Heart throbs

January 13, 2009 by Debbie.

“Are you and your husband good Christians?” the plumber, a very young man, asked last Friday when  he came out to fix a leak. Since I’m a very literal person, I always have a hard time with that question - am I Christ-like??? I so desire to be but always wonder if someone has to ask then AM I? Since the poor guy had only met me minutes before I didn’t get into that theological line but answered, “Yes, we’re Christians, but good? Only good through the righteous blood of Jesus.”

My next normal tendency is to start rambling but I’m trying to live the KYMS system. Keep Your (my) Mouth Shut. I seldom make it but that day I turned back to him and asked, “And you? Are you a Christian?” He looked sheepish and mumbled, “Well, I am and I’m not. You know what I mean.” KYMS was still working… “No, I don’t know what you mean. What do you mean?”

He proceeded to tell me how he was raised in church and KNEW God but wasn’t living right and if he died he doubted if he’d ‘make it.’ I said he didn’t have to doubt and he started back peddling with “My parents go to church and I  tell them don’t preach at me.” He put his hands out as if to stop any words I might say. And all I had to tell him was God loved him, no preaching, just God loved him and wanted a relationship with him; that it’s not about religion.

Today my heart still hurts for him.

I wish I could read Gal. 5:6 to him, “For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love.” The Message

NIV says it this way “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” 6b.

Faith expressing itself through love. What does that look like to you?

I was/am praying for more faith.

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