So I've been reading through the book of Job. It's given me a lot to think about to say the least!
As I've read Job's "friends" responses to Job's crisis I have felt a little uncomfortable to say the least. Not because they're harsh (which they are) but because I see myself in them.
Job's friends cling so tightly to the idea that God is just that they spend chapters telling Job that he must have sin in his life to deserve all this "punishment" and if he would just confess it then everything would be fine. And in the end they end up being the unrighteous ones.
I'm realizing that there are times in my life when I have chosen, and would choose, my little theological boxes over love for a friend. Not necessarily the same one as Job's infamous friends but I have little beliefs, doctrines, that I hold tightly. They keep my faith safe and tidy, black and white.
The older I get the more I realize how un-"black and white" the world is. There is so much gray. When a friend is living in the gray I can't stay in the black and white and still love because I feel this impulse to pull them into my "black and white" boxes. Then I can stay safe in my little faith world.
I'm realizing that this has just destroyed so many of my relationships. Oh I wish that love wasn't so scary, so gray. Oh Lord, teach me to love! To risk stepping out my little boxes, into the gray, to love a friend and realize that my boxes don't hold all the answers. May my faith and beliefs steady my love instead of constrain it. May I have such a knowledge and understanding of Your love for me that it simply overflows and holds me in the scary gray world.
Thank you, Lord, for entering my gray and loving me anyway. Spirit, teach me to love like that.
Amen.
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