The Friendly Truth

Over a series of events and information lately, I've been taking a deeper look into my world (the world as a whole, my country, my city, my neighborhood, my world of friends and people around me, and myself). As far as the world geographically and socially, long story short, it is broken tremendously. Just see my previous post for just one example. As a result of taking survey of these things my hope in things has been shaken. Though I know the end is supposed to be bad before Christ returns, I also know that He has given me this trait of hopefulness for a reason (though I'm not always sure why).

[DETOUR] Yes, I'm what some would call a Christian, though I try not to be what you might think of as "Christian". What does that mean? That means I don't hate you and do my best (which is sometimes not great) to love you... either directly or indirectly. Is it because I'm trying to get you to "drink the kool-aid"? No. Whether you believe it or not, God is real and He really did send Himself in the form of man in Jesus. It's true and I don't mean that arrogantly, but just cut and dry fact. As a redeemed and adopted son of God, Jesus really only gave me one job. That's to love. Not collect money from you, tell you you're gonna burn in hell, not give you a bunch of rules to live by because my flawed self thinks their good, judge you or force anything else on you. Yes, I may honestly not like some of your actions or lifestyle choices, but I still care about you the person. Maybe that doesn't make sense, but how many of your friends, family or loved ones have a favorite movie, band, song, or food you just don't like, but you still love that person. Anyway... detour over. [pulls back onto the highway]

The funny thing is that God sees these times when my hope is fading and usually presents something to me to restore my hope and it's usually the most obscure of things. It's usually not some worship song, bible verse, or sermon but just some instance of life that just stirs me up. In this case it was just a friendly wall-to-wall exchange between two Facebook friends. Two people, honestly, I could not tell you what is going on in their life outside what I could discover from a profile page.

In our recent world of social networking, our world is becoming more connected and disconnected at the same time. Just focusing on Facebook, one can be "friends" with tons of people; actual friends, acquaintances, co-workers, strangers, companies, etc. Through that and actual human interactions I've been able to look around and look back assessing the idea of friendship. It's been eye-opening to say the least. Those who I would think would be my closest friends either have fallen away, never were, or I've done poorly at keeping up with... though there are a few exceptions. To be honest, most of them are Christian, people I call brothers and sisters. People I've prayed with, spent large amounts of time with, and shared life stories with. What better bond or common interest than the creator of all things, God. On the other side, I have the people I barely know, went to school with, work(ed) with or for, or only know what I know about them from their profile page.  What's strange and stirring is that between these two (minus of course my few close friends, a few exceptions, my wife and family), it is the latter that I have felt the most encouraged by and cared for... or at the very least recognized. It's crazy really, but not extremely shocking when I think about it.

We as Christians (whatever that may look like to you) tend to be the harshest critics and judges of each other. I know I'm guilty as well and it breaks my heart to know that I've done it. Instead of forming amazing bonds through Christ, we compete and put on shows. We're either too afraid to share our opinions for fear of judgment and not being "Christian-enough" or spend so much time squashing others' views. We're not raw and real because maybe if a church member were to see us curse, drink, listen to or watch something  secular, maybe we're not really Christian. Now, yes there are limits and moderation with those but add in the human judgmental nature of whose more attractive, has more money, or kisses your butt more and one begins to wonder what friendship actually looks like. Now, I'm not bashing everyone I've ever known who is Christian or painting myself as the be all end all of friends, but just sharing an observation of the last several years. If anything, social networking has shown me the people I missed way back when and their beautiful humanity, the people I've lost along the way, the handful that never were, the people I wish were back in or more in the picture, and the potential friendships ahead--both Christian and not.

So to the two Facebook friends mentioned above. Thanks. Our paths have not crossed for some time, but I was encouraged by your public exchange and sorry that I've missed out on some awesome people that I apparently seem to share a lot with.

The goal now is to do more beyond clicking "Like" next to your status and living life outside the box. Raw, real and in person (when possible).