Ok so after the day I went to coffee with my group of friends and it was jus really nice. We were sitting around sipping chai and hot chocolate and discusing the falling maturity of our generation. Things dont apply to us anymore because we are beyond them. We are further than the youth pastors expect us to be, we are at a deeper level then everybody else...
But we concluded that we are not necessarily stronger than the other students, we are merely where we should be and they are far behind eating from the hands of bottle feeding pastors. That sounds so terribly dis-respectful from my side, and I dont necessarily intend it to be, but we reached a sad reality that so few are where they should be with God. I mean, my group of 7, we are striving after God and are much deeper than so many others - but we have so far to go to be where we need to be.... how far away does that make everyone else?
I was really shown the importance of equal leveled fellowship, our souls thrive for it. Even though some of the party were ready to head home for the night... we stayed and talked of Gods goodness... because he is good. We shared of things he is teaching us and training us and of where we need to be. It was just nice because it doesnt happen as often as it should.
12 comments:
"how far away does that make everyone else?"
I'd have to say-- probably just as far or as near as you? I know it's not what you meant, when you speak of distance and deepness, but it did make me think that a relationship with God cannot be measured by deep or far or near. We are utterly unable to discern where any one other person may be. I'd be interested in you unpacking what you mean by 'deeper than so many others'-- because I think your motive must be good, but your words are fighting words! =)
We're all just a step away from the next thing God tells us, just a step beyond the last thing he said. A marriage of two years is not as close as a marriage of 20, or could be closer, I suppose! But experience is a teacher that does not have much of a substitute. The person you judge is really in the same place as you. God is speaking to them on some count. They will or will not answer. Measure by God's greatness, not your own greatness, or someone else's failings. Or even someone else's greatness, for that matter. Because we don't have any greatness of our own.
I'm moved by these posts, because I understand the feelings, but I'm also wary of what you express, because there seems to be a lot of pride. I remember sitting with my friends at maybe the same coffee shops, feeling the same way and talking the same talk. And it got us nowhere. It's substance was nothing. We, at least, were not better than anyone else in the end. If anything, we were a lot worse. And it was a hard, hard lesson to learn (and unlearn) the pride that had been subtly woven into our minds.
Pride takes over and eats us to the core. Where pride is, there is a fall. And in the case of some, they don't get back up.
It's not true, Heather. It's not true that you are at a deeper level than everyone else. It's not true that "they" are far behind. You aren't permitted to judge that others are not where they ought to be with God. You can acknowledge sin, and sinfulness, but you cannot determine a person's position --nearness or distance-- from the Lord. EVER. Especially in comparison with your own.
Your desire IS true. You worship is true. His goodness is true and that you all are experiencing it is true. That is mercy and grace on his part. He IS teaching you and training you. And your fellowship is good and true and beautiful.
But your estimation of yourselves is not true. While it may be true that you need meat and you're being handed a bottle, go look for meat and eat of what he gives you. Someone else needs that bottle. If you HAVE meat, go give that, then.
You can't be angry with your generation, and you can't think so highly of yourselves. You will be like the hare and the turtle will pass you by.
Guard your hearts. Gird your loins. Admonish and encourage and love. But for Christ's sake, don't judge. If someone is not converted, and by that I mean even those in the church, you're not even allowed by Scripture to act as a judge. If someone IS converted, tread softly, because you are on holy ground. Be careful. It's the Holy Spirit's business to judge on sin, righteousness and judgement.
Not to write a novel on here or anything. But you know!
I must say that it is an amazing reminder to not let our pride set in. When I wrote this blog I knew it was one sided, it was 2 am and I had just finished a conversation with Sharell that left me pretty heated, thought it was on another topic completly.
I totally agree that I am not deeper, your right that we can not compare ourselves to anyone, we dont know. Yes my motive was good, and I was more for venting than writing last night, I even thought about not posting, ha! But I want all my emotions to be shown.
