A Minor Revelation With A Big Kick

Do you ever feel like you're banging your head on the cieling of understanding - like there's something there that everyone else gets but somehow you're just not seeing it? And then there's a minor shift in light or mood and suddenly you see it clearly and you understand it and you know it. To everyone else its no big deal, but to you its profound. I had that kind of revelation yesterday.

I was driving home and thinking about the article I wrote about yesterday - a venemous diatribe against religious people on the basis of the fact that we were delusional and insane and clearly incapable of understanding simple facts. In the 400 plus responses to this diatribe the comments were generally along two lines - Yeah, you tell those god freaks and I'm sorry you can't see, taste, feel God. It got me to thinking about what the evangelical movement in this country must be doing wrong that so many people were so upset at organized religion that they would spew such vitriol. I mean we all know that some people come across heavy handed and try to force their religion on people who are clearly not ready for it. These people come away feeling put upon and angry and not at all pleased with organized religion. Instead of converting them, we are diverting them to other things. And that was when I had the revelation.

It goes something like this.

Me: Someone ought to do something about that.

God: Why not you?

Me: What do you mean, me? I can't force other people to behave more like a responsible Christian.

God: Yes, but you can start by behaving like a responsible Christian yourself, can't you?

Me: Wow. I never thought of it like that.

And suddenly it occurred to me, we are all individually responsible for showing the world the love of Jesus Christ.

See. For most of you that's got to be the sort of no-brainer, biggest DUH, of the week. Of course, we have to do that. But for me, it was a sudden eye-opener.

If I want more greeting to be done on Sunday morning at my church, perhaps I ought to go there and greet people myself. If I want non-christians to know the love of Christ, perhaps I should show them that love myself. If I want more people to live the gospel in their everyday life, perhaps I ought to live it myself.

The immediate thought I had, of course, was what the heck had I been doing before this really obvious revelation and I realized that I'd been trying to do this very thing but without understanding the reasoning behind it. I was doing good for the sake of doing good. I was walking the walk because that was the direction I happened to be going, not because I was on a journey anywhere. I had been blindly doing things, but now I understood the reason behind those things. I had known, for instance, that yelling at other cars was not a good thing to do while driving, but I didn't particularly understand why (other than its just not nice, even if they are slowpokes ;) Now I knew that the way I drove to work and interacted with my fellow drivers was a direct reflection to them of the love of Jesus Christ. If I yelled at them, I was not projecting the very things I professed to believe.

Wow. And again, Wow.

God is refining me this summer and so far, I am the much better for it. May He continue to bestow these blessings on me.