For A Pretense

Interesting experience yesterday. Me and S. were out looking for a new house – more accurately, looking for a new realtor. Trying to stick close to the area around the house that we’ve got now, as the area has been very convenient for three nearby campuses. So we were about a kilometer or so from the house and we saw a small Christian bookstore. Real small, really just a hole in the wall, but with a big sign saying “Emmanuel” in Chinese with a cross.

Of course, we went in and had a look around. Entered a tiny room with book stacked up against one wall up to the ceiling. There were already four Chinese adults seated in the room, which didn’t leave much room for us, but we squeezed through. When we came in, they said to us, “God bless you.” Surprisingly, they were selling Bibles (illegal except for the Three-Self churches bookstores). Their cheapest Bible was about three times the price of the TSPM bookstores, though. But they also had some study Bibles that I haven’t seen here in China before, but they were about a fifth of what they cost in the States.

So S. and I wanted to ask how they were able to start a bookstore like this. They said, “You must pray. And trust the Lord. If the Lord lets you do it, no one can tell you you can’t.” Amen, but when you pray and God gives you permission and you keep trusting Him, what did He lead you to do? “Just pray and trust.” Unreal – I had unknowingly teleported to a Bible college. Practical question answered with spiritual generalizations. To be fair, for all they knew, we were spies or something. Because they’re definitely illegal. But after S. told them his testimony and I explained that we’ve started a church in the area in the past year, they still wouldn’t say anything. When I asked a question like, “Have you had any problems?” the answer comes, “Of course – all believers will suffer persecution. But we’ve kept trusting and praying, so no one can touch us.”

If your faith makes you unable to communicate with the human race, then you’re just annoying.