Just wanted to post a quick note about rediculousness. Chris and I have been friends with our next door neighbors for over a year now, we are both Christians and in the times we have had dinner together, noticed that they were more 'conservative' in the way they follow Christ than we are, but have enjoyed much common ground none-the-less. We found their limitation on love the other day though, by accident. Our neighbor came over o bring us baked goods, as she had done many times, and saw that we were supporting Barak Obama. This effectively ended our friendship with her. She basically 'told us off' over our decision and clearly expressed her disapproval of us.
What do I say? Oh well. It is a bummer that their love for us is that shallow, but that is just what happens when you love people for what they do or who they appear to be, rather then for who they are. Chris and I are who we are and we make no apologies. Our savior is proud of us and that is all we need. We love people who are different than us, whose faith looks different than ours, and refuse to love the people in our lives with strings attached. After that confrontation with our neighbor, we realized that they were unable to love us in our differences from them. In fact, we realized that we could count on 2 hands the people in our lives who do love us, not for who they would make us to be, but for who we are. To those people, thank you. We appreciate that you are willing to live counter-culturally and love like Jesus did: without petty boundaries and concern for appearances.
2 comments:
so, i guess my question to you is, how will you continue to love your neighbor? certainly it may be difficult based on her reaction but that doesn't mean you get to walk away from the friendship, does it? you may not have liked how she expressed her disapproval but aren't we called to relationship especially when it's hard? in embracing others who's faith may look different, doesn't that mean you will have arguments, healthy debates, places of plain disagreement....and yet you still love them, and seek relationship..even if they don't want it?
Not much I can do right now if she won't even talk to me / is avoiding me. Perhaps as the Obama campaign moves forward and she realizes that he is not the anit-Christ, she will lighten up towards us again. I am always wanting to love others, but love is a two way thing. It is offered, and then must be accepted. I can continue to act loving toward her, she must then respond for it to remian a friendship, which, by definition, is a two way thing.
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