A few months ago I found myself livid…and honestly
hurt, when a very close friend outright attacked my dedication to uplifting God
because I opted to miss a choir engagement.
The conversation started with me sending a photograph of my walk-in
closet in utter disarray, accompanied by a text message stating that I would be
missing the event in order to complete a school paper (I’m a graduate student)
and clean my closet. My friend
immediately hit the wall, going off about how our music is a ministry and I had
no right to miss the engagement because of a messy closet. I mean it was quite the tense, high emotion ordeal.
Just recently, I was reminded of that
conversation when the very same person left church right after singing (before
the Message of the Day) in order to finish some homework. Then, a few weeks
later, skipped service all together to clean her house. I found a stir in my spirit. Was I angry with her for missing church? No. Am
I judging her for missing church? No,
but I did find myself bothered with her missing church for the same reason I
missed that choir engagement. My thought
has always been such that the Message of the Day is the most important. I have even Tweeted the notion, saying, “I
may not make it for the music, but I won’t miss the message”.
I’ve been searching my soul a lot lately trying
to make sure that I’m sending the right message and not being dismissive of God’s
promptings in my life. So when I felt my
spirit stir at her missing church to clean her house, I started to question
whether or not I was secretly judging her – conscious of it or not. These
questions became all the more soul stirring in recent weeks.
I, like the rest of the world, have often
quoted Matthew 7:1-5, “Judge not,
that ye be not judged … why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's
eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? ... Thou
hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou
see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.”
This scripture and
the toils of my spirit come to mind in the wake of this Mayan Calendar…end of
the world fiasco of late. In preparation
for December 21st a friend,
and professed Christian, made mention to me that they would not be willing to
engage in fornication on that date because where they did not believe that the world
would truly end, they didn’t want to ‘be caught sinning’ if it did. Here’s my issue, Matthew 25:13 states, “watch
ye therefore, for you know not the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man
cometh”. This was more than enough
reason for any Christian to ignore the Mayan fiasco, but moreover, I was mystified
by the notion of “being caught sinning”.
As I work on my upcoming
novel, I toss back and forth the idea of lying to God, ourselves, and
entertaining in darkness those acts which we wish to keep from light. Fornication is of course one of those acts,
but there are others that we find ever present and choose to set aside.
When considering
the ‘argument’ with my friend and the statement of my other friend, I was
reminded of my own faults and the words of an elder, “if a word is not a part
of your vocabulary, it can never slip out”.
One of my greatest vices in recent months, that I have been working on
lately is swearing. I’m not having lust
and fornication issues and all those other things that people deem “big sin”,
but I am having my own issues and I have been dealing with them on the level of
Romans 3:23, “for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”. Where sins may be judged separately on
whatever level the Lord see fit, they WILL ALL BE JUDGED and we will all be
held accountable for that which we know.
Was my friend
wrong for missing church to clean her house and/or do homework? Yes. Was I wrong for missing the choir engagement
to do homework and clean my house? Yes. Ministry
is ministry. Whether it be through
word or note, the Word of God reaches people differently. Music is what brought me to God and therefore
opened my ears to the message, but that does not negate from the message. Music
and the Message are like Prayer and Study – there should be no one without the
other. I was once told that prayer
is you talking to God and reading the Bible is His opportunity to speak back
(which is why you should pray understanding before reading the Bible)…same
thing with Music and the Message. The Message
in church is God’s word for me as spoken through His servant, singing my
praises to Him is my response.
Not one of us can
stand to judge the other based on our own actions and interpretation of what
the Bible says. God’s law, as later
manifested in man’s law, is like the Constitution – where you can attempt to interpret it however
you see fit, you can’t change the content therein…IT IS WHAT IT IS! As believers we have to stop practicing a la
carte Christianity – I don’t eat pork, but I get drunk on the weekends. I’m not fornicating, but I can cuss like a
sailor! It’s all sin!
I had a major eye
surgery this summer and once my sight was restored from it, I began to see a
lot of other things more clearly. I am
therefore trying to focus my energies on checking my motes…when was the last
time you checked yours?
- @RevealingRuth
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