My group, we are all at different levels with God, at what levels I will not know, but there is a difference Harm. I cant judge, but I can feel sadness. I can discern a spirt of carelessness. I wish that students were trusted with more. That they respected more. I need to respect more. I am the same as them.
It was nice simply to have a conversation with some that did want to be there, that wanted more. We didnt though sit around and gripe about our goodness, I said we talked of Gods goodness. There were those in the group that brought optimism and helped the otehrs of us see the good of the night, the good of the messages, the good of the students. There was good. God is good.
I see where you are coming from, and I will take it to heart. I will learn from it and begin to watch my pride along with the others in my group, but I dont think that my night was accuratly protrayed to you. We did get somewehre last ngiht, we did have substance. And no, we are not better than anyone else. We were actually talking about that, ha but that would be another blog completly about Gods grace and equality upon all people, those of us at the shop, and the others who we pray will seek for more.... just as we are seeking for more.
Pride is a big deal and is more apparent in our lives than we realize. I think we are usually not aware of it until someone points it out which is so important.
Thank you for your adive and counsel, keep giving it, reply to this, show me my wrongs so that I dont have to repeat past mistakes. I love you!
Wow. So I agree with what you said Harmony, and with what Heather said. But I guess my input on the whole thing is I loved last night because it was refreshing to get away from everyone else and have some fellowship with people who are intensily following Jesus, and its evident in their lives.
Because I go to a school everyday where everyone there just bugs me. Because I know, I know there stories, I know each one of them very well and I know that God is calling their lives into a different direction than they are going. Because they are getting too caught up in the easy ways of this world. Because they complain about how they aren't where they want to be with God and they know how to get back on the right track, but making that first step is too painful.
Now my entire life I've had friends like this, people who just break my heart over and over again. And I've never known what kind of an attitude to have towards them. To be angry, or sad, or disapointed. Or even blaming myself, trying to carry the burden even. I've tried so many different emotions on and I don't know which is helpful. So Harmony, what was the attitude that you found, that gave you detirmination to help them, but also didn't make you crazy depressed?
I know we shouldn't feel like we are above them, but I guess that always follows the anger, and the anger is always the first reaction.
Sharell and I were talking. Mabye our defense really is pride.
Well, let's see.
@ Sharell first-- I sat here and tried hard to remember what those years were really like for me, when I was in those moments day in and day out. And I had to sift through my heart and the judgementalism I STILL find there towards the friends I had then. How's that for an awkward sentence?
I totally know what you mean by the variety of emotion. The anger, the sadness, the disappointment. I recall watching one by one as my Christian friends started drinking, pot, sex and so on. It was an age of experimentation and to me it was agony because I saw them one step away from Hell, or at the least, totally not being who I "knew" they could be. I loved them deeply and vastly, as one only loves at that age, believing my love could save them, my indignation could ignite them.
It was emotional and draining and did not one ounce of good. Not for anyone. If anything, it kept me so wrapped up in other people's lives that I forgot to live my own. Rather than pursuing God and learning deep character lessons through a life of servitude, I clung to my friends, wanting to drag them on whatever journey I was taking.
I guess I would say, in retrospect, that I wish I would have just left them alone. I was foolish in that I did not recognize how weak I actually was. So in time, focusing on the ones I loved and their dilemmas, I found myself in some of the same issues I'd been on their case about for so many years. By beholding we become changed.
It's good to love, and good to help, but not to be a savior. Only Jesus is that. And we have to recognize his authority in that.
When I write, 'guard your heart,' I guess I mean guard your intimacies. Don't be yoked to an unbeliever. Invest in your solid Christian friendships, and do not allow yourself to become intertwined emotionally with non-christians. And by that I mean any one NOT actively following Christ.
