Today, I woke up to the sound of thunder rolling through the countryside and rain pounding on the window. I was excited. I love thunderstorms. The drive to work was quite dreary- at times the rain was pounding down so fast that my windshield wipers couldn't keep up, even though they were flying so fast that I thought they'd tear off and go soaring through the air, hitting some poor unexpecting object. But really, I was okay with it. In fact, I thanked God for the rain, because we know that the farmers could certainly use it.
Fast-forward to a little ways into the day. I saw an argument, online, about how we as Christians should be responding to this bit of a crazy-spell, weather wise. One was complaining (lightheartedly) about the snow they were receiving up north. One, was telling the other that they should not be complaining, but be thankful and grateful at all times- like God wants us to be.
A little bit of me cringed inside. It brought me back to some recent thinking.
Several weeks ago, on the way back from church, my husband and I started talking about how sad it is that we, as Christians, are often afraid to talk about our faith with other Christians. We're supposed to be out, living as examples and sharing the good news with others- but we can't even talk about Christian things with Christian people. Why? Because there are so many different ideas about different things these days and if you don't do things exactly the same, things can get rocky. It often seems that we judge and get judged in a repetitive and destructive cycle.
We tend to separate ourselves based on who has more "knowledge" or who's "theology" matches ours best, rather than helping each other get to a new level. We don't pay any attention to so-and-so's words, because seriously, what kind of Christian are they anyways? We nit-pick and argue and decide that we're sticking with this group over here, because they're just like ourselves.
We all have different opinions on issues- mainly marriage equality, how "relevant" the Bible is to today's culture, who Jesus really was, etc. In fact, there's so many different opinions (and loud ones at that) that most of the time I'm afraid to even say, "hey, this is what I believe."
We're afraid to celebrate what God's doing in our lives and hearts, because we're looking at the other person over there who's peering down at us from their picture-perfect life. It's frustrating. It's exhausting. It's discouraging. How come we can't all be on one page about things and accept that every person is at a different stage in their walk of faith? Let's listen to each other, and learn, and pray.
That's all I really needed to rant about today. But I wanted to leave you with something that can't be debated and something that I feel so strongly about that I'm not afraid- God is SO good. He's so fantastically good. Lately I have been completely overwhelmed over and over about how often he protects us, provides for us, and walks with us, even through the not-so-easy times. He's always there and he's always helping us out- even if we don't ask him for it. I mean, wow. It just blows me away to think about it. Maybe we should focus more on things like that- instead of telling others where they're falling short or focusing too intently on where we think we are lacking. Maybe we should be asking God to work on our own hearts, and what needs to be done there, because seriously, we all could use that over and over and over.
Let's support each other- not dig trenches and put up walls.
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