overcoming Haran

Spring break is over and I haven't gone home yet. It kind of sucks, but I don't think I'd have done it any differently if given the opportunity. From Tuesday until Thursday, I stayed with my aunt and my grandma. After my aunt picked me up from the train station, she started talking to me about her friend from Taiwan-- about how he predicted the exact amount of her bonus when she didn't think she'd even get one since she was on sick leave, how he could determine whether you had positive or negative "energies", how he had this wise philosophy about life and why so many of us can manage to be miserable when we seemingly have everything we want. The point is, my aunt really respected this guy and thought he was something special and she expected the same from me. Several of her friends came over to ask for his advise and explanation for why so many parts of their lives are broken. They called him "teacher."

Anyway, at the end of the night, he was doing some "cleansing" ritual, to get rid of the bad energies. All he did was wave some incense around my aunt and my grandma as they just stood there. When he finished with them, my aunt told me to let him "cleanse" me as well. I kept refusing, and finally they pulled the guilt/shame card. They said, "Do it for Po Po (grandma)." I nearly caved then. After all, I just had to stand there while the guy waved some glowing sticks around me. But was it really?

So often as Christians, we're lured into places of compromise. The most obvious and relevant example is in parties.  A friend invites us out and we tell ourselves we're going just to make sure our friend doesn't get raped or mugged while stumbling home drunk. Then we're offered a drink and we tell ourselves it's just one drink, that no harm will come from it. But soon enough we're slurring our words and tripping over our own two feet.

I don't agree with Christians that think we should avoid such situations entirely. But I think many of us, myself included, could learn to be a little more aware of these seemingly innocuous compromises that slowly draw us deep into sin. Recently I've been learning that as Christians we need to live lives of absolutely no moral compromises. The moment we do, we have just signed a piece of paper renouncing our faith. It's just a harmless scrap of paper, easily obliterated by fire. But such is the way of sin. We make one tiny concession here and another there, and surely enough the devil has found a foothold with which to drown us in that sin.

And although I am sure of this, that we are to make no compromises, it is a conviction that makes me uneasy, especially when I reflect on this past Tuesday night. I think for the first time, I experienced just the faintest taste of what it means to hate your family in comparison to loving God. For lack of better words, it sucked. Their friends were there, and I was dishonoring them by not obeying. I brought shame--quite possibly the worst emotion for an Asian-- to my elders. I've never seen my aunt so frustrated by me or my grandma so disappointed and that broke my heart. But if I had to relive that moment, I would still do the same. Still, I wonder whether or not they will understand. It's not that I don't love them or that I want to be rebellious, but that I also love God and must obey him above all else. I wonder the same with my friends. Does it make them more adverse to Christianity, or do they see that there is something else? Do they know that I'm not more moral, but that it is in response to saving grace that I strive to be a little less imperfect?