harmony (and a sigh)

I know I have things to face but I don't know what they are. God, help me be vulnerable.

I don't want to improve for the sake of improvement or for the sake of saving myself, but for the sake of glorifying God in my transformation. I'm afraid that somehow I will end up not living for God in the future. I'm afraid to put it all in His hands.

I'm working out salvation with fear and trembling. Forgetting, though, that it is God who is working in me and not me. So, it's definitely mostly self-centered fear and trembling, with very little reverent fear of God involved.

Deep sigh. Ups and downs, right? That's that.

Well, switching gears, I hate it when people feel uncomfortable. I think I have a harmony radar that goes off whenever a person feels uncomfortable. I've been noticing more lately - and I'm glad for this, that God is really giving me a heart for becoming a servant evangelist. It's an answer to one of my prayer requests at Urbana.

And this is a miracle, because I used to be a self-serving evangelist; all about the agenda, not about the relationship. Chris, the Bible-thumping picket protester.

It's hard to find a balance in the spectrum between "I have no problem that my friends are going to burn in hell" (Romans 9:3) and "I'm going to make my friends Christian no matter what it takes, because my words are all that matter and I have the means."

I'm learning to wait and listen, learning to share personally from my experiences, and although I need a million more years of work to be vulnerable, one day I'll be able to.

And yeah. So anyway, the fact that people feel uncomfortable makes me feel uncomfortable. So this past week, I think I adopted a different strategy. (And this may seem quite obvious).

Instead of blindly praying for people and closing my eyes and hoping they'll somehow absorb my spirituality and become Christians... and instead of raising my hands in worship, looking either down at the ground or up at the ceiling and hoping they're learning to worship too, I need to share the experience with them.

And that's presented itself in a lot of ways, but I realize a good icebreaker question is always, "Is this awkward?"

And they'll probably never say "Yes," but it's a good segway into a conversation of their spiritual background and a good opportunity to pray for them. It's really not in our hands.

Preserving harmony is a gift - and making people feel comfortable is what hospitality means. Not smiling, saying "Hi!" and going back to our ways, but to guide them through the whole thing. After all, it might be 5 minutes of awkwardness for you, but it saves them 3 hours of it. Servanthood.