"Living in the grey with a black and white mind isn't ideal."
... a friend of mine posted this quote the other day, and it seems to relate well to the theme of my week. To be honest, I don't know if I completely get it, and I'm not going to pretend I do, but I will attempt to explain what it meant to me this week. This week was interesting, I suppose. I saw some people that I haven't seen in a while, people that are not necessarily living how I would personally choose. But the big thing for is... I care about them so much that I fear that if I try to "correct" what they are doing that they will push me out and the situation will get even worse. Generally, in life, that has been my approach to people. I feel like as Christians we are called to Love, no matter what... and God will do the judging. Not to say I am some perfect, all forgiving person, (not by ANY means) but for the most part I don't have a hard time caring about people that are screwing up. So i've been going along, listening to people as they tell me where they've been and how they've stopped caring about what everyone wants for them, and whatever else... all the while patting myself on the back for not "judging" them. But the fact of the matter is.... are you really loving people if you're not willing to risk them liking you for their overall well-being? I like to think that if I just accept them they will eventually thank me for always being there and at some point I will be able to make a difference in their life. But maybe I need to be saying that now. I don't know.
So THEN, at wings this Wednesday... someone hit me with the fact that we should be honouring God so much that we are angry when people that say that are representing Christ are not living that way. That we love God so much that we cannot even bear when people dishonour him by not living that way. So now, I am caught somewhere in the middle. I suppose we need to find that balance between 'loving God with all our hearts, soul and mind, and loving neighbours as ourselves.'
ahh hilary, this is perfect. I really, really love the last paragraph...because I think God does indeed tell us to love others and not judge them BUT if we never correct our fellow CHristian brothers and sisters when we know they might be living a life of sin, this isn't good either. I struggle with this too...trying to live my life kinda chilling in the middle ground- but then I always think....what if I never said ANYTHING and because I didn't say anything my friends end off soo much worse off, and I could've been the "good" friend to tell them that something needed to change...
ReplyDeleteANYWAYS. your blog defenitly got me thinking....we really do need to love our friends by being honest and real with them.....even if that means we have to approach them on something we know isnt right..
all of this being said in love :)