I was concerned when I saw the above written as a Facebook friend's status last week. I started to comment, but hesitated. This individual is someone I went to high school with, and our ten year reunion is coming up. Did I really want my former classmates to see my response? I was immediately reminded that I did not receive a spirit of fear (Romans 8:15) and that if I could sit less than fifteen feet away from a hungry lion with no protection in Africa, that commenting on a Facebook status was cake. I logged back in and commented along the lines of:
"Hmm...God is many things...empty is not one of His attributes."
Later that night, I logged in and noticed that he had replied to my comment, along the lines of:
"I assume you are referring to the Christian God. That God is not that of my own."
Fair enough and I deeply appreciated that he was respectful and capitalized "Christian" and "God". My knee jerk reaction was to type: then no wonder you think He is empty and you feel the same way! However, I thought it best to pray before responding. In the meantime, some others had responded to tell him God isn't empty and show their concern. After a couple of days, I had my response and logged in to give it. I soon discovered that I had been "defriended" by this individual. Granted, it's Facebook. It's the Internet and friend is a loosely applied term on social networking sites.
There are two things that jump out at me from this whole thing. The first is the absolute loneliness and hopelessness of that statement. It's a place I was in just a little over a year ago. The second is that if I was "defriended" because of my beliefs in our "tolerant" American society, what's next? This type of persecution is nothing compared to what some face in other parts of the world. I'm not one to focus too much on eschatology, but I do know this much: God is in control. There is only so much time that we are given, and a great deal of people without hope. The question we've got to ask ourselves is:
"What am I doing to share the reason for the hope (1 Peter 1:3) I have?"
1 comment:
Leah -- perhaps like Jesus and the Rich Young Ruler (http://philippianjailer.blogspot.com/2009/02/jesus-flunks-evangelism.html), you told this man what he needed to hear. He "went away sad", but your role in bringing him the gospel was significant, though he rejected it.
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