No person should have the authority over your joy, or your peace. That's a high ideal, but one to strive toward, I think. Ah, crazy depressed. Yep. That was me. And depression is a lie from the enemy. Jesus didn't get depressed over anyone. He cared infinitely and loved radically, and depression, disappointment, were not a part of that. I do think of him weeping over Jerusalem. Jesus weeps. And I think the Spirit of God weeps inside us, too, for people. But that is entirely different than depression, which is a state of mind that totally overtakes your whole being in a very self-centered, negative way. I spent years being "depressed" over my friends.
Anyway. I don't know that I have anything helpful to say, really. I just know I went about it wrong but I can't say what I would do differently. I do know that as I've moved into adulthood and have been able to forge solid Christian friendships with other disciples of Christ, I've been able to relate to the non-christians with a lot more health. I would urge you to guard your heart from any boy or any girl who uses you as a confidant, who you feel a burden to "help."
That said, I also wish I would have had more grace toward my peers. I was so freakin' hard on them, and who could tow my line? I imagine now, what if I had loved them and delighted in them, but not become emotionally intertwined with them-- what if I had made them know I thought they were special with every thing I had... and kept my tears private and interceded for them alone. What if I hadn't NEEDED them, or NEEDED them to NEED me. What if I hadn't tried to fix, and only tried to love?
What if I had let Jesus love through me instead of getting in his way?
Everyone is at a different place with the Lord. And many people are also in a crippled position. If you offer to be a crutch, they will use you. And they will not grow on their own. (nor will you. You're stuck being a crutch!) But if you LOVE THEM, if You DELIGHT in them, see them for who they are in Christ (think 2 Corinthians 5:16-- Therefore from now on we recognize NO ONE ACCORDING TO THE FLESH; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer...) and not who they are in the flesh, who knows but that love might compel them, too?
Be the fragrance of Christ. It will draw them. Be so into Him, and radiate his kindness to others, and they will be drawn to him. People have free will, and when they are set free to use it, they will. Set them free to hunger for what you have.
Another thing, on that, is that we don't have any idea what God's plan is in any other person's life. In his mercy, he brings everyone to breaking points, over and over. Trust him. Trust him with your friends. Let them go down the paths of their choosing, if you have to, and they will crash into Jesus there. Don't go down those paths yourself.
I'm not saying we're not the salt of the earth and the light of the world. But just that HE is the salt and the light. Absolutely we get dirty in our love for people, absolutely we are to seek those that are "lost." But I guess it would be really awesome if you can learn to do it healthily. At least, not like I did.
I really chose my friends. I stuck with them out of devotion and I did not listen when the Lord would say, move away from that person. Get to know this other person... and so on. My commitments to them were life or death, I would be at their side till the day I died, by golly! But they didn't need that from me.
I don't know that any of my christian friends from that time are walking in the Lord. Maybe they are. But a lot of good it did them or me to obsess over them all those years! I wish I would have just loved.
Because, often, we compromise when our attention is on the people. We think if we stay in their world, do ungodly things that they do, (or at least be PRESENT while they do them) then they'll totally feel they can relate to us and they, like, totally can't relate to any OTHER CHRISTIAN anywhere else. We'll be that one "cool" Christian who understands, and certainly THAT will bring them to Christ, right!
But it's a lie. It's the contrast that light is to dark, and the contrast that truth is to error, and the contrast that holiness is to ungodliness that... well.. shows there IS a difference.
I guess, now that I've rambles mercilessly, this is the ONE THING I would do differently, were I to have another chance with the same friends... I would have an ear only for Jesus. I wouldn't be afraid to be black and white in my own standards. I wouldn't compromise myself and try to do it some new way, this reaching people via deep emotional involvement with them. That's not a new way of reaching people. That's just being an adolescent and young adult, whose world is narrow.
I don't know that you can relate to this or not, but I'm trying hard here to narrow down what the heck I'm trying to say!
That being the one cool christian who they can "totally" relate to... that's ego. If they are totally relating to you and never changing... you're probably not where you ought to be in relationship with them.
