How Close?

It’s a game some Christians play all the time, and although the rules can change from person to person, it goes something like this. I want you to think I am a good person, and even a Christian, but I don’t want my friends to think I am so different from them. Basically, I don’t want to look or sound weird to them.

I can make an effort to dress like them, with provocative clothing. This would apply more to the ladies, and shows itself in lower necklines and shorter skirts. The lower and shorter the better you play the game.

Or..We might want to talk like them in everyday conversation by using words and language which go close to the bare bone. Some will even use words which rhyme with and sound like you are using a swear word, but the good thing is, you are not. You get very close but don’t cross the actual line. The more you can sound like the unsaved, the better you play the game.

Or...We would never read the same secular, racy magazines, but we will be seen to know about similar reading material, all in the quest to look like them. You know, just human. Yet another way to play the game to better effect.

Or...It is so easy  to use the internet to see what they are watching, just for research purposes you understand. And anyway, who will know what level of ‘racy’ or ‘adult’ material you happen to come across in your desire to be like them. It can also give you common ground for striking up a conversation. Not a Christian one of course, but who knows it might lead there eventually. A way to get your information without being caught in a compromising situation which would be difficult to defend. You are playing the game really well with this little sleight of hand.

Or...When we mix in the same company, no matter where, we show them that although we are a Christian, we can go to the same places as them, and no one will bat an eyelid. The more we behave like the ‘regulars’, the better we play the game. And we can do that so convincingly. So we go to church, but also go to the pub and/or club. By now, we have pretty much mastered the game, and feel very comfortable. We can so easily defend ourselves by saying that Jesus sat with sinners, unlike the Pharisees who knew what their Bible said but had no love. We are only trying to be like Jesus, right?

Of course the ways to play the game differ, but the aim is always the same. To make it look to our Christian friends that we are in fact Christians, while at the same time, making it look to our unsaved friends that we are human, just like them. My only concern is how could we be a convincing witness for our unsaved friends to want to be a Christian when there is so little difference?

Let me leave this thought with you. There are other Christians who do not play this game, and have no need or desire to walk so close to the cliff edge. What effect do you think it has on them, particularly the younger ones in the faith? Would they be in danger of falling over the edge of the cliff? The cliff edge that you have so carefully tried to avoid? Other lives do matter, both the saved and the unsaved, so why play games which do not help either, and only serve to play to our own ego?

When I reach heaven, I want to be greeted with “Well done, good and faithful servant”, not “Well you cut that close”. How about you?

Friendless

(A Very Short, Abridged Story)

He has a few friends, but is pretty much a loner. His pals feel the same. They work in the same place with lots of others who seem to get along fine, but every now and again there is an argument which can get heated. Most of the onlookers don’t really understand what they disagree about, but they take sides anyway. It usually goes against the loners.

The thing is that these people who don’t have a lot of friends, usually carry a stick around with them. Sometimes it is hidden, and you would never know it was there, and then again sometimes it is visible, quite visible, and occasionally it gets used. Why on earth would these people carry a weapon? Well it goes back a couple of generations when some of their family lost their lives in a horrific way. It actually goes back much further than that! Man’s inhumanity to man lead to a terrible set of tragic events and some of their ancestors said it would not happen again. Most people accept that as true, although there are some in the group of workmates, who say it was just a made up story, and they shouldn’t even be allowed to play. In fact they would want them out of the workplace altogether. That doesn’t help anyone.

Occasionally,some recreation is organised, like a game of football in the courtyard, and for a while everything goes well, but then it turns sour. The other side, start to kick at the loner team heels, and make unnecessary dives in the penalty box, and ignore the offside rule, but usually the referee allows the goals anyway. There are spectators watching on the sidelines, and they pick sides, as all spectators do. In this case it is confirmed that the loners do not have a lot of support, yet again. This seems to be the norm for them, and they get used to it. These unliked or hated people, are well educated, and not from a poor family unit because they have worked at their identity. The others, who are playing against them, are not so well dressed, or sometimes poorly educated, but feel that they are owed something from the loners, and that is their own part of the games field.

Trouble is that a part of the games field was offered to the poor people many years ago, but they refused it in the hope they would get something better. At the same time, the loners accepted the part of the games field they were offered, and worked on it to make a good place for their families to live. They even turned the dry and desert part into a garden area. From that time the gap between these two groups has grown bigger, until there is a deep hatred. Oh, and the stick? Well both sides actually carry sticks, and they have been known to use them. The loners, who have become the outsiders, have a bigger stick, and when they get goaded and niggled and provoked enough, they use it and people get hurt or killed. Nobody likes being pushed around, and certainly not to a breaking point.

The media is good at reporting when the loners use their stick, but they don’t record or report the many more times that they are kicked, and abused, and the other side do not play by the rules. So it looks to everyone that the loners have just pulled out their stick and used it, without any reason. But we know better, don’t we? Don’t we? The spectators are not all right in their judgement. The media is one sided, and not balanced. In the meantime the fight on the games field gets ugly, and there are fouls galore. You know what it is like, the foulers always say they were unfairly treated, and will go as far as taking a dive in the penalty box, in the hope that they will score the winning goal. I should say that the game is not over yet, but we are into extra time. If that doesn’t work, we go to the penalty shootout. No one likes a penalty shootout, because it doesn’t necessarily reflect the true result. Still that’s the nature of the ‘game’ being ‘played’ right now with human lives.