Stepping On Toes

Recently after a great deal of prayer, pause, more prayer and then back and forth (even though I truly felt God leading me) I "had" to call on a fellow believer and ask her about comments she was making. It was extremely difficult and so completely uncomfortable, yet I felt the urging from our Lord and I obeyed. The reaction was not what I was expecting. I thought I'd get a reply for one, possibly full of anger, most likely justification, but a reply none the less. Instead she completely shut me out. When I realized this (I admit I've been a little preoccupied and it took me a week or two to realize it) I emailed. The bad things of emails is people can not hear our tones. My guess is she heard my tone as accusing, when it was concern and honest questions.

So what are we to do? When we see our brothers or sisters in Christ behaving in unGodly manners? When they do things that makes our jaws drop because it's so ugly, unbecoming, and unlike the person you believe you know? In my opinion I think we pray, then wait, then pray again. When we get our answer we're to obey the Lord. I've been on the otherside of this situation, honestly I was furious and let my sister know I was not pleased with her. She was gentle and said "well have you talked to God about it? I have and felt him leading me to talk to you." she then said "Maybe I misintterupted him, so if you have talked to him let me know and I will apologize if we still differ, but if not how can I pray for you as you talk to our Lord?". Whew, knock me off my feet and drop me to my knee's.

What do we do when we are cut out of that persons life though, because we were honest and sincere? Well I can tell you what I did, I reached out once again and emailed and asked some questions and made statements of what it felt like to me. The reply was curt, no answers. So, where's that leave me? My instinct is to reply again, but although I've written the reply I'm sitting on it for right now and praying. Praying for guidance for me, guidance for her, and guidance over the whole situation as a whole.

What I'm discovering is no one wants to be told that what they're doing or saying is wrong, ugly, or hurtful. No one wants to be told they're being judgemental. But what happens when our Lord tells us we need a hold a mirror up to anothers face? Well we better obey. It's not easy, there's a chance a friendship may be over or scarred, but we still must obey. Here's the clincher though, we better get prepared for the Lord to give someone else a mirror to use on us. How we react is one thing we have control over, though. We can accept what we percieve as criticism or we can throw a fit, and act like a spoiled child being told " no cookie".

Can I tell you how hard it is sometimes to be a Christian? It is. Anyone who thinks that once they give their life to the Lord, that it's smooth sailing, is in denial or if they are a Christian and have smooth sailing, where is the walk? Even if the situation above is not one you've been faced with, what about sharing our Lord with others? There's a world full of nonbelievers.

It's something to think about. I want to share a video I have seen before, but came across again tonight over at Bridget's blog. Take the time to watch this, even if you're "too busy" "don't have time"..make it! It's worth it.