Misty Fitch | Fearfully Made

What if . . .

What if we all try doing this one thing before preaching to someone about decisions they’ve made?  Pray.  Pray for protection for that person. Pray for God to soften our hearts because it’s impossible for us to really know the situation of the other person.  God knows the situation and the heart of the person involved.  Pray for the situation.  Pray for God to reveal himself in the life of that person.  They do not need us to throw our opinions and scripture they’ve probably known their entire lives in their faces constantly.  They need love.

As children of God, we cannot assume we know everything about another person’s situation.  We cannot be the people who condemn them.  We are called to be the people who love them where they are.  The best way to lead them in the “right” direction is to pray for them.  Pray for peace in their decisions and for God to work in their lives.  What we think is right or is God working may look very different from what God knows is right and is him working.  We as Christians must get out of this place of superiority and black and white thinking.  Not all things are cut and dry.

But the Bible Says . . .

Sure, the Bible is God’s living Word.  But you know what?  It doesn’t address every single situation that happens in our lives.  For example,  I’ve seen many times a woman who cannot conceive being condemned by “Christians” for trying fertility treatment because it means she doesn’t have faith in God.  Is that really true?  Nowhere in the Bible does it address this situation, and the poor woman is probably already on the verge of an emotional breakdown.  So what does it accomplish to point fingers and preach to her that what she’s doing is wrong only because it’s wrong in one person’s eyes?  Who is to say God didn’t place those doctors in her path for a reason?  Who’s to say the baby conceived through the treatment won’t be the next world-known evangelist who changes the lives of millions?

Certain things are addressed in the Bible as being sin, but understand things aren’t always black and white.  God knows the entire process it took the person to come to their particular decision.  It may very well be a wrong decision, but God is looking into the heart of the person.  If he or she is speaking with God through the process and has come to a place of peace in the decision they’ve made, then who are you; who are we as Christians to say the decision is wrong?   We are not in a place to do that.

I realize I’m pretty preachy myself today, but I’ve heard the stories of 3 different people just within the past 4 days as well as having my own story, and it has just been heavy on my heart.  How about we all make it a point to pray rather than force our opinions/beliefs on another person for making what we who look from the outside think is a wrong decision?  How about we talk to them and hear them out rather than immediately jump to conclusions and throw scripture left and right?  Let’s try to do this through the month of August, and see what happens.  I would love to hear comments about what has happened when you do this.