Walking Talkers

Three friends decide to take a hiking trip.  While at the top of the mountain two of them sit down for a quick breather while the third finally gets reception and makes a much anticipated phone call.  She is a talker, but even more than that… she is a walking talker.  You know those people that can’t really stand still when they are talking to you.  

 

With the hand motions and the pacing back and forth... walking talkers.  

 

She is so caught up in the moment and the conversation that she doesn’t realize that she is headed toward the cliff.  The two friends (Sally and Jane we’ll call them to not get the story confused) notice what is happening.  It isn’t so alarming at first but the closer she gets the more urgent it becomes.  Sally decides to keep silent.  Afraid to interrupt her seemingly very exciting conversation.  She just sits there waiting for the worst to happen.  If you think this is crazy then you would be more like Jane who sees that Sally has kept silent and decides to speak up.  A little less alarmed at first until her warnings go unnoticed and her response turns to full blown panic.  My question for you is- which has the greater love?

 

Maybe it sounds absurd to think of a friend who would sit silently while watching someone they profess to care for walk off of the side of a mountain but we do it every day.  As a fifteen year old girl dealing with many struggles of my own I turned to cutting to help ease my pain.  Weeks went by until my mother noticed and threatened to take me to a mental hospital but settled on counseling instead.  I wish I could say that counseling helped me, that sharing all of my bottled up emotions made everything better, but I didn’t share and I wasn’t better.  I started cutting my hips instead in an attempt to make my parents believe that I was ok again.  Days turned to weeks, and weeks to months.  I am sure the cut marks were seen- sometimes I wonder if they were even talked about behind my back- but no one yelled out to me.  I was walking toward a cliff and no one was yelling out to me.  Finally two friends were concerned enough to tell a school counselor.  I was LIVID.  I hated them for “telling on me”.  I didn’t understand that this hurtful act of betrayal was really an expression of true love. 

 

The bible says In James 1:14-15 “Temptation comes from our own desires, which entice us and drag us away. These desires give birth to sinful actions. And when sin is allowed to grow, it gives birth to death.”  We know sin to be many things.  The bible tells us that sexual immorality, drunkenness, gossip, lying, murder, envy, homosexuality and many other things are sins.  And as James tells us, if sin is allowed to grow (continually choosing to act on it in spite of what the Word teaches) then we are choosing death.  We are walking towards a cliff- choosing death.  So again I ask, which has the greater love?  The person who sits in silence as they pick up their friend night after night from yet another party filled with too much drinking, the person who says nothing when a friend shares about how far she’s gone with her newest boyfriend (despite the obvious physical, emotional, and spiritual harm), the person who turns their head as their friend empties yet another bottle of anti-depressants and dismisses lunch for the fifth time this week, or the person who cares enough to look into their eyes and say that enough is enough.  

 

Now don’t go all GI Jane on me and become the sin police.  My pastor said it best, “Never invoke a personal prejudice and call it holiness”.  Speak the truth IN LOVE, that’s what Ephesians 4:15 says to do.  In LOVE.  Not out of religious duty or out of a heart filled with anger, but out of compassion for the person who struggles deeply with this issue.  Out of concern for the path that they are taking knowing full well that it will take them straight over the edge of a cliff.  And out of love for their physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.  I do not mind being called out on areas that I may be failing in, as long as I can look into the eyes of the friend calling me out and know that it is done out of love.  I look back on my two friends and thank God for them.  I am where I am today because of them.  You are reading this post right now because of them.  We could all use a few more friends like that  in our lives.  The world has enough silent Sally’s; it’s time to be a Jane!

 

John 13:34-35

³⁴ So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other.

Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.

³⁵ Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.

Change and Choice

Sleep, it isn’t like missing a show that you can catch up on later.  It is a sacrifice.  I am so thankful for the leaders and pastors who opted to sacrifice their sleep for this last weekend at the girl’s conference.  It was not in vein- what an incredible two days!  I had the privilege of speaking to the girls during the last session and I wanted to share a familiar story found in the New Testament with all of them.  I hope this small snidbit from that session speaks to you as well…

"I am sure you have read or at least heard the story of Saul on the road to Damascus (found in Acts 9) before, but I want to tell it from a different point of view. When I was in Sunday school I always pictured him as a monster of a man who hated anything to do with God.  It wasn’t that much of a leap considering that he is throwing Christians into prison, and said to be “eager to kill them”.   But that assumption is incredibly wrong.  I don’t know how big of a man he was, but he believed in God.  So much so that he was very well educated in the Jewish traditions, and kept every one of them.  Saul believed in God, but He did not believe that Jesus was the Son of God.  When Saul asked “Who are you, Lord” and heard back “I am Jesus” he was given a choice.  Stick to what he has known and been taught his entire life or do a complete turnaround on his beliefs and accept that Jesus is in fact, the Son of God. 

Have you ever faced a choice?  A big one?  A real belief or conviction challenging decision?  Should I date this boy, should I go to this party, should I hang out with this group of friends, should I join in on their gossip, should I hold on to this bitterness… I am not saying that you will hear an audible voice booming down from heaven that knocks you off of your horse, mainly because we don’t ride horses… and also because very few hear the audible voice of God… But I am saying that God will call out to you.  He’ll call out to you for your salvation, He’ll call out to you for a change of direction, He’ll call out to you when you are about to make a huge mistake, He’ll call out to you when you feel you are all alone… He’ll call out to you… This amazing God that we serve is so involved with us as a person, He cares so much about the details of our lives that He will try to get our attention.  And when He calls, it is always followed up with a choice.  To follow His leading or to follow our own.  To let Him be the author of our stories, guiding our steps, or to trust only in ourselves (or those we surround ourselves with) and ignore Him entirely. 

 

By all means, this hatred, this dysfunction, this hurt is all we’ve known.  Who are we to think we are “better” than our friends or family?  If I rejected how I’ve been taught to react what would they think?  WHO CARES!!!!  They didn’t write your story and they sure aren’t living it!  Saul’s parents’ raised him to believe in God.  He was passionate about God- enough so that he was angered by what he believed to be blasphemy against the Word of God.  I am sure that they were well intentioned people but they were wrong.  And without a real encounter with God, without a relationship with Him, Saul would have never had the revelation that he was in fact headed down the same wrong path. We can follow all of the advice of our friends or the “rules of religion” that we want but without knowing the author of our own stories our well intentions will always get us into trouble.  It is not enough to be a good person.  Our goodness will never be good enough.  We need to know HIM.  We need to listen to HIM.  We need to follow HIM.

Do you want to know how to find true success in life?  It is found in this simple nursery rhyme…

"Change your reactions, to things that will be.
Choose the right author, to write your story.
If there were ever a key to finding your voice,
It’s in knowing the power of two words; change and choice."

 

This is our life, our story.  And only God can lead us to our Happily Ever After."