Nepal Mission, 2018--The Gift of Futility

Thakali translated our second Bible Institute lessons excellently, including highly technical words like "trinity," "divine essence," and "transubstantiation." Needless to say, he was mentally tired from doing that important work for us from 8a-4p for four consecutive days. Although certainly tired during one lunch break, he perked up when we asked about his family. He proceeded to tell us the story of his mother. 

She was a devoted Hindu who had completed a 40-day fast on her spiritual journey to advance in the roulette game called karma. (Good deed = hope that the next reincarnation will be better). "The fast was very difficult for her," Thalaki said (perhaps the understatement of the century). But after she was done, one of the two gurus who was instructing her in this ritual said that none of it counted; that it was all in vain and would be counted not as a merit but as a debt in the cycle of karma, because she used olive oil in the rite instead of mustard seed oil as the other guru had prescribed. (The gurus are in constant competition, apparently). Gut-punch!! 

She was so disillusioned by the futility of her 40-day fast, and so demoralized by the conflicting advice by the so-called experts, that she left the path of Hinduism completely, even before she found the path of Christ. The futility of her 40-day fast, however, as seen from the other side of the grace of God--after she and her household all converted to Christ--was recognized in retrospect as a gift.

The futility of her fast forced her from the cocoon of her religious works toward the finished work of Jesus Christ. She was transformed, not by her struggling but in spite of her struggling. She was metamorphosized by faith in the finished work of Another who worked on her behalf. (And which butterfly ever returns again to its chrysalis?) Faith is the end of our trying-trying-trying to make right our wrong standing before God. Faith is trusting Jesus's work on the cross to please God on our behalf, once and for all offered and never again to be repeated. "To the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness" (Romans 4:5).

So then, as it stands right now, all of creation is--like Thalaki's mother was--currently "subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of the Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory the children of God" (Romans 8:20-21). This futility was (and is) being orchestrated by God Himself to steer us toward a living hope; toward a final freedom from the corruption that currently wraps us up; toward a relationship with God as His children. No religious rituals could ever accomplish that--regardless if the celebrant uses olive oil or mustard seed oil! But Jesus' work accomplished what all our human rituals could never accomplish--transformation, forgiveness, and adoption!

Nevertheless, if futility caused her disillusionment with Hinduism enough to consider a better way, then futility was a gift. If futility whet her appetite for an effective and permanent solution to atone for her sins, then futility was a gift. If futility drove her toward an actual relationship with God through faith in Jesus instead of working a complicated system of confusing rituals, then futility was a gift. And if this futility passed through the hands of our good God, then futility was even a good gift.