How do you handle it ?
Word’s gotten out at work that I’m not only a Christian, but also that I’m ordained and preparing to plant a church someday. It’s not that I tried to hide it or anything … I just don’t feel the need to announce myself. Self-aggrandizement is silly; it also sets you up for people to make snap judgments about you that perhaps are untrue.
No one’s really said anything to me about it directly, but suddenly people’s attitudes have changed. It’s not in a bad way, I guess, and it may lead to some more direct conversations… it’s almost funny, but in an uncomfortable sense of the word.
For example, a couple of people there swear prolifically. It’s just part of their normal vocabulary (like it was once a part of mine). Since they’ve found out more about me, they’ll start to say something and then hush themselves - “can’t say that in front of Kathi!” Or Person A will say a bad word, and Person B will tell them they can’t use that sort of language in front of me.
There’s a couple of other folks who are living in blatant sin (sex/drugs/drinking/etc. mostly) who have started to curb what they say about their personal lives around me. One guy explained that he didn’t want to talk about a guy he’d met and liked because he didn’t want to offend me.
How much is not wanting to offend - and how much is fear that I’m going to judge them, even reject them? Is any of it conviction, I wonder? Do they have an understanding of what sin is?
Much to ponder and pray about. If anyone’s got insights into how to handle this effectively, I’m all ears.
July 13th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
“There’s a couple of other folks who are living in blatant sin….”
Not ordinary sin, mind you, but blatant sin!
Blatant!
July 13th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
Blatant! Extravagant! Absolutely.
Don’t get me wrong… in God’s eyes, sin is sin is sin is sin.
I think, however, that a distinction needs to be made on our end between three kinds of sin - because it helps to better understand ourselves and others.
First - “ordinary sin”. You get irritated and snarly, stub your toe and holler #!$@! - stuff that’s all too easy to rationalize away. In a way, “ordinary sin” is far worse than the others because it’s easy to be in denial about it and slip away from God and where you need to be.
Second - what I’m calling “blatant sin” - when you know you’re doing wrong but you love it so much you’ve just “gotta” with no regard for the consequences (immediate or eternal).
Third - I guess I’d call it “malicious sin” - the causing of deliberate tangible harm to anyone/anything else (rapemurderpillageburndestroy…)
like I said… to God, any sin separates a person from Him - and we’re all sinners. It’s in our nature… even “good” people sin. There’s a judgment for sin, and we can either accept that ourselves (even though we have no avenue of preventing sin in our own power), or we can accept that Jesus Christ came to pay the price and bear the burden in our stead.