Patience part 2
This is where I think I wanted to get to yesterday, and where the idea for this Rant series came from: "But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also" (Matthew 5:39). And somehow, it seems like we preach this verse as if this is HOW you resist evil. As if to say, "In order to really stick it to someone... when they slap your face, turn the other cheek! That'll get them!" But I don't think that's what Jesus was saying. I think it was more along the lines of, "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God" (Matthew 5:9). I think Jesus was trying to show us a different way. A more excellent way. Because all we seem to want to do in the church world is resist evil. I've never seen a people more ready to fight than church folk. We preach our culture and we resist anything and everything else. That's why when people say I'm out of my mind I usually reply by saying, "No, but I'm clearly out of YOUR mind." And that WILL frustrate people. I think that when people get what they don't expect--even in a positive light--it tends to confuse us. I think love is one of the most misunderstood things in the universe. People are always looking for an ulterior motive. Like... "I just hit you and instead of hitting me back you're hugging me? What's your game!?!" When in truth, love doesn't HAVE a motive. Love IS the motive. And if someone hits you and you don't hit back... if you can have enough patience to understand that people can only give you what they've got--hurting people hurt people--then you can break the cycle. Instead of giving back what they gave to you, what they have, you can give them what YOU have. You can take what they've got without retaliating, and you can show them who God is. By showing them love. I still remember when a kid at my job ran away and I tracked him down to bring him back to class. He rolled his eyes at me and said, "Well... you caught me." And I told him, "I'm not here to catch you. I'm here to keep you safe. I'm here to help you." And he looked at me like I was an alien. Like all his life it had been him vs everyone else and now all of a sudden there was someone on his side. And I'm not saying that from that moment on we were best friends. Because we're not. But from that moment on he looked at me differently. He trusted me a little bit. And then I was in a position to help him even more. And then he trusted me even more. Because most of the time things happen slowly and steadly. Baby steps. But if you've followed my ministry for any amount of time you've probably heard me say that baby steps are perfectly ok. You have to learn to crawl before you can walk. Good things take time. You can't expect the whole shebang right from the jump. You have to have patience. Both with yourself and others. Otherwise a situation like someone smacking you in the face, or smacking your hand away when you're reaching out to help them, could wreck you. You could conceivably get into a situation where you stopped reaching out. Where you hit back when someone hit you. But that's not a peacemaker. That's not helping anybody. That's not going to let you be KNOWN as a Son of God. With patience we possess our souls, right? When we're not flying off the handle, or giving back what someone gave us an eye for an eye, that's when we can be who we really are. Who we really are in Christ. Which is who Christ really is in us!