living by accident

I’ve had a lot of time to think during the past week or so. Some things good, others bad, a lot of it annoying, but things that I really needed to sit down and ponder while I had a minute to do so. About friends and family, relationships, religion, work, school, you name it…

I was sitting in church on Sunday, listening to the sermon, and I kind of started laughing. I love my church, don’t get me wrong, but I used to work there so I know how often they aren’t practicing what they preach. And I looked at my pastor with such contempt and I wondered how he could sit up there and say all that when I know he isn’t living according to his own word?

Then, just today, I was working on a postcard for GOYA that we’re going to be handing out in an attempt to get people more involved in supporting the organization. Check them out:

As I sat and designed this postcard, I found myself wondering if I was practicing what I was now preaching. Encouraging the world to get involved in an organization that I don’t really participate in as much as I think I should. I’m going to Kenya this summer, but is it to serve or is it just because I’ve always wanted to go to Kenya? Is it because I want the experience of the place, or to offer my experience to the mission? Am I going to give of myself or just to take away from an adventure?

I guess I find myself learning a lesson everywhere I look now. Like I had said a couple weeks ago, as soon as I thought I knew what God wanted for my life, He turned it all around. God is full of surprises, and I fully believe that He will continue to surprise me on this trip to Kenya next year. But I found myself feeling the most surprised at the lessons God teaches me when it comes to judgement. I pride myself on not being judgemental, not holding a grudge at all, and there I sat on Sunday silently accusing my pastor of being a hypocrite. It doesn’t take long for God to show us the wrongs of our ways.

James 4:11-12 says:

Do not speak evil against one another, brothers. The one who speaks against a brother or judges his brother, speaks evil against the law and judges the law. But if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is only one lawgiver and judge, He who is able to save and to destroy. But who are you to judge your neighbor?

Ouch…sometimes the truth hurts. But it’s true. I sat at lunch, bitching about all this with Reid, never once noticing my judgmental attitude I had toward my pastor. I know that we all have our flaws. We have all, at one time or another, participated in the gossip tree that grows through our faith. We’ve all embraced a lifestyle that goes against our own better judgment from time to time. And while it’s easy to forgive ourselves of the mistakes of our past, and to assume everyone else should as well, it’s not as easy to realize that everyone needs that same grace and forgiveness from us. That we’re all just as guilty, meaning we’re all just as deserving. The same grace and compassion that we get from God is a model for the grace and compassion that He wants us to show toward each other.