Saturday, January 8, 2011

How do I, Don Richardson, and the Sawi relate to faith?

Personally, I try to center my life on my faith in my amazing Father. Because I believe in my God and am utterly in love with Him, I always strive to dedicate all my actions and thoughts to Christ and to worship Him with my all
My faith in Christ is such a prominent aspect in my life that it has become more than simply a belief, and my actions have become more than just an obligation to serve Him. My belief in God has blossomed into a wonderful relationship between my Father and me, and trying to follow and worship Him has become my greatest pleasure in life. My trust in Christ also transformed me and saved me…
If I didn’t have my God, then I would have never been able to conquer all those hardships I experienced. Those massive obstacles would have been overwhelmed and destroyed me. However, knowing that my omnipresent Father is there right beside me and is so much more powerful than those challenges, I was able to go on in life without being crushed.
My wonderful Father also helped me get over my past and live for the present and the future. Before I met my Father, I have done many horrible things. Without my amazing Father, I would have continued to dwell in my past misdeeds and have this guilt gnaw on my heart instead of letting them go and letting in God. My trust in God helped me learn from my mistakes and helped me forgive myself.
So, how do I relate to faith?
My faith is everything to me. God is everything to me. He is my Savior, my amazing grace, my Dad, and my best friend.

I believe that Don Richardson’s way of relating to faith is similar to mine.
Don Richardson, the author of the book Peace Child and an advocate of God to the Sawi, loved God and trusted Him so much that he was willing to meet an uncivilized and treacherous Sawi tribe and introduce Christ to them. He was willing to put his own life in jeopardy to please his amazing Father and to save the Sawi, but he trusted that God will protect him and his family.
During his time with the Sawi, Don Richardson showed that he had a strong faith in Christ because he often communicated with God during difficult times and always managed to have peace within him, even when his two sons nearly drowned. If Don Richardson did not have this faith in God, he would not have been able to preach to the Sawi tribe and to convert them into Christians because he would have been overwhelmed with the discrepancy between his culture and theirs and would have lost his temper when things weren’t going as smoothly as he expected.
To Don Richardson, faith is what enables him to continue doing his work and to continue living. To him, God is his source of peace, his best shield, and his life counselor.

Now, to the Sawi, their way of relating to faith changed after they converted into Christianity.
In fact, the Sawi didn’t even have faith in anything before they came to know God because treachery was their way of living. They could not trust their friends because they never knew whether their friends were fattening them up for the slaughter. Even though they did have gods and devils, they didn’t trust or have faith in them. Instead, the Sawi feared them and did not want to interfere with them because they thought that the gods and devils will meddle with their affairs and will bring troubles in their lives. Faith was not present in the Sawi culture.
However, after the Sawi heard of God and His amazing love and became Christ-followers, their way of relating to faith transformed entirely. Their faith became an important aspect in their lives. Everything they did was dedicated to God. They even created an enormous dome/church so that they could praise God. Their faith in God also caused them to stop honoring treachery and doing immoral practices. God became someone who was so important and valuable that they converted their entire way of living so that they would not often God but honor Him instead.

To the Sawi, faith was the light that showed them the immorality of their practices and showed them the beauty of God. God, to them, was someone who flipped the entire Sawi culture, their peace child, and their resurrection.

1 comment:

  1. This post reveals depth and thought, also showing a solid understanding of themes related to the novel.

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