Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Learning to be faithful

Everyone talks about being faithful in a romantic relationship, but recently I've been learning what it means to be faithful in every relationship. I've learned that being faithful to my friends means treating all of them the same. I can't treat one of them worse than another just because they're not as nice or they don't smell as good or whatever. Every one of them deserves the same opportunity at an equal treatment from me. I've been so frustrated with one of my friends because I feel like she's a total two-face, but I realized that so am I! I have to give every person the same attention because they each deserve it. I can't change just because the people around me change.
Then came an even more intense realization. Being faithful also means being gracious. Being faithful means faithfully giving everyone the same grace. It builds on my first lesson. I can't forgive one person easily because I like her better and hold a grudge against other simply because she has more problems than the other.
It blows my mind that Jesus didn't treat Judas any differently than the rest of the disciples! He even knew that he was going to betray him and he still poured out the same amount of time and wisdom and love into him. Jesus didn't let the brokenness of others break him. Wow, talk about commitment.
To break it down to an even simpler example, here you go: My friend is a teacher and was teaching her kids about consistency. She stood in the front of the class and held up a pencil sharpener and asked her kids what it was. "A pencil sharpener!" She walked to one corner of the room and asked again. "It's still a pencil sharpener!" She walked to the back of the room and asked again. "It's still a pencil sharpener!" It didn't change its identity just because it changed locations, so why should we?

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