Читать книгу I Love the Word Impossible - Ann Kiemel - Страница 12

a professor was lecturing to a class of law students.

during his lecture a woman walked in

and around the room

and then out.

the teacher continued talking without making

reference to the woman.

at the end of the class, he asked the students to

write their impressions of that woman: how she

looked and walked and anything

they could remember. all sixteen students

perceived her differently.

i have been raised

in the evangelical world. three of

my great uncles, my grandfather, my father, and

two of my uncles are ministers.

i was fed and clothed and loved by the church.

it is a tremendous heritage.

if there is one thing, though, that confuses and

distorts my evangelical doctrine of love,

it is legalism.

it is the law that dictates for everyone, anywhere,

the absolutes of his/her relationship to

Jesus Christ.

a student at a Christian college

was about to graduate. extremely bright

and filled with potential, he fought one major

crisis. all his life, he had been raised in the church.

for years he had watched people “get saved.”

he heard them testify the same way. they usually

cried a lot, felt brand-new and wonderful

inside, and were going “to go with Jesus

all the way.”

i was eight when i accepted Jesus Christ

at a billy graham film, and i confess

that is exactly how it happened with me.

david, however,

had gone forward many times,

and never was able to cry

or have a high-peak emotional

experience. as a result, all these years

he had decided

he could not be a Christian.

one day

he talked to a man who also was not an

emotional personality. he was reserved and rather

withdrawn.

this man shared with david that Jesus Christ

entered his life in an undramatic way.

no tears.

no brand-new, cleaned-out

feeling.

in his heart, he quietly and simply

chose to follow Jesus Christ. he confessed his sin,

and began sharing his entire self with God.

that day, david’s life changed.

he had, for so long, wanted

to know God.

suddenly he realized that Jesus relates to our

personalities individually. today,

david is a strong, stable Christian.

one of the most beautiful stories in the Bible

is about Jesus and the prostitute.

Jesus certainly did not approve of prostitution, but

He saw that woman as a person

separate from her behavior.

He loved her.

He tenderly reached out to smooth her life.

the pharisees’ law for prostitution

was to stone to death; no consideration of

where the woman came from, or what she

was in her heart…

just cruel, immediate death.

Jesus’ law of love was

compassion.

“he who is without sin, throw the first stone.”

with shame,

i confess to throwing stones.

i confess to the temptation of looking on a

person’s behavior, and letting that dictate

my feelings for that child of God… of deciding

for others what i think is right or wrong for their

lives when i have NEVER “walked in their

moccasins,” felt their pain and hopelessness, come

from their childhood. i acknowledge with

gratitude that more and more Jesus’ command,

“judge not, that ye be not judged,” is being

absorbed and understood in my life.

“perceptual distortion” is a psychological term

that means we all understand situations

differently, according to our backgrounds and

frames of reference. in hawaii, in my strict

Christian home, surrounded by ocean, for years

a major church function was having picnics on the

beach, spending hours swimming and riding the

waves. can you imagine my shock when i moved to

the midwest where there is no ocean, where some

evangelicals feel mixed swimming is an abuse of

the law of God? the difference was in where we

were raised.

Jesus, after all You have said, over and over,

about the pharisees and the law… after all

Your pleadings to be bound by love rather

than law… please help me and others, as

Christians, to see people separate from their

behavior that we don’t understand or

condone. be strong in us so we can always love

people for being people… and leave

the judging to You.