomplishments. This set me apart and left me sitting alone thinking and studying for much of my time. Some people tried to cheer me up every so often, but this proved about as useful as telling a drowning person to enjoy the sunshine while he or she struggled to stay afloat. Or, from my perspective, I saw myself as sitting on a boat throwing out life vests while everyone assured me they were having a great time as they sunk to the ocean floor.

             The trip certainly did have its share of fun, though. We met weekly in a large room for praise and worship, to hear talks, and participate in workshops which would drive home different ideas and lessons. One such event had us all dressing in the stereotypical clothing styles of different races and ethnicities followed by discussing the hardships and benefits of each. Another event had us washing everybody’s feet as a gesture of the servitude that Jesus wanted from us. I did not personally care for this servitude, however, as we obviously did not need our feet washed in our culture. I found it disgusting and it certainly had no benefit in and of itself. Still, one of my roommates asked to wash my feet and I allowed him despite feeling quite uncomfortable about the entire process.

             One day in particular we had a blast cutting out cardboard armor and weaponry to enact a battle of epic proportions on the beach. After cutting, duct-taping, coloring, and painting all of our gear, we lined up on the beach in two teams. We then charged at each other full speed with cardboard weapons flailing and killing until one man remained to give a speech about God to the onlookers. We were instructed to make it look realistic and thus to die when we were hit or to otherwise react appropriately to blows hitting our armor.

As I swung my metallic duct-taped sword multiple times into the fleshy portions of my opponents less-amazingly-armored body with no effect of death, I could not help but feel a sense of betrayal and frustration at his lack of honesty. He then gave me my own decisive blow and, not to be a hypocrite, I fell to the floor in death while stewing over the unfairness of it all. I should have still been up there fighting while this cheater got to continue on. Hours of dedicated work were wasted as I lied in the sand after my first battle. I simply did not understand why some people found it so hard to be honest—especially Christians of all people. I eventually got over it, and I realized that I probably took it more seriously than it warranted, but it served only to depress me further knowing that I would take something silly so seriously and thus deny myself the fruits of my cardboard labor.

             Apart from the fun, we did have a lot of quiet time for studying and reflecting and we also had a lot of emphasis on providing witness of the gospel to others. A man actually paid for my lunch during one study time and said how awesome it was to see people studying the word of God. I had always chosen to study in public so as to be a better witness for God and this visibly demonstrated that people indeed took notice.

             When we went out to share the good news of the gospel, we would use Crusade’s Four Spiritual Laws that we were all so fond of. We had little pamphlets or tracts which explained each of these laws with little diagrams. The first law is that God loves us and has a plan for our lives. The second is that man is sinful and is thus separated from God and his plan. Thirdly, Jesus died as the sacrifice for our sins so that we could be reunited and experience the plan he has for us. And the fourth law is that all we have to do is accept his gift to become forever changed, connected with God, and have our lives directed by him who now sat on the throne of our lives. I actually starred in a humorous video about how to witness to people using these tracts which we showed during a Crusade meeting back at school.

             Despite my willingness and lack of fear, I found myself being much less effective at witnessing than others. I would hear these great stories about talking to people and having them accept Christ right then and there, and here all I ever got was bored nods, disinterested grunts, and people entirely unwilling to make conversation let alone conversion. I even went through the effort of special-ordering many Russian versions of the Four Spiritual Laws and promptly learned to read the words so I could witness to the many Russians around the area. I still remember trying to ask the question in my extremely terrible Russian which sounded like, “Sleshally lee vay o cheteeray doohoevneek zackoenuh?” which supposedly asked, “Have you heard of the Four Spiritual Laws?” Most Russians looked at me like I had two heads, but it certainly got the conversation going where I could take them through it and discuss it in English.

             I continually went above and beyond in hopes to have some greater impact with my extreme efforts and my desire to do God’s will above all else. And I continually felt entirely worthless at doing it while hearing of everyone else’s success stories. I can only presume that my disappointment in mankind and my cold-hard logical disposition made for a terrible enticement into my faith. Those who were more successful were those people considered more cool and popular. Well, go figure; they were the ones that actually knew how to get people to like them and thus people were more entranced by their worldview. The more worldly and friendly, the more likely they were to be successful at witnessing. But witnessing what? A fake faith focused on fun and games rather than the battle to be won? I did not approve of such conversions, but I still wished for my own.

