February 8, 2012

• Alcohol and Such As

  There are a few things I don’t talk about like hardly ever. Personal convictions and callings that are my own. I feel strongly about them…..most of the time, but I also know that walking around blabbing about them isn’t going to win me any friends. There is a fine line between living my life to please people and living my life to “win” people. I don’t want to be a people-pleaser but I do want to “win” people to Jesus. I want to see people develop a relationship with God that looks like intimacy with Jesus, surrender to Jesus, and serving unto Jesus. It is a journey of which I am still in the beginning leg. But it is truly, truly an incredible journey, and I want to live in a way that makes every person with whom I come into contact, want to take their personal journey of intimacy, surrender, and serving.

  I am pretty much the good Baptist girl that I was raised to be. (Except I pray in tongues and jump up and down at youth camp. I am a rule follower and am hounded by shame when I misbehave.
  Allowing you a peek into our odd but “I love it” marriage, there have been times Blake has begged me to say a cuss word. “Say just one, Christina. You can whisper it and I won’t tell anybody.” And there *might* have even been a time that Blake illegally downloaded a movie and I wondered if I could even stay married to such a man.

   It has been a soul searching, on-going process with Jesus as I sift through legalism and conviction; asking God to look at my mile long list of “don’ts” and to tell me what He thinks. At this point in my journey, I know that I am called to live a more conservative lifestyle than many other Christians. I don’t know why, but I trust that God does. The changing factor in me has been two-fold: releasing others from my own convictions and secondly not letting the “don’ts” be the focus of my life.

  I’m going to take one of my “convictions” that I rarely talk about and talk about it.  Alcohol.
  My personal convictions have stayed the same: I don’t drink it. But I definitely have different thoughts on it than I did 10  years ago. As a reminder, I grew up Baptist and as a fairly important side note I was home schooled. My parents walked their talk as did the other families that we were close to, so I seriously believed that all but a tiny percentage of Christians abstained from drinking, dancing, getting tattoos or more than one hole in their ear, gambling, and wearing bikinis. I was honestly in my mid twenties before I realized how wrong I was about my fellow Christians. I realized that I was pretty much a nun that had married sex.

  I recently read a book by Jen Hatmaker (jenhatmaker.com).  I seriously loved it and have actually made changes in my life because of this book..hence… “It changed my life” for real. Jen tells in the book that she drinks wine and her husband gambles. Two things Blake and I don’t do. But guess what she is someone I respect and even look up to. She and her husband love people. They love poor people. They love orphans. They love dirty people. They love sinners. And when I say love, I mean the action kind of love. The action kind of love that convicts me. The action kind of love that drove me to make changes in my life. The action kind of love that does not come from not drinking, not gambling, or even not having a tattoo.
  Did I take up drinking and gambling after I read her book? No. No I didn’t. That wasn’t her point anyway. Jen’s point in sharing those things (I believe) is to show that sometimes we get so caught up in our list of rules that we think that is what life is all about. (See: Pharisees in the gospels)

  I think about all of the times I have been eating in a restaurant with Christians that don’t drink, but they treated the waitress like their annoying slave. I think about all of the times that Christians that don’t dance sit around in their living rooms gossiping about the pastor. I think about all of the times that I have chosen not to participate in some border-line worldly activity, yet I have done or said something completely hateful to or about another person. Shame on me. Shame on us. How clear did Jesus have to be when He told us what He thought was the most important thing? Love God and Love People.
   
  Now on the flip side, I  think that Christians can take their freedoms they have found and use them in a way that is also not loving. I love coke. Fountain coke. In a Styrofoam cup. Happy, happy me when I have my coke. If I know I am going to have a coke sometime during the day, I will deprive myself of all liquids for hours because I know how amazing it will taste to have a big drink of coke when I am really, really thirsty. I know. I know. I KNOW! It is bad for me. I have been cutting back. BUT in light of my love affair with coke, I have never once decided on whether or not I was going to go to some type of gathering based on whether or not they would have coke in Styrofoam cups. When it gets that bad, please, someone stage an intervention. Get me some professional help. When our freedoms are receiving more of our  “love” than people, then we have taken them too far.

  I know we can apply this same question of the heart to other areas. For instance, I dislike being with big groups of women. I went to a women’s conference a couple of years ago and gave an audible sigh of relief when a man walked into the room and up to the stage. Its just too much perfume, jewelry, giggling and snifflng into kleenexes for me. It is hypocritical of me because I do those things: I wear perfume and jelwery, I giggle daily and I cry monthly. But something about being in a crowd of just women is not fun for me, and I usually try to avoid those situations like the plague. Two months ago I was called out on it. It hurt my feelings. It made me mad. I didn’t think she had a right to do it. But I made a decision to get rid of the offense and look for the truth. It comes down to the same thing: LOVE. Yes, I do have the freedom to not like womens’ events, but more importantly I have been commanded to love. And love comes first. Does that mean I will be planning women’s events in my house on Friday nights and searching the internet for the next local women’s conference. Not a chance. But it does mean that this semester every Tuesday night I will be going to a mother/daughter life group because #1 I love my daughter and she needs the fellowship with other little girls. #2 I love our children’s pastor’s wife and want her to know I support her and #3 I want and need the opportunity to fellowship with other mama’s of girls my daughter’s age.

  This is what I have been learning in my journey lately: Love….and Humility. The past couple of summers when I’m on the beach with just my family or girl friends I have sheepishly rolled up my tankini to the middle of my ribs and let my virgin tummy get some fresh air and sunshine and every. single. time I have felt sure that I heard God give a little chuckle. He loves me. I know it. And He is on my case about loving other people. He is hunting me down and making sure I know that He cares very little about what I don’t do and very much about what I DO do. I am still such a mess, but I feel His hands painfully, mercifully, beautifully molding me on the inside. And mostly….I like it. Even when it hurts.

   

  • 3:27 pm
  • 22 Comments