Wow. I am super-excited about this truth that David has brought to life about being “different among” while we are on this journey of being Christians in a world of unbelievers. If you weren’t able to be at Sojourn this morning (January 20th), please download the podcast from today’s message. It is very powerful. We are continuing to walk through the gospel of John, and today we were dissecting the passage of John 17:6-19, where Jesus is praying for believers and asking His Father not to take them out of the world, but to protect them from the evil one in the world. Everything really hit home for me this morning, and I want to share a little of my personal testimony as a “what not to do”. (I read once that everyone is either a good example or a warning sign- I have been a warning sign far too often in my life.)
I grew up with the general belief that when you are a Christian, you should hang out with Christians all the time, you should basically have only Christian friends who go to Christian places and only think or do Christian things- if you want to be a “strong Christian”. While there is much truth to that, I have learned the hard way that we can often take that to the extreme.
When I got a divorce, I began a ride on a spiritual roller coaster. I had been a Christian for 16 years at that point, knew Jesus on a personal level, and had Him in my heart. But through I guess what you would call a period of rebellion, I began to hang out in local bars for the first time in my life. Whenever my daughter went to her dad’s, I went to the bar. I met a really cool girl on one of my first times “out”, and we became fast friends. For an entire year we did everything together- some good, some not so good. This girl was not only NOT a Christian, but believed that god is within you, that you just have to find the good within yourself and within others, and that is god. During that year, we connected on so many levels and had some amazingly fun times. But towards the end of that year, my friend decided to move to Florida. Our last night out, MUCH to my surprise, she told me that I was the nicest, most peaceful, moral, even GODLY person that she had ever met. That she had learned a lot from me. Seriously???? I thought. How in the world… ??? I knew I had done nothing that would “lead” her to Christ. Had not even had that on my agenda. But somehow, despite my failings, she had seen Christ in me. !?!?!? We promised to stay in touch, but honestly, after she left, I started trying to “walk with God” again and decided to stop hanging out with certain people so that I could really focus on my relationship with God. So I did the worst thing I could have done: I dropped the relationship with my friend. I honestly thought that there was no way I could have a right relationship with God AND be friends with a non-Christian, so I lost touch with her. I dropped her as a friend for awhile so I could “go be godly”.
A year or so later, I met some other single moms at Allie’s dance class. They invited me “out”, and since I was getting pretty lonely at that point, I thought, yeah that would be fun! We went out and had a blast! Once again, I had met some good girlfriends- this time, other moms whom I had a lot in common with. I spent an entire summer hanging out with one girl in particular, whose daughter was Allie’s age. We took the girls to the pool and let them swim while we talked girl talk. We went on double dates. We laughed and chatted and had wonderful times together. But once again, toward the end of the summer, I was getting convicted about some things in my life, and decided to stop being friends with her and start being serious about God again. So of course, I dropped the relationship. I felt that I could either be friends with her, or be friends with church people- IF I was serious about walking with God. After a few weeks of not hearing from me, I remember she called me one night and said, “Look, I know you are a Christian. I know you are all ’trying to be godly’ and everything. And I respect that. But you and I can still hang out and be friends- you don’t have to just drop me.” But guess what. I still dropped her. I haven’t spoken to her since.
Thanks be to God, my first friend has since forgiven me and we have gotten back in touch. Totally a God thing. She has even asked me spiritual questions- because she feels comfortable with me. She knows me intimately. And she is not afraid of me. She has learned that I am not going to “beat her over the head with a Bible” or condemn or judge her. But she also knows where I stand and guess what- we can still be friends.
God has also placed a friend in my life who, though in all honesty I have tried to get rid of her, keeps coming back. This girl is a wonderful friend and has been better to me than many of my Christian friends. But she is most definitely not a Christian. I cannot connect spiritually with her. For awhile I wondered why in the world she wanted to be my friend, since I am not at all like any of her other friends. But it has finally hit me- that’s why she wants to be my friend! I am not like them! And something draws her to me! God is graciously giving me more chances to get involved in non-christians lives and hopefully, love them and touch them and somehow show Jesus to them. This time, instead of running from the friendship, God has convicted me to run alongside her and love her. To get involved in her life. Because the truth is, if I’m sitting on the sidelines with all Christians, I am ineffective. There is no way I’m going to reach her from there. She is in the trenches. I have to get a little smoke on me, but like David said, not get burned up.
I’ve also realized through this process that one of the reasons I ran from non-Christian relationships is because my faith was weak and I was unable to withstand the temptation that those relationships brought. I was not tapping into God’s power every day, or drinking from His well, or putting on the full armor that Paul talks about in Ephesians. So of course I was blown away. But for heaven’s sake, I’ve been a Christian now for 21 years! It’s time to strengthen my faith! Because God DOES want me out “in it”- not waddling in it, not joining in it, but in it- that’s where the mission is. The trick is to get that daily strengthening from God and His Word and ask the Holy Spirit to fill me and empower me. Then, go out and be in people’s lives who need Jesus. To get to know them. To care about their kids, their spouses, their jobs.
My husband doesn’t know this, but he is a GREAT example of how to do this. That boy amazes me. He encounters people in his workplace and on the job day in and day out who are not Christians. And he LOVES them. He is constantly helping someone move, or fixing something for someone- and most of the time they are not people from church. He knows how to love people in a practical way and is willing to do it. Now don’t get me wrong, when he goes out of town I don’t want him joining the other guys at a strip club. There is just no way that can be glorifying to God. Thank the Lord, Brian understands that and feels the same way I do. But he can walk alongside them and join with them without compromising his values.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that God’s Word is CLEAR on this: we were put here to enjoy God and to make disciples. And we cannot MAKE disciples if we are never around anyone who is not already a disciple. God is on mission and if we can ever hope to join in it, we can’t do it from the church pew.
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Julie R. Rodgers