             I found myself growing increasingly bitter at many Christians who never appeared to take things seriously enough and yet seemingly had more joy and success. Heaven or hell is a huge deal. It is nothing to be taken lightly. We must make it our lives and our only goal to know and understand God and to convert others. Yet despite all my efforts, I did not get any recognition neither via successful conversions nor merely the friendship of others. I felt useless and frustrated while everyone else enjoyed their foolishness and selfishness. I often sat alone crying out to God wondering what to do to get better results while others went out for a night on the town. Some people had compassion on me for a short period of time, but they never really understood my disposition and I hated that more people did not seem to care to begin with. Here we were, a group devoted to loving God and one another, living our lives for the sole purpose of serving God and each other, and so many people ignored a disparaged youth sitting by his lonesome.

             As the summer passed along, I began to worry about the remainder of what I owed for the trip. I had not received any more support in the mail and the income from my job at McDonald’s would not be enough. The leaders encouraged me to write letters to the same people that I originally requested support from and thanking them for their contributions while updating them on how much more I needed. I did so reluctantly since I hated begging for money. I received only one response this go-around from my cousin who just happened to have received a large inheritance. He sent me the exact remainder I needed which amounted to about twelve hundred dollars—a very significant sum for someone around my age. The relief and excitement I felt could hardly be expressed in this text. Such a response to my need encouraged me to believe that God must still be pleased with me despite all my hardship and self-berating. I continually feared that perhaps I simply did not measure up to others despite my efforts and perhaps I continually failed God as evidenced by my being shunned, but this gave me more hope.

I became even more encouraged by a man who came and talked to us about the 10/40 window. He explained that these are the latitude lines 10 and 40 such that, between them, Christians were most likely to be silenced or even killed for their faith (see figure). This area had the greatest need for brave missionaries like me and extensive prayer and support. He talked about the underground churches that were often raided, threatened, arrested, and sometimes even massacred in these eastern countries.

 

     The 10/40 Window

 

 

My radicalism loved the potential glory to God from doing this kind of work and it resonated with the awe I experienced when reading books like Jesus Freaks by DC Talk. Jesus Freaks compiled a list of many stories of people being persecuted for their faith. One story I remember had a little girl whose hand was burned with a lighter because she would not denounce her faith. God supposedly made the pain tolerable as a hole burned through her hand and she did not cry out. Another story centered around a military man left out in the snow wearing only his underwear and yet bearing it with the power of God. His crime, too, was his faith. I also read a book about a Chinese man who was starved and tortured many months with electric rods only to escape the prison as an angel visited and guided him out through miraculously unlocked doors and oblivious guards. I so longed to take part in such stories and I always wondered how people could not believe with such awesome demonstrations of God bringing forth evidence of his glory. Since they were Christian stories, I did not fully consider the potential of pure fabrication. Why would someone lie to bring glory to God? Satan cannot uplift Christianity, right?

I hung on every word the speaker presented about missionary work and I felt as if God had brought him to speak to me specifically. One day, I thought, I might join his organization. I later bought the book he promoted which gave detailed information about each country and how best we could pray for them. He provided all of us with his PowerPoint slides to help spread the word and I could not wait to use them. I did so for my second presentation at Crusade the following semester.

For my version of the 10/40 window talk, I printed out the quick prayer tips from the book and encouraged everyone to grab one and pray specifically for the country on the sheet. Surely, I thought, if enough people prayed for them, God would intervene and help. Few people were all that interested in such an endeavor, however. Did they not believe in the power of prayer? Why would they not want to pray for all these people enduring so much pain and suffering? Do these suffering people really not matter to them? It occurred to me that perhaps these Crusaders did not really believe as much as they portend. Perhaps they saw Crusade and Christianity as merely a giant social club for them to feel good about themselves.

             Even when it came to our own local campus there were few people ready and willing to pray for it. Perhaps it had something to do with holding the campus prayer meetings at 6 in the morning and often requiring one to trudge through snow for ten minutes to get there, but that small sacrifice had the potential to save the eternal lives of hundreds if not thousands of people. After doing the prayer meetings for a while and recognizing that so many people lacked the willingness to participate, I became all the more frustrated. Jesus asked for our entire lives—not just a part of them. We were to hold nothing else as worthy of doing in place of serving our God. Why were so many people focused on so many other things when others were missing out on true life and were ultimately doomed to destruction?

             I began contemplating prayer more as I realized how few people enjoyed doing it including myself. Prayer appeared to have very little effect on the really important things. Deep down, I knew that praying for our campus would do as much good as trying to empty the ocean of water with a thimble. I thought more about the request I gave for everyone to pray for entire countries and it seemed absolutely ridiculous. I could not help but wonder why it seemed so strange to pray with such a broad spectrum. Perhaps recognizing the futility of prayer as it became ever broader caused severe cognitive dissonance. If I am going to pray for one person, why not simultaneously pray for another as well? Why not pray for everyone in the building, the city, or the state? I had asked people to pray for entire countries, yet why not simply the entire world? Why not simply pray one prayer, “God save everyone and make us all good?” As the scope increased, so too did the insincerity and likelihood it would have any effect whatsoever.

