Stranger Things...

About two weeks ago, I had 4 separate encounters with a stranger. So what, you may ask?? We all often encounter strangers daily. But these were unusual encounters, in that all of them involved lengthy conversations about Christianity. I was so impacted by these conversations that I had to write about them. Before I do, I want to state that this is not a post that is aimed at bashing Christians. On the contrary, it is intended to remind & encourage us to always try to live by the example set by our Lord Jesus Christ & to admonish us to do better, if we find ourselves acting in ways that can turn people away from God, rather than toward Him. So on that note.......

I met the first person as we were both scoping out the clearance shelves at the grocery store. She was a woman who began to engage me in small talk which evolved into her sharing a tidbit of advice about everything under the sun including God. Forty-five minutes later, I was able to politely extricate myself from this very friendly yet verbose lady who could out-talk even THIS talkative gal! I'd have tried to end the conversation sooner, but she was just so gosh darned sweet that I couldn't bring myself to do so. She just seemed to have the need to be helpful. Problem was, she was helpful to the point of annoyance. 

A couple days later, I was approached by another woman in the grocery store, who needed help finding something her mother asked her to buy. Before I knew it, she was telling me about her life & of how she takes care of her mother while her brother fails to do so. As she continued to share, she suddenly began to speak very judgmentally of Christians & pastors who don't conform to her standards of what she felt that Christians should be like. It's one thing to hold Christians up to the standards of Jesus Christ, but another to set your own standards & to judge those who didn't conform. She was doing the latter. I was left with a sour taste for her harsh judgment of her fellow Christians whom she felt didn't measure up.

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About three days after that, as I was exiting yet another store (I really should get all my shopping done at once), I was fumbling for my keys & absentmindedly blocked a portion of the store's entrance. Although there was still plenty of room for customers to come in & out of the store, a woman felt it was her duty to educate me on the importance of consideration & respect for others. She made an exaggerated point of having to go out of her way to go around me, then proceeded to give a dissertation on the declining morals & manners in this country, as well as to make very racist remarks toward Hispanics & the conspiracy she felt they were lodging against white people in California. Um yeah.... I tried to politely apologize for my blunder of blocking her path & thought that would be the end of it, but she had a desperate need to be heard. Out of respect for her age (she was considerably older than me) & because she appeared to need someone to talk to, I listened to her. I wish I hadn't. She kept using her professed Christian values as justification for "educating" people about what she perceived to be their lack of manners & character, that she seemed to be lacking herself.

A few days later, I saw a homeless man pushing a very heavy shopping cart down the street. His cart was overflowing with his belongings, on an already hot morning. When I began to enter the bank, I saw him resting in the shade of the building. As I approached him, I saw the sign attached to his cart. It said "Jesus loves you". I greeted him & he said "May God bless you". I replied, "God bless you too". He then said, "Do you love Jesus?". I replied that I did. Then he said "what are you doing to serve Him?". That stopped me in my tracks. After talking with this man for several minutes, I realized that he wasn't asking anyone for money, unlike the panhandlers holding signs on every street corner down the road. All he wanted to do was to tell people about Jesus.

What did I notice about all four of these individuals?

* They all claimed to be Christians.
* They all engaged me in lengthy conversation that caught me       off guard
* There was an unusually frequent occurrence of these          encounters in a short period of time

What's my take on it all?

I'm not quite sure why I met these people & it IS a bit odd for me to have had so many similar experiences in a 10-day period, each resulting in lengthy conversations about God initiated by Christians. This sort of thing just doesn't happen to me, especially not with such frequency. 

I realized that I can learn something from these experiences:

(a) First woman: being a talker more than a listener...being too helpful/a know-it-all. 
(b) Second woman: being judgmental about how other Christians worship or serve God
(c) Third woman: being self-righteous & hypocritical
(d) Homeless man: boldly proclaiming the love of Jesus Christ for us all

Each woman was very nice. But if I was not a Christian & I encountered any one of these women, I might be reluctant to want what they have. I might be turned off of Christianity if these were the only representatives of Jesus Christ I had come across. Oh my, I am SO FAR from what God wants me to be!! I am striving to be pleasing in God's eyes & to point others TO Him, rather than away from Him. So I have no room to talk. But these three women each shared the one trait that is sadly often so common to many of us who call ourselves followers of Jesus Christ. They each behaved in ways that are off-putting to others, because each have somehow set themselves above all others, by their attitudes. How many of us have done the same thing?

