Discovering People

I have come to realize (and this year "I have come to realize" more than I have ever come to realize before, so I feel the assertion is pretty valid) that people of value are few and far between. However, I have also learned that we all react to different things in different ways, so it's unfair to judge a person solely on the basis of their behavior in a certain situation. How are we to know what we would do in the same situation, given a selection of circumstances... Sure, we can judge and assume we would be so much more levelheaded than the other person, but who are we to say we're better than someone else?

My big problem, of late, is with judgmental people, people who like to look other people in the face and say their actions are somehow deplorable or inappropriate. I don't believe that it's fair for one person to place that kind of weight on another person, especially, in my case in point, on a fellow Christian. If the actions aren't sin, in and of themselves, the other person does not have the place to point out those supposed flaws, and even if they are sin, who has the right to remove the speck of dust from another's eye while ignoring the plank in their own? Jesus Christ shared this example with us himself, and yet somehow so many people think they are in the position to determine how other people should "work out their salvation."

Consider also in the New Testament where there is mention made of eating meat sacrificed to idols. Some say this is a definite sin, while others see nothing wrong with it, and the only insight the Bible gives about this decision is that it is up to a man to decide, and that a man should not do this act in front of someone who considers it sin. Well...allow me to get to my point, as my purpose here is more in depth than to merely point at Scripture and say, "See?"

If a Christian believes it is all right to do something that falls into the Biblical "gray area," the place where there is minimal mention of whether a thing is "acceptable" or "not," then clearly they should be wary of displaying this behavior for other Christians who do feel that it is "not" acceptable. The apostles warn against the "stumbling block" this will cause. For example, if a Christian feels something is wrong, and does it anyway, simply because someone else says they should, they are sinning in their own heart. But what about the other direction, because we seldom talk about this...

What about the Christian who is always trying to convince someone that something is a sin when the other person believes that it is not? I ask, because I have been guilty of this attempt at forced assimilation, myself. Is it fair, I wonder, for two people to be in a relationship with each other, trying to force different morals upon each other? Of course, this also requires a necessity of speaking up. (I have been the "convincer" before, without knowing how strongly the "convincee" felt about the subject, and I would like to regret that, but due to the lack of communication, I can't feel entirely at fault.)

I know that I am in very poor standing when it comes to judging relationships, since any that I have been in have ended in disastrous failure--whether by my own fault or not does not really matter in a track record. However, as I began with, I have learned a lot about people this past year. (As Claire says, "I don't know a lot about everything, but I do know a lot about the part of everything that I know, which is people.") I once thought I could understand humanity as a unit, that I just had to find a niche where I belonged and all the sensible things that made sense to me would just flow around me in peace. This is what I [unconsciously] expected out of life, and I think that this year served to teach me, once and for all, that nothing in life is ever what we expect or want initially. Whatever we plan, whatever we hope for, whatever we decide we want, is not necessarily where the road will take us if that is a part of our plan instead of His plan.

So, I can't control the people in my life, I can't control the people that I love, and although I honestly never wanted to control anyone, I did want to be sure of them. I sleep more comfortably knowing you are down the road and in your bed sleeping peacefully, or that you are up at work, but I know where; I can rest easily knowing that I am in your prayers, wherever you are, and that you love me in spite of my many poor qualities and often terrible attempts at having good qualities...

These people are my best friends, the ones who have weathered the storms with me and come out loving me more in the end. I have come to embrace these people for their nearness to my heart, even if they are distant in body. A lack of constant communication is not a problem for me anymore, though once I thought I would go crazy without communication (thought that was for a slightly different reason), because I have learned that if I truly trust the people I love, if we have proven to each other that our friendship is for life, it doesn't matter how often we talk, or how many times in a week, month, or year we see each other, because we will always come back together loving each other as much as ever! And I love that.