As I was driving home yesterday, I noticed that the car in front of me had a cross pendant hanging from the rear view mirror. Suddenly, another car in the adjacent lane merged over in front of the cross car. In my opinion, it wasn't a super dangerous maneuver, but I could see where the lady in the cross car could have felt that she was cut off.
In response to being cut off, the lady in the cross car honked her horn profusely and flipped off the driver of the merging car. She then proceeded to change lanes so she could get right up next to the merging car, roll her window down, yell at the other driver and flip him off again. Nice.
I would roll my eyes at this behavior under any circumstance, but the fact that the lady is openly professing to be a Christian and still chooses to conduct herself in this manner really bothers me. Now I admit that I am making several assumptions here. First, this may not be her car and even if it is, she may not have been the one to hang the cross on the mirror. But, for the sake of conversation, let's just assume that it's her car and she hung the cross.
I realize that this is a relatively insignificant example, but it's no wonder why people have trouble rationalizing Christians with Christ. We preach love and grace and mercy, but are we living it out?
Am I living it out? Can strangers tell that I love Jesus? Can my co-workers? Can my family?
St. Francis of Assisi is credited with saying something along the lines of "Preach the Gospel always. Use words only as a last resort." Easier said than done, but I for one am going to try harder in this area.
3 comments:
If this is something you aren't struggling with, you aren't trying to be Christ like. I think the hardest thing for us as Christians to do is mimic that what Christ had down to an art form. That is the concept of "power under" rather than "power over". If we strive to understand that, regardless of what we may think of an individual during a fit of anger, God created that person and by default, that person has value. Chances are that person is better at some things in their relationship with God than we are. Loving others is the greatest gift we can give the world. We need to do it more often.
By the way....I think that "Christ follower" link is awesome...perfect.
Thanks Matt. Good thought.
St. Francis of Assisi correctly implied that one's actions should be relied upon to show their true heart rather than one's words. Interesting post Elaine.
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