As if I Had Too Little to Worry About

I used to have a youth minister who had a favorite saying, "You can choose to be a good witness or a bad witness, but everyone is a witness."  So, I work around several people who do not believe as I do.  Some are agnostic, some are practicing atheists, some are just avoiding the subject all together.  Then there are a lot of believers as well.  To these I am a witness to my beliefs, and therefore to the power, glory, majesty, and grace of my Master.  So when I am sarcastic, cynical, biting, overbearing, condescending, arrogant, and so many other things of which I am a rather skilled practitioner, I choose to be a bad witness.

It is at this point where my day, my attitudes, my emotions, and all those things which are personal to me, within my boundaries, spill over into the lives of others.  I was raised with the perspective that my relationship with my Master is my business.  The relationship of others to Him is their business.  This is a poor, unbiblical perspective to have.  Those who do not know or have a relationship to my Master may hold that position, and may be bothered by discussions about spiritual things, but that should not be my position.

In Paul's discussion of the relationship of believers to one another in Romans 14, differing views about food are used as an example of how to treat each other when religious opinions differ within a body of believers.  In the midst of that discussion, in verses 7 and 8, Paul says that none of us live or die to ourselves, but rather all of us live or die to the Lord.  What he is saying here is that my perspective needs to be off of the views of those around me, and on my Master.  When that is true, then I will naturally be the "good" witness I need to be.  He will have me in such a manner that His qualities become spiritual fruit in my life.  Others will witness His glory, power, majesty, and grace through me.  I just need to focus on Him, not on myself or how well I do compared to others around me.

So, pretend everything is OK, fake it until I make it, think and act until it's true, and above all do not let anyone know that I'm hurting, sad, angry, or sick.  Hmm, no, I don't think so.  It is an undeniable fact that my Master drags me kicking and screaming through rough times.  Yes, I sometimes whine and complain, I sometimes mope or pout.  But to go through these times and pretend I'm not is to hide the glory and grace of my Master, cover examples of His power, and instead take false credit for false circumstances.  It is the power of my Master that enables me to endure tough times.  It is His grace that redeems me from mistakes.  It is His glory and majesty that shine through me when I respond well to good or bad things.  So, if I hide those tough times, failures, and good or bad circumstances then I hide those opportunities for Him to shine.

So, I need to be open with my circumstances and my prayer life.  I should be clear about what's going on and what I am doing about it.  My uncertainty about my future should dovetail with my prayer life, both in my life and in my conversation.  So, the humiliation of waiting in the dark for God to speak may come from doing so publicly rather than privately.  I would decrease, and He would increase.  I would no longer live or die to myself, but rather to my Master.  Then God would have something in me to use in the lives of others.