We want a compassionate heart, we long to show people that it doesn't matter what they do or who they are, God loves them and has a dream for their lives. But guard your heart while you do that. If they don't want Christ, you gotta keep being like Christ. They'll either be drawn toward you of their own accord and will change... or they will reject you as they reject him. If your heart is good, and your love is much, if you are soft and kind and true, if you LOVE... they will know you care and accept them, whether or not they want that care or acceptance from you.
But if you refuse to let them go when they want let go, if you tag along emotionally and try to be their conscience, guilt them with your love or rage at them for coming up short... they will let you tag along and either make a false growth due to guilt, or drag you away with them.
If you don't allow them the room to be mad at you and your personal standards, you aren't respecting them. You have to allow them to accept or reject Who you offer, and them love them wonderfully still. Try to learn from them. Be interested in their lives. Respect them. But do not be intimate.
And as to complaining. If they are whining about the good they ought to do and do not do it, that's their problem. Don't try to help them "just do that first step!" They know good and well what they ought to do and if they really care they will do it. If they are trying to take a step, and seriously just need some support, that's one thing. But it is not your prerogative to drag them to heaven. You'd both lose that way, I think.
If God is calling them, let God call. He will pursue them to the ends of the earth if needed, and you have to allow them that freedom. They have the "right" to run away, you've got to respect that. Mourn it, but respect it. The more you respect it, the more they will respect you.
My friends from my Salem world tell me that I hurt them deeply. They are embittered to think (to know!-- for surely it is somewhat true!) that I spent so many years as their intimate friend while really I was trying to conform them to my way of thinking. I only knew one way of relating to God, and I pushed for that way in them-- and I totally missed out on who they might have been in Christ had they been shaped by the spirit of the Lord and not by the spirit of Harmony.
They tried to become something they were not, to conform to my version of Christianity, and it failed them utterly. They met Jesus and loved him, but the package was unhealthy and not good. I wish I would have trusted Jesus to do what HE wanted in their lives, and not have assumed that I KNEW what that was.
I write these things to you, Sharell, because apparently your heart loves DEEPLY. You are so raw with God, and I imagine you are raw with people, too. It is your gift and it could be used against you as your weakness. I'd encourage you to carefully guard your heart, don't let people affect it so deeply. Not guard it by means of walls, but by letting Jesus be the gate to your heart, and asking him with every person, and every situation, how should you relate? By affect it so deeply, I mean, don't let people affect you to the point that they can dictate your attitude and emotional state of being. -- depression, anger, etc. Capture the thoughts and the emotions, and take them captive to Christ, asking him whether it is his emotion, his thought. He will tell you to keep it or leave it. Keep yourself chaste in that way.
You are an infant in your born-again-ness, even though I know you've loved him all your life. So watch yourself carefully, lest you fall away. And I only write THAT because I WISH someone had said that to me.
You are a beautiful ambassador of Christ. Your love for him is sticky, it draws people and gets them stuck to Him, too. Focus on that. His burden is light. Trade burdens with him if you ever feel yours getting heavy.
And as for fellowship, I totally know what you mean, about how awesome that is, and also how it contrasts with your other relationships. It's wonderful and beautiful and we starve if we don't have it. It's so true. And that's all I'm going to say about that.
Do you think anyone has EVER written a blog comment longer than this one? So I'll go to bed and write to Heather tomorrow, if I'm able. I may look back ten years from now, and see folly in some of what I've written. So have grace on me and take or leave it with discretion!
Just call that a treatise on relationships with unbelievers. Or the like. My word!
Oh gosh Harmony.. Just so you know I am balling my eyes out right now. I hope that makes you smile. hehe. Everything you said made total perfect sense. It has brought so much light.
Most of these things you've said I have figured out already, but I just don't know I have them figured out, and you saying what you said helped me figure out that I had it figured out. Haha.. do you get it?
