So, lately I’ve just been doing everything I can in Christ to maintain my spiritual soundness, and the joy that the Lord has given me. Something happened the other day that would have thrown the old me into an emotional fit of rage and tears but just made the new me laugh. I reached out to a friend, or someone I still consider my friend, and got the ULTIMATE of cold shoulders. My number had not only been deleted, but additionally, revealing my name only got me a very unethusiatic “oh”. Men, that thing cracked me up!!! LOL, God forgive me if I should not be amused by this but I am tickled pink.
Now my imagination is quite vivid so I went through all the reasons why people I love (one time friends, family, associates at work, colleagues) no longer wants to associate with this new Christ-loving Mo and I came up with a few alternate explanations.
First, the new me is not comfortable with sin; I don’t flirt with it, hang out with it, date it, revel in it or chase after it. If the new me sees sin growing in the life of someone I love, I will find a loving way to call them on it. Call it judging if you want but if I KNOW that God instructed me to do it, and I’m not just saying something to make myself feel like I’m better than you THEN I have a responsibility to you as a fellow believer to correct you about whatever that sin might be and bring you back into God’s fold. If you don’t want to hear about your sin and you just want to enjoy it, then you probably don’t want to talk to me – I get it.
Second, I pray for a discerning spirit and I know that Christ is in me; if I know that you as my friend have hurt someone and have not made it right, I’m not just going to take your side because you’re my friend. I will talk to you and let you know what God says about the situation between you and that other party. And if God’s Word tells me that you need to make amends (which in this case, it does) then I am definitely going to be talking to you to do that. So, if you don’t want a conversation about forgiveness and repentance, then you definitely have good reason not to talk to me :o)
Third, if you lie to me and I find out about it but you still won’t own up to your lie, you have every reason to be embarassed. And I’m not going to try and humiliate you by bringing up what you lied about. I’ll leave that between you and your conscience. But thinking I found you out in a lie could be quite embarassing and can make it very uncomfortable for you to talk to me. I get it. And to be quite honest, if we did talk about it, I would most definitely let you know that the lie you told was found out and forgiven a long time ago but maybe that makes you uncomfortable too.
Fourth, when God speaks to you DISTINCTIVELY and you know that you know that you KNOW it’s God speaking – going against His word should make you quake in your shoes! And it’s hard to live with that kind of fear – it makes you paranoid and unstable in all your ways. I mean, seriously, how do you hide from an OMNIPRESENT God? So I can understand how that fear can drive you to irrational behavior.
Fifth, it is hard for some people to reconcile what they know about me when I was in the world with who they see now that I am in Christ. The temptation to judge the new me by the old standard is too strong. So if you see this new on-fire-Mo who is loving Christ in all of her ways and all you can think of is that old club-hopping, sin-loving, curse-word using, loving-love-to-the-point-of-idol-worship Mo, then it can be INCREDIBLY hard for you to be around me. First of all, you won’t believe my deliverance and you’ll just see a hypocrite and second of all, you probably won’t like this Mowunmi 2.0 – she’s not as much fun as Mowunmi 1.0. You might not have anything in common with this New Mo. So I get that too. If you love the slave-to-sin Mowunmi more than you love the delivered-living-for-Christ Mowunmi then we probably don’t have much in common anymore. So I get that too.
Lastly, if I see you as a fellow Christian destroying yourself with a particular sin and I know I don’t have the authority to hold you accountable – best believe I’ll have to turn your case over to someone who does have that authority. So, if you’re loving your sin and you don’t want anyone in authority calling you on it, it’ll probably make you uncomfortable to be around me – knowing that I have the ability to submit to authority.
Okay, I’m done analyzing. I hope this post brings You glory, Father and I hope it helps those in my life understand why I am not bothered by the space that is growing between them and I as I grow closer to Christ.
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