I’ve received an interesting amount of response concerning my ‘fire within’ blog earlier this week. A few comments were made directly on this blog others were sent to me via email. All in all I think the common ground is first and foremost as Christians we are called to ‘be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry.‘ I want everyone to know that I was not implying in finding my ‘voice’ I am suddenly on my own rampage to tell the world (or even a select few) that they are wrong and where they can go. (I mean, I am human, those thoughts do cross my mind!) 😉
The ultimate issue I have is when being a Christian is used as a weapon or worse, a silencer. I listed a few different ‘issues’ I was having in this regard because they literally heaped on me in one day (thus obvious that God was ‘showing up’ in some way…whether it was to learn the lesson or to show me how to have that ‘voice’ when necessary, or maybe both). I remained ‘silenced’ for a long time (on my own doing) because I wanted to make sure I was following what was loving and living in His light. But there were times when I felt the heat of the Holy Spirit inside me in certain situations where I saw one Christian speaking to another (or to ME) in such a way that was NOT welcoming, or filled with any love or understanding and I remained silent because I was trying so hard to dismiss the behavior because of where they had been or what they had survived or worked through or even their current situation, or worse, because we were colleagues and even in working for a church there can be ‘politics’.
Many of you must be dealing with similar situations because from the comments received the main question is this ‘When do we have a right as Christians, if we’ve taken the time to listen and if we pray for guidance, to speak out against someone else if they are clearly misrepresenting Christians?’
If you have your own thoughts or answers on this feel free to leave a comment. I do enjoy your emails but I know others who read this blog would love to see your responses as well.
Above all I first and foremost try to pray before I speak. But in the situation I was in earlier where I was literally ‘attacked’ for no apparent reason other than the fact the person was having a bad day…I reacted, kindly, not harshly, but reacted and finally felt free to speak my mind because this person represented the church and honestly had I not been so strong in my faith and love for my parish I would have felt the urge to say a few worse choice words and walked away from that church all together. On the other hand, with the group scenario of a few people wanting to make the group ‘conform’ to their standards… I have not spoken out against anyone in that BECAUSE I am too angry at the moment to do so.
I look forward to your responses.
Blessings
Shannon