I've had so many conversations with Heather about people in my life, I remember so many specific times starting in 8th grade, just saying over and over again, "I wish that they would just love Jesus, and know that he loves them, I feel so burdaned by them" And I think for a time I wore there burdans like a medal around my neck saying "see here, I am burdaned by my friends" I think for the other part of time I was seriously depressed and brought down by them.
I've always walked the faith to be an example to other people, to influence them, because God told me that was who I was at a young age. I just went about it the wrong way.
Right after me and Aaron broke up I went over and over again in my mind trying to figure out what went wrong, it was a sucessful relationship, until it ended. My mind was so blogged, and I don't remember the exact moment it clicked, maybe it was when people started to tell me how he was doing, when I realized that I stabled him. I was what kept him stable. Stable in his relationship with God. And I was just so disguested that I hadn't seen it before. Because I never wanted that. But I was an influencer, and he was easily influenced. So when he was around me, he seemed perfect, he was starting to become the man I wanted him to be, and he will even say this.. I made him into who he is.. or was.. or whatever.
He said to me that he was thankful for our relationship because he grew so much. And I was so upset because I couldn't say the same. Not saying I didn't grow, I did, but honestly it wasn't because of him.. And it wasn't as much as it should have been.
I was his crutch and I was stuck. And its been like that with pretty much every guy who has ever been close to me.
And it was so dumb because I was so selfish and I didn't even see it. Because in every way I affected them I was so excited because I affected them.
I am so.. oh I don't even know the word.. I guess sad, sad for Aaron and those other people who now because I am out of their lives, are going downhill terribly fast, and yeah I don't know everything because I am not talking to them, but I see them, and what I see doesn't look good.
I am so saddened that Aaron isn't strong enough on his own to be a good friend to those who need him, yet. I hope someday he does, and I will continue to pray for him.
I am happy to report to you that I have grown apart from those whos burdans I carried, because I couldn't take it mentally with everything that I was going thru. Not saying I have all of this completely figured out, but I am on my way. I am learning, and growing, and thriving like I should be.. because I am standing on my own, without anyone holding on to me.
I am babbling but you don't care. :]
I still need to talk all of this out, because I believe I am still in the middle of a healing process with this whole Aaron thing, and figuring all these little things out.. well big things.. are a big part of that healing process.
Wow. I love having big realizations like this, it makes all of it seem so much smaller.
Thank you for your multiple novels, there totally was more than one there. hehe.
So I am going to start to proof read my comments before I post them.. I just reread this thing above me, I don't understand it at all. I hope you do. 5th paragraph.. the word is bloggled, not blogged.
bloggled? You mean boggled? =) he he
It's good for Aaron, though, Sharell. He has his own row to hoe. He has a life filled with all the tools he needs and all the information he could want and all the support anyone could ask for. It's his prerogative whether he takes it or leaves it, and eventually he'll take it, I think.
When you wrote about being a crutch, I wondered if BEING a crutch to someone else isn't just the way WE use a crutch, as well?
I once was a similar crutch in a similar relationship for a long, long time. And he may have used me to limp around, but I sure offered myself and got a high out of it, and it came home much later how much in the wrong I had been.
I can't blame myself for the state of his life in the years that followed that relationship, but in some things I was deeply convicted, and for that I had to repent. By making myself a crutch (isn't 'crutch' a silly way to talk about this?) I have no idea how much I actually stood in the way of him learning to walk, run by himself. He learned, of course, in time, but it's just as easy to be unhealthily depended upon as it is to unhealthily depend.
Anyway. That's neither here nor there. You are such a blessing, Sharrel. There's such solid gold inside of you and I'm truly loving the glimpses I get to see of God's mining... way out here in internetville. =)
Bloggled, blogged, boggled.. they all look the same after midnight. hehe.
I agree with the we being a crutch is how we use a crutch.
I can not believe how much I have crippled myself by being a crutch. But I am so happy I am free of all of this.
Me too. =)
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