Happy New Year! I rang in 2011 in church, shouting, hugging, giving high fives and full of new hope, inspiration and a determination to make this year the best year of my life.
As I reflect over 2010 and all I took part in; coaching youth volleyball and basketball, serving as president of my college's honor society and completing my prerequisites for nursing school while being the best wife and mom I knew how to be, I realize why this new year feels so different. I worked with a lot of different people to include students, parents, college faculty and kids not to mention my own circle of friends and family. I learned something very valuable.
Not something I could sit down and read about, meditate on and then write about, this lesson came with each step I took in 2010. Every time a practice started, every time I had to correct a player or console the team after a loss. The lesson was reinforced as friends divorced and hooked up with new boyfriends leaving us with different lifestyles. It was something I had to practice as a leader in a public institution, one that discourages anything that could possibly be interpreted as religious or "preachy." The lesson was in relating without partaking.
We've heard it said so many times, we are in the world not of the world. If we aren't careful though, we can subconsciously take on an attitude of elitism. I'm not talking about the attitude of the elite that the bible talks about, I mean a holier-than-thou attitude that can prevent true ministry to ever take place. Jesus said if He be lifted up, He would draw all men unto Himself. Lifting Jesus without lifing ourselves isn't as easy as it sounds.
If you've ever known someone important, a person of known status or even celebrity, you know that you can feel a heightened sense of self-worth simply because this person deems you worty of their time and attention. Sometimes people even name-drop for the same reason. Christians can fall into the same way of thinking because we know Christ.
I'm not sure there is anything more liberating than knowing who you are in Christ Jesus. The freedom that comes with not having to perform. The peace that comes with knowing your quirks are actually gifts that set you apart from the billions of other people in the world. It's one of the many wonderful things salvation has to offer. As people with peers and influencing figures in our lives, how do we then keep ourselves from falling back into the same destructive practices that made us realize we need Christ in the first place?
We can (and should) surround ourselves with likeminded people. People who have a desire to honor God in their day-to-day living. It helps keep us straight to have people in our lives who will hold us accountable to the Word. We can also avoid relationships with people who do not share our desire to live for Christ. But we cannot eliminate all contact with those of different persuasions, beliefs and lifestyles. And we shouldn't. Instead, we must learn how to navigate the sometimes tricky waters of a world we most definitely are in with the rest of humanity. We cannot esteem ourselves higher than our neighbors, in fact, the Word teaches us to esteem others higher than ourselves. The easiest way I have found to do this is by treating others with love.
Love is kind and is not puffed up and best of all, never fails.
Even though we know that God is love, and as simple as the commandment to love our neighbor sounds, it is my experience that for some, it is the missing ingredient in our recipe to a productive life in Christ. For many others, however, they can love all day long anyone they come accross but have trouble staying on the path that leads to life. This has been a struggle for me but I have to think of it like this: We are on a road that will intersect many others. People will come and go in and out of our lives. We will really, really like some of these people and want them to stay longer, but they may be on a different path. They may be loving, well-meaning individuals. They may beg you to come with them on new adventures. But we are on a path too. A path that leads to life. It is straight and it is narrow and the Word already warns us that few will find it.
I have been on streets many times in my car and decided since no one was driving that road, I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. While this may be true of driving, it is not of living for Christ. There will be many times when we feel like we are alone. Believe it or not, I have felt very alone during the happiest times of my marriage! Certainly that doesn't mean something was wrong, sometimes right is just rare.
This lesson isn't one that wraps up. We don't get to take a final exam and forget about it. It is a moment-by-moment, day-to-day way of living that requires staying in the Word, praying consistently and examining ourselves by choice in an effort to line up with the Word.
Most of us came to Christ through relationship. A relationship with a family member, a friend, a youth leader or even teammate. Relationship is vital in bringing people to Christ. The common denominator in most relationship is something shared. Whether it's interests, activities, work or school, we start with something in common and relationship evolves from there. As relationship grows, we tend to spend more time around each other and that is when we learn our differences. That is when we have the opportunity to practice relating to people without partaking in sin.
My excitement for 2011 isn't simply from putting another year behind me or the hope of a clean slate, it is from the joy that comes with a better understanding and new opportunities to continue to walk this thing out. Where I started out last year fearful of how to approach success in school while maintaining rightstanding with God, this year I'm starting out with lots of practice. Lessons learned from past failures as well as tested and proved successes. I'm excited simply because I'm learning how to walk again and sometimes the second time is sweeter. When we first learn to walk, it's a natural progression, an expected milestone. But if something happens and we can no longer walk, once our strength is built back up and we can do it again, the joy that comes with each step can be difficult to hide.
So Happy New Year and God bless and keep you as you too strive to walk the straight and narrow with love. Much more to come as I continue in the faith and write along the way.
Devyn
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