I’m up at 1:20am unable to sleep and this theme keeps rolling around in my head. Since I can’t sleep I came downstairs to write so here we go.
The title of this blog may bring to mind the story of the woman caught in the act of adultery in John chapter 8 or maybe even the woman at the well in John chapter 4.
I was saved on July 30, 2009. I was 35 years old and had lived all my life searching and running and running and searching. I said the sinners prayer around a dinner table that amazing day in 2009, and my life was changed forever in that instant.
I had what some would call a “radical conversion moment” where one minute my life was going the wrong way and the next it was not. What I have found these last 12 years of my Christian life is that everyone’s story is unique. Some people have that “a-ha” moment like I did and for others it is more like a long, slow simmer into their faith life. Either way it is powerful, real, personal and miraculous.
I’ve often wondered about a few women in the Bible, and what their lives looked like after they began to live as Christians. The Bible doesn’t mention the failures and slip ups of either the woman at the well (John 4) nor the woman caught in the act of adultery (John 8) after their moment of coming to faith in Jesus, but you’ve got to know that they weren’t perfect from the get go. They probably struggled with old tendencies, and…NEWSFLASH! They probably did sin even after their miraculous encounters with the Messiah Himself! Oh, but His grace covers!
These were women with extremely broken pasts: the woman at the well who’d had five husbands and then the woman caught in the act of adultery. Let me say that again for the people in the back: a woman who’d had five husbands and another woman caught in the act of adultery. Safe to say, they had issues with men, and they probably had a laundry list of lots of other issues as well. I can relate. Let me let you in on a little secret (or maybe not so little of a secret). I was the woman at the well. Let me also confess that some things in my life changed miraculously on that wonderful July day in 2009, and others… well…let’s just say I am a work in progress and thankful for the Lord’s grace and truth in my life. Oh, but His grace covers!
That’s the thing about God that’s so perfect! He is gracious, and He is truthful. Only He can understand the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The trap for us onlookers sometimes is to think that because someone is saved they need to do A, B and C in a timeline that we perceive to be acceptable to the Lord. We become judge and jury without really knowing the heart of God.
I think the reason this theme, this warning is coming to mind is that we are at a critical time in life when we need to come together as the body of Christ and truly be about our Father’s business. He did not call us to police the lives of other Christians and think ourselves superior. He called us to live lives of love in Him and in service to others. The moment you and I become critical and frustrated with others’ lives not looking as holy as we think ours is, we have stepped outside of being of service to others and have entered the futile realm of merely being a spectator. The Bible has something to say about that. I just looked this passage up in The Message:
A Simple Guide for Behavior
Matthew 7 1-5 “Don’t pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults—unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It’s easy to see a smudge on your neighbor’s face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, ‘Let me wash your face for you,’ when your own face is distorted by contempt? It’s this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.
At this time there are men, women and children in Afghanistan who profess Christ who are not concerned about how someone else’s faith life looks, of this we can be sure. Their reality is a life and death one. We can be certain their focus is the Lord and not the speck in someone else’s eye – the smudge on their neighbor’s face. This should be a sobering thought, a wake up call that we need to get serious and stop sweating the small stuff or we are going to miss the very thing God wants our attention on. We need to deal with the ugly sneer on our own face and pray. Like the verse above says..”that we might be fit to offer a washcloth to our neighbor.”
Thank you for reading this early morning post. It’s a heavy one for sure, but one I think we all need. It’s time. Time to be humble. Time to be prayerful. Time to grow. Time to change. Time to stop judging. Time to come together. Time to love. Time to be about our Father’s business.
With all my heart,
Sonia
P.S. If you have been judged, pushed out, demeaned, bullied, left out, ridiculed, misunderstood and even if you’re the judge and jury…this song is for you and for me:
john4four 