There is a lot in Scripture about not judging each other. Yet it is a pastime that I discover all too easily in myself. In fact Paul said he does not even judge himself. Yet in his letters, he certainly corrects. There is some fork where the path of correction can become the path of judgment.
So, I'm thinking last night about one of the fears I have about moving: Finding a new church. I suspect problems and I haven't even met anyone. I know nothing of the makeup of the body, any of them, and I know little of the church in summary. So, how is it that I can have these conversations in my head, imagined disagreements and so on? I can't fool myself into believing that I'm just preparing ahead of time for "worst-case scenarios" because I know too little to even imagine the worst case. It's a waste of time.
What happens is that I get sucked into fearing what I can't control. While it is true that my Master has taken care of details I haven't even thought of yet, I fear that He may have missed one? Really? I can have faith and peace in His provision for my job, my wife's job, our house, Hannah's school, and where we will be located, but church; that's different. Seriously? Isn't that the dumbest thing ever? I worry about church, the place where the people my Master has called to Himself go regularly to seek Him together.
Well, there is more to it than that. I believe that my Enemy, The Accuser, is trying to find a weak spot in my faith, and push through to steal my peace. It is impossible for my peace to be stolen, but all too often, I give away when he asks for it. This slippery whispering one suggests something and, like a fool, I listen, even though it disagrees with all my Master is doing. I have a weakness here because I really do expect something to go wrong. All has been going so well, that something has to go wrong. When my enemy whispers, I hear and think, "Yeah, that could be what goes wrong." And it could, but how would I know since I can't know anything about the people where we're going? What's the point worrying about what I cannot know?
So, my lack of faith right there manifests itself in judging those I have not met. I put them in a category where I am "superior" in faith and practice and knowledge than any of them. Again, I don't know and can't know anything about them. So, how can I "judge" any of them? I imagine what they are like and judge that illusion. That makes sense. After all, if I'm judging an illusion, I can't really be criticized for judging a real person or fellow believer, so I'm ok, right? Um, is this getting more lame by the moment? Are you laughing at this yet? And yet this is where I go in my mind when left to myself. So, I suppose that I wasn't all that successful in the whole continual conversation with my Master thing yesterday. Not if this is where I went when I had some "down time."
So, the answer, and my application for the day, is to release my fears to my Master. I need to let them go and rest in Him. I must let the One having demonstrated His unfailing provision so far, to continue to provide a group with whom to worship. That makes good sense, and sounds fairly easy. Watch me mess this one up too. Perhaps confession makes these blog entries more fun to read. I suspect I will have lots of entertaining entries for some time to come.
No comments:
Post a Comment