Friends, Family, and Perilous Times

I was actually working on a different entry altogether, but have kind of stalled on it. So I will post this entry for now.

---

After turning 60 this year, I have been looking back on my earlier life when I was closer to the world and nonbelievers, both as friends and acquaintances, as well as family members.

Christ divides, because sin presides... It was already underway back then.

Luke 12:51-53 Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on, five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.

If I put aside for a moment, the strained, and mostly nonexistent (blood) family relations from childhood days, in which I learned quickly the necessity of self reliance and the cruelty of the world. I am left with the lesson of how much God can be a Father to the fatherless, and I also saw how rare it is for those in this situation to break out of that cycle.

This leaves me the rest of the world that I contended with, and still do to this day, including friends and co-workers who were not of the faith, and are not at this time.

And this is our mission field as it were. Our spheres of influence in our lives. I will be the first to not only to admit, but to proclaim, that I am no example of the perfect walk with the Lord. I have stumbled, I have fallen, and I have the bruises to prove it.

But... We learn best from our mistakes that don't bring us to ruin. And the wisdom of hindsight is a very beautiful thing in relation to trust in His promise and His track record in our lives.

I was fortunate that with all that was going on in my childhood, I was brought to Him at age 7, and that all along the way He had me in His hand, He was beyond graceful and merciful, He still is... :)

I don't think God ever intends for us to become worldly in order to get the attention of the worldly, but as we all know, when we do, He uses everything for the good.

I had many profound discussions with some who have departed us now, that at least made them stop and think a bit. In the end, everyone makes and are accountable for their own choices, as well as consequences, good or bad, and some of them (more than I care to imagine) are lost forever.

Psalm 37:10 Yet a little while, and the wicked will be no more; though you look for them, they will not be found.

In the last two decades, as I came closer to God, and I awoke from my slumber, and put away the pursuits of my own desires and will, many have drawn away from me, some outright disowning me, and some became abusively contentious and insulting, as if to bully me into compliance to their opinion.

Former friends and co-workers too, who, in hindsight also, were never really that close anyway and held me at arms length in relationships. They tolerated me as long as they had use or need of me.

One's I thought were particularly close, that in reality weren't, I had to pursue them to keep in touch with them. There came a time when I had to let go, or I wouldn't have been able to come to where I am now.

There is a fallacy in many people's minds that Unconditional Love means that we must accept Unconditional Tolerance of Bad Behavior, and much less Evil. The two do not go hand in hand.

Sometimes we have to love people from a distance, and we must never sacrifice our relationship with Christ for the sake of a relationship with others here on earth.

There is no shame or sin in removing toxic people from your life. God never asks that you remain in it, only to forgive them, pray for them, and to do no evil in response to it.

By far, the worst of all of this is those who "Claim the Name", yet are bereft of love, and compassion, and of patience. No visible signs of humility, and full of "Me", but not much "He". Quick to anger and judgment. They look and act so much like the world, that it is almost impossible to tell them apart from the world, and begs the question about their authenticity.

There is so much Deception about these days. So much Hypocrisy, and an over abundance of Narcissism. In fact, Paul gave Timothy a description of our time by way of a Smorgasbord of 19 points of Narcissism in the last days.

2 Timothy 3:1-5 But understand this: In the last days perilous times will come. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, without love of good, traitorous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. Turn away from such as these!

And it seems then, that I did exactly as God wished for me to do all along, though I dragged my feet for a while, and dealt with false guilt(s) along the way, evaluating myself unfairly against a standard I though the Bible had about tolerance and patience. It was there in His word all along. I had but to look for it and read it.

We are not family by that which we are born into, though we can be that as well.

We are family by whom, the Blood in which we share of Christ.

Grace and Peace to you all in Christ Jesus, God in the Flesh, the only name in and under heaven by which men can be saved.

---

Don't be a grape. 🚫 🍇

🦊 Jack [ The Foxman on the Wall ]