One of the things that just annoys the daylights out of me about God is that He expects me to respond with love and patience... even when I don't really feel like it.
Case in point:
I had been trying to get in touch with someone who had missed church for the past several weeks but been unable to connect with them until today. When I did get them, they told me very flatly that they were "trying" another church for awhile, but they just might be back. I asked them why they were not happy with our church, the response was "Oh, I'm not mad at anyone or anything, but I just thought I'd look elsewhere." I said there must be a reason for them to be looking, but they said, no, they just wanted to see what else is out there.
Well of course I know there has to be more to this, and I wanted to tell this person that I expected more from someone who stood before the church and became a member, making a commitment to the church... but God put a major body check on me and the words that came out of my mouth were much more mild than I wanted to say, as I told them that I was there if they wanted to talk to me, but otherwise I hoped they found what they were looking for. I found myself saying, "You know you're wanted and needed, but only you can make up your mind as to where you will worship." I found myself sitting there thinking, "Did I say that?" In myself, I wanted to hit them square between the eyes with the facts... and I wanted to let them know I knew very well what someone else had told them about me ...but God would not let me go there.
The thing is, in myself I am a fairly impatient fellow, and I'd like to tell someone like this, "Don't let the door hit you on the way out!" or maybe some other witty slam, but NO..... God makes me be nice!
I think this is part of that dying to myself thing... but it ain't easy!
1 comment:
We don't have to bad mouth someone to get our point across.People do watch our every move.When people see we can handle what we say our selfs they can see the real meaning of a the chistian way of our church and will want to be a part of it.We all need help from god to learn to hold our tongues and tempers.We all need to think before we speak.
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