             Sincerity guided my every thought. Dishonesty fueled my passion for justice more than anything else. For whatever reason, even up to today, I despise lies with a vengeance. I cannot stand them. A lie is the quickest way to rile me up even if it is to support what I believe or comes from my own children’s sweet, innocent lips—especially if they are lying to themselves. Self-deception scares me more than anything, and I do not wish for my children to trap themselves in deceitful lies that alter their character, choices, desires, and their lives.

As long as I can remember, I have wanted to be nothing but truthful to myself. I had put up with far too many insincere people and straight up deceitfulness in my past, and I certainly did not want to be included in such a group of individuals—not to mention that Revelation 21:8 says that all liars go to hell: “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.” So naturally, I hated lies and insincerity. That did not stop them from coming my way, unfortunately.

             In high school, some people told me that my girlfriend had been cheating on me while I was away. This obviously meant someone had to be lying, be it they or my girlfriend, yet I could not know for certain who. I eventually came to realize that my girlfriend chronically lied and would likely lie about the color of her underwear if I had asked. She once told me that a professor recommended her into an advanced economics course which I later found did not even exist. It turned out she had failed regular economics and simply had to retake it. Upon confrontation, she would continually make up more and more lies such as, “That’s what they told me! I didn’t even know I failed!” I would see through such explanations and I would question all the more which caused all the more lies. She once invited me to go camping with her family, yet upon arrival it turned out to be just the two of us. She vaguely mentioned that her family was “over there” while we set up a tent further away. I asked to visit her family but she then realized that she had apparently been mistaken as her family could not be found. I certainly would not have agreed under such pretenses had I known, but she assured me that she did not do this intentionally.

             I had also been lied to by another girl who kept telling me she had all these ailments and diseases and regularly made me take her to the hospital. She may have been a hypochondriac, but she lied about many other things as well and even stole from “The Guys’ House” which was basically Crusade’s frat without the Greek letters. Apart from girls, family, and friends, I had been lied to by the very members of Christianity about how to be in God’s good graces, and this disturbed me most of all.

Lies also came to me regularly with false accusations of me being arrogant; they would call me a heretic, a Satanist, or a Luciferian for my beliefs. The Pharisees did the same for Jesus, of course, so this did not shock me too much. They would exclaim that I blindly ignored facts, but I knew just how much I loved Jesus and that I looked at facts quite diligently—so much so that it caused me to put myself at such risk of condemnation by actually upholding such facts that I found and changing my opinion from that of the masses. It certainly held no benefit to me to hold such unpopular beliefs. Clearly, they needed to open their own eyes. I remained true to myself and true to God while lies constantly screeched at my conscience like fingernails on a chalkboard.

             So why did it feel so insincere or so similar to a lie when praying with a large scope? Was it because it seemed unlikely to be answered which alluded to the futility of praying it to begin with? But why did it seem unlikely to be answered? God said that anything asked in his name would be granted to us. I concluded that such prayers were too akin to a cop-out. Instead of taking the time to dig in deep, such generic all-encompassing prayers lazily covered all things with a single prayer like sweeping dirt under a rug for lack of care and concern. I decided that God wanted us to be more personally, perhaps locally, involved and thus such big prayers were futile.

I certainly did not wish to pray in futility. After having read Jesus’ condemnation of the Pharisees for praying long prayers with big words and lots of repetition, I certainly wanted to distinguish myself from that as well. I saw praying before meals as being quite similar to such repetitious Pharisaical ways and thus it, too, became a target for me. I wanted people to break out of boring tradition and to penetrate into the sincere. People seem to pray before meals as an obligation and that should be the first sign that it is useless. Such prayers often tend to be the same prayer as well, “Bless this food, thanks for person X, Y, and Z, direct our conversation in such a way as to glorify you, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

I had often wondered what people would think if I prayed on the way to a restaurant rather than waiting until we had sat down. I would chuckle aloud to myself as I imagined everyone sitting at the table looking confused as they attempted to determine whether or not we “should” pray again. I wanted to be as genuine as possible and I did not want to lie to myself about my faith any more than I wanted God to see me as a pretender. I would thus keep my prayers short, to the point, specific, and as-needed while encouraging others to do likewise.

The more I learned, the more I tried to enlighten my fellow Christians. They needed to see just how radical they were not and just how much they were rote and robotic. I began to center my life around missionary work right where I lived. Christians became my target just as much as atheists. I hoped to direct them all toward sincere and radical faith. In my eyes, I became a local missionary, and I began to dedicate myself to learning everything I could and integrating my faith into every aspect of my life.