Discipline in all Aspects
Something has been weighing on my mind lately: a small but constant voice, asking me how many times I will let ___ happen before I do something about it. Across multiple situations, I hear this small voice and I’ve decided to listen. About a year and a half ago, I took a job teaching incarcerated youth. I was very open about speaking faith to anyone who was interested. I never pushed it, but frequently told them that I was praying over them. Eventually some started asking questions about Jesus and I discovered that they were hungry, starving even, for faith. They were desperate for something good to believe in and I had kicked open a door. I also realized I was out of my league. Having walked through my faith journey for about 15 years at that point, I set out to read the Bible cover to cover multiple times but never finished. I set out to memorize a verse per week multiple times but never increased. I could tell the stories of Genesis, Exodus, and John 3:16 to toddlers at Sunday School. I know how you find Jesus, and I know how you get to Heaven, but I couldn’t answer the hard questions for teenagers who have walked through a tough life.
When I began my faith journey, I kept it to myself. Eventually, I began to be more outspoken but I never made an attempt to make disciples. I watched negative connotations become attached to Jesus and sought to be an example of goodness in an attempt to negate them. If “Christians” had reputations of being judgmental and hypocritical, I would speak about my faith and do my best to show kindness and sound mind. That isn’t good enough. If what I believe is the truth, then I should be making disciples. In order to do that, I need to KNOW why what I believe is true and why other faiths are not. I set out to learn more, but had never fully devoted myself to Biblical study. Shocker, but life got in the way… distractions that I allowed to draw me away from a focused, devoted knowledge.
Some questions that I was asked and couldn’t answer, or statements made that I couldn’t refute, included these:
- All religions worship the same God/ Christians and Muslims worship the same God
- The Qu’ran says…
- How can you say that Jesus loves me no matter what if I’m gay and the Bible condemns being gay?
- How do you know that the Bible is more truthful than any other religious book? The Bible was assembled by the Catholic Church and they picked which books they wanted to include, excluding others to send a specific message.
- Why are there so many denominations of Christianity? It’s so confusing, what’s the difference? How do you know what is right?
- There is a commandment to honor your mother and father, but I don’t know my father and one of my mother’s boyfriends raped me many times when I was four years old. I hate her for that. How can I follow Jesus if I won’t honor my parents? How could a God who loves me let that happen when I was so small and innocent?
I knew partial answers to these questions. I knew what I THOUGHT, but that wasn’t good enough. I do think that I could have reached more youth during my time there if I had been better prepared. It was a wake-up call, or so I thought. This past summer I saw Tim Tebow speak and he shared his testimony story. He said that he felt the call of Jesus and went to his mother, telling her that he wanted Jesus to come into his heart. His mother took him to the living room, got out her Bible, and they prayed together right there. Such a beautiful story. It got me thinking – if my son someday came to me and said the same thing, would I know where to turn in the Bible? Would I be prepared to guide him? I can pray, but my knowledge is lacking.
Fast forward to last week. I was at work, casually talking with two other people when another coworker (who is very outspoken politically and religiously) joined the conversation. I have not spoken up to this person because opinions are just opinions and I don’t care to confront everyone who disagrees with mine. This time was different, however. The movie “The Sound of Freedom” was brought up, and over the span of about one minute this person made the following claims: Tim Ballard (the main character) was under investigation for acts that have increased child trafficking, Jim Caviezel (main character’s actor) was widely known for using his platform to “spread misinformation”, and that The Passion of the Christ was a “torture movie”. All I managed to utter was that it seems like everyone is under investigation for something now, and I hadn’t heard anything about it. When you make a movie like that, you make enemies, so an investigation doesn’t mean anything unless something is found. I was ashamed of myself. Over the course of that minute or so, my gut was screaming at me to SAY SOMETHING! I knew what he was saying was false, but I remained silent. Why? Because I wasn’t certain and I didn’t want to make a fool of myself. Just because I didn’t know of an investigation or of Jim Caveziel speaking lies didn’t mean that those claims aren’t true. I was a coward. I could have refuted all three of those statements, but I didn’t articulate fast enough. All it would have taken would have been the question of an example of one of these “misinformation” statements. All it would have taken would have been the statement, “The Passion is not a torture movie. It is the retelling of the greatest testimony of all time”. It isn’t that I’m afraid of confrontation, it’s more that my thoughts don’t articulate quickly (which is why I’m a blogger and not a public speaker) and I lack confidence.
I was, and still am, ashamed of myself. I let someone trash two men of faith and a beautiful movie depicting the testimony of Jesus. I let it happen in front of two other people – I allowed a foothold of “Christianity is bad” grow instead of casting it down. I was too embarrassed about it to even tell my husband what happened, and we usually talk about confrontations like that. He is very good at it, so I usually would have shared with him and learned something about articulation. Obviously, the emotional side of me doesn’t want to feel his disappointment, but frankly I deserve it. He shouldn’t tell me that it isn’t a big deal. I write about it here to make a declaration and a call to action. I will not let another opportunity pass by, even if I stumble over my words, even if I make a fool of myself, even if I can’t articulate my thoughts well. I will speak up in a respectful and humble manner, with the baseline goal of planting a seed. Making them think that they may not be right – or maybe not them, but others listening. You never know who is listening, and the idea that I – a woman of faith – did not speak up and may have influenced another young woman to not speak up is gut-wrenching. Jesus means too much to allow that to happen.
This goes for other aspects of life as well. How many times are we going to struggle to fit into that pair of jeans before we make better choices? Say we’ll get up earlier before we actually make a habit of it? Complain about a cluttered home before instilling discipline in chores? Claim we’re going to “get in shape” before we actually go to the gym?
I will re-devote myself to this blog as a project of faith. I will study by Bible and spend time with God daily. I will make my faith public at every opportunity. I will speak up about right and wrong, truth and lies. I will not be judgmental or disrespectful, but I will not be afraid to hurt feelings or cause irritation either. I will not become emotional, even if the other person does.
I will do better today than I did yesterday for the victory that is Jesus Christ. I hope that you will too.
