I have a friend, whom I had the privilege of playing on a tennis team with a few years back. Her name also happened to be Beth. Beth and her husband John bucked the system. To this day, they are the only people on earth I know who have done this. Truly done this. They bought a boat and raised their children on the sea. Teaching them through experience more than they could have ever learned sitting in a classroom. They sailed, and still are, all over the world. Experiencing! Loving! Living!
We get so caught up in having to do a system. There has to be a formula to everything. Nothing can be ambiguous. God forbid we just buck the system and let God lead us. Satan has done such a good job getting us focused on the system. So much so, if there isn’t a system we spend our time creating one. That isn’t how God created US. He created US to be free. To live our lives individually, not together. Yes, we need community, but not every community has to be the same. If fact, they shouldn’t be the same, different people need different types of community.
We need to stop trying to make everyone the same, and instead just embrace who they are. Be grateful for them. For the gift they are.
Reading book the book “Unchrisitan” by David Kinniman. It is all about how the outside world views those who attend church. It ain’t pretty. They don’t think much of us, to say the least. And with good reason. We in the church, myself at the front of the line, have given them good reason to think the way we do. I’ve been so focused on judging, I haven’t done enough loving. Nothing humbles me more than that thought right there. I haven’t loved enough. That literally breaks my heart.
It breaks my heart the people I’ve had the opportunity to love on, and haven’t. It breaks my heart the divine appointments God lined up for me that I completely missed. It saddens me the chances I had, those moments when God was trying to bless me with something really special, that I missed them. It breaks my heart.
I need to do better at loving people. It’s hard to admit, but it is true.
God help me!
