the vocal bone & the passive bone

I’ve noticed much lately that with all the craziness going on in the world, the Christians are either extremely vocal or completely silent about it all. Just moving on their way going about their own personal business or screaming on street corners with signs and petitions… Where does that get us?

It’s always been interesting to me. I’m not sure that I have the street corner w/signs bone – and I definitely don’t have the ‘keep silent’ bone… so what gives? How do we handle it?

Prayer, for one thing. Why do you think it’s always a last resort or just written off? I don’t even know if I have a theory about it, except that because it’s a discipline in which we have to wait and search the Word and then maybe wait a little more, it’s not flashy enough. It’s not something that we can do and get credit for as humans, because let’s face it, our flesh wants all the credit all the time.

Then there’s the opposite. Those that pray and pray to be seen. Some call this judgmental… maybe it is. Or maybe it’s a frustration that rises in me when folks take scripture and make it for THEIR good… we all do it. No one can point fingers in this category. For goodness sakes, I stand in front of people week in and week out, and I’m always looking to see what we could improve on- ie: emphasis on we that is sometimes code for ‘ME’.  *Side note: I’m now going to go ahead and say I have more of the vocal bone than the passive bone… 🙂

What I’m submitting to you today is this: why not instead of flipping out over pop-stars that are most of the time lost people acting lost or snubbing our president because you don’t agree with him … why don’t we pray for them? The guys that make fun of you every day at football practice for going the extra mile and the girls who hate you because you quietly take your stand for Christ on Friday nights because you don’t go to the party. Pray for them. The person that has caused you a wound so deep that you can’t even begin to express and the child who chooses a path that is leading to destruction… pray for them.

I’m completely convicted of this time and time again. Pointing fingers – or not doing anything – gets us all no where. But loving like Christ, serving those who need it or those which of whom you think don’t even deserve service; being set apart. And remember, while being set apart isn’t always easy, popular, flashy – it is eternal. In being set apart, living like Jesus – we walk the line of the vocal bone and the passive bone…. right where Jesus walked. So where do you stand?