Matchbook Diaries

A kind of Christianity

I have been presented with an interesting situation. I have met the people that I have heard about all my life. The people who profess to be Christians, but you would never guess by watching them live. It's very strange. And the thing is, they are not evil people. They are nice, well spoken, and they are my friends. Up to this point I have known who my christian friends are and who my non-christian friends are, so this is an odd situation I have found myself in.

I first learned of them when I was reading Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ. One of my friends saw it and commented that he had read it and it was a great book. This is a friend who lives with his girlfriend, uses foul language regularly, goes out drinking every night with the guys, and generally acts like every other person our age in the world! I'm sure I had a very funny look on my face.

I have since talked with him several times about our faiths. He grew up Catholic, which I think will do more harm than good a lot of times. I don't mean to offend anyone (that's what we all say when we are about to offend a bunch of people), but my general feeling about Catholicism is that it is a lot of empty works so you can feel like you are doing at least one thing right in your life and by that, earn favor with God. Every other branch of Christianity can be bad too if it is forced on a child, but Catholicism I feel is empty even at it's core. Anyway, this is not a post on Catholicism.

In speaking with him, I have found that he does, in fact, have a lot of knowledge about the things of God. What I don't understand is how that knowledge can exist without affecting your life. There are others also. Many other people have joined in our conversations, all people that I would never expect to darken a church door. One of these is a preacher's son, which explains a lot. He's the result of what I was talking about earlier where religion is forced on a child. When you have religion shoved down your throat as a child, you tend to reject it when you are older. Children need to be taught the truth, but not forced to believe it. We teach them right and wrong, but we need to be sure we know right and wrong first. At some point everyone makes up their own mind, we need to give them info, and an example so they choose wisely.

The problem with my friends, I believe, is not that they don't know the truth, but that they don't know what to do with it. They have the info, but they have never had the benefit, as I have, of seeing it put to practice in practical daily life. I had the luxury of watching my parents live out Godly principles in their lives throughout my childhood. I know that everything in the Bible works if you put it to use. I don't always obey and live like I should, nobody is perfect, but I have that foundation. I know that if I do attempt to be holy even as He is holy I will have a successful, fulfilling life. I know that the things I mentioned above, the drinking, cursing, fornication, these are not things that void a relationship with God. If you know Christ as your savior, then you are forever held in His hand and no one can remove you. What these things are though, is an indication of where you are in your life. A substitute many times for the greater blessing we could have if we are obedient. They are trading the great for the good, because they can have it now.

Overall, this is a new situation I have found myself in. I am very excited about what could happen here. I hope that I can be a witness with these people. I have already had questions about how I am able to "make it work" with one income and a wife and child (about to be children). Maybe I can be the example to them, as my parents were to me, of what Christ can do with a life if given a chance. I am scared also of what can happen if I let them down. If I don't act like I should. If I tell the wrong jokes, say the wrong thing, or start to be "preachy". I only hope they see Jesus and not me.