I’m not asking how you’re doing so I can “share Jesus” with you. I’m not listening to you so you’ll listen to me talk about God. I’m not hanging out with you so I can make you a Christian.
I’m your friend because I’m one. And being one makes me love people. Makes me love you.
Sorry for all the Christians you got burned by before me. Relatives. Friends. Co-workers. Fellow passengers on airplanes. The ones you say treated you like a deer in the last minutes of the season. The ones you say thought of you as a customer and schemed and pushed religion like a line of AmWay products. Those people are like relatives you hope no one ever meets I guess, the ones on Jerry Springer or the ten o’clock news – I love them, I really do, but they’re not the cousins I’d introduce you to first at a family reunion, you know?. They mean well, but…
Sorry about them.
What do you say I just keep being me and you keep being you and we keep hanging out just because, even if you never believe Jesus is God and even if I never like NASCAR or vote Republican? Deal?
Shaun,
Thanks for such a gracious response.
Agree? Yes. I agree whole labeling thing is indeed tricky. So, to your readers, I concur about the deception part when making friendships. That is damaging and fake.
Your post was written this way: sorry for them, I am not one of them. Now, I would say that it could be “sorry about ‘us’” instead of “them”. My only concern is an “us and them” theme I have been reading a lot of lately. The idea of “no religion but a relationship” has become a new legalism. It is a bar that we can easily set to distunguish being on the right side of things.
Thanks for being the positive influencer and passionate artist that you indeed are.
bravo, Shaun. If we all just shed the ‘religion’ and attempted spirituality, I think the world would look like something you are describing in this post.
thanks.
I suppose in the long run of things I would be ashamed to say that I never looked at my friends with the desire to introduce them to something greater. To reach out to them as a friend who loves them and show them something wonderful.
Oh the methodlogy varies so much from person to person. But we only can use what tools we know we have can’t we? When I knew how to use a track, I used a track, but when I learned to love, I worked with love.
And sometimes that love, means being upfront, honest, and simple with the message of salvation. If we don’t tell them how to find it, when can they choose to take it?
I really enjoyed this post and have some thoughts to share from a message I heard this week at my community bible study. Come on over to my blog to hear about it.