How many of us have tried to be so helpful that we have failed to listen to others? Have we offered so much advice that we always have to "one-up" the listener & have felt the need to make sure the person knows that we have some superior knowledge or expertise in a given area that they don't possess? Is that not being prideful & arrogant & is that not a sin that is displeasing to God? We are not imparting wisdom & helpful advice when we do that. We are showing our insecurities & our need to feel important. In a way, that's a form of vanity. Shouldn't a good listener listen more than speak (I need work in this area) & encourage the ideas of others rather than trying to be the one with all the answers (again, this speaks to me)?

So MANY Christians get puffed up in their sense of right & wrong & how things "should" or "ought" to be, that they can't be open-minded about new & different ways of reaching others for Christ or of worshiping God, or even of just BEING!! We don't have to compromise Biblical values & standards in order to reach & be relatable to people. No place in the Bible does it say that we can't tailor our approach to evangelism & ministry to the needs & styles of others. We don't need to behave as the Pharisees did, who were all caught up in "the letter of the law" & on doing things the way things have "always been done". The Pharisees allowed no exceptions to tradition, & they even questioned Jesus Christ, GOD's own Son, because He dined with sinners & performed miracles on the Sabbath (are we not all sinners & did not God create the Sabbath & therefore have the right to perform miracles on it?). We do more harm than good, when we as Christians, get so caught up in tradition & a refusal to try new approaches to things, that we turn people away from, rather than closer to Jesus.

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And how about the example of the third woman? Behaving in a self-righteous & judgmental manner does more to turn people away from God than just about anything else. One of the biggest complaints I have heard non-Christians say about those who claim to be followers of Jesus, is the amount of self-righteous hypocrisy & judgment directed at them by those who are supposed to be an example of the love of Jesus Christ. It's never pleasant when others tell us how to behave or how to live our lives. How many Christians have come right out & told someone "you're going to hell!!"?? Who died & made THEM God? How is that professing & showing the love of Jesus? We can love the sinner & not the sin, but we don't have to go out of our way to make sure that people know we are exalting ourselves above others in a superior manner. Only Jesus Christ has the right & the authority to be in that elevated, exalted status. We as Christians tend to forget sometimes, that we are saved through GRACE, through the blood of Jesus Christ when He paid the penalty for ALL our sin, not just for the sins of those who don't know Him.

Here's what I noticed about the man I encountered:

I didn't see him any longer as a homeless man. I saw him as a brother in Christ who was living the example that Jesus set for us all when He came to save each of us, all those centuries ago. He was so outspoken & passionate, that he reminded me of the Apostle Paul. This man inspired me, motivated me, & challenged me to be more like Christ & to be bold & to speak out about Jesus & point others to Him. He reminded me that once we die, that's it. There's no more chances to choose Jesus. The moment our heart stops beating, that's it. Our choice has been made. How could I as a Christian, know this & not tell others? There's a right way & a wrong way to share Jesus with people. Being overly helpful to the point of turning people off by thinking I have all the answers, or being judgmental, or even having an attitude of self-righteous entitlement to "educate" others about how things ought to be, how others should conduct themselves or telling them under no uncertain terms, that they are not going to Heaven, are all sure-fire ways to point someone in the opposite way of God, rather than toward Him. I would hate to have to answer to God for turning people AWAY from Jesus instead of pointing them toward Him!! Nobody likes a know-it-all, judgmental hypocrite, right? Right!! Humility, boldness, passion (whether quiet or outspoken passion) & obedience to God in our attitudes & in our convictions, ought to be the way that we serve the Lord & point others to the Light that IS Jesus Christ.

So for whatever reason that God brought these 4 individuals into out-of-the-blue lengthy conversations with me, I do believe He had a purpose in doing so....& I believe that purpose is to show me what I ought NOT to do, & then show me what I SHOULD be doing. I have lots of work to do, but I am excited at this new perspective. 

AMEN!!

Photo: Cari Kissel

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