What Happens When We Notice

I was recently sharing with a former student that when I was in graduate school, the Lord showed me how important it was for me to put people first.

As a type-A individual and a highly focused and motivated student, I could spend hours immersed in homework and readings for my graduate courses. When a friend would ask me to go to coffee or lunch, I would cringe inside a little. A social encounter—a few hours of ‘fun’—was often not a part of my ‘to do’ list that day.

I was halfway through my master’s program when the Lord showed me His heart for people. I began to see in Scripture how much Jesus took the time to notice. He might be in a crowd, people pressing in all around Him, but He felt a tug at his garment. He might be tired and thirsty, but He saw the woman at the well—He looked deep into her soul.

He was never too busy to stop and delay His plans for the purpose of an immediate need: the person in front of Him right now.

So “people first” became my mantra in graduate school, but as I was talking to this former student about those early lessons of balancing graduate work with relationships, I realized that maybe I needed to reintroduce that mantra for my life today, in this season.

Although I do try to place people first—people I know—I don’t take the time to notice strangers. And usually not noticing has more to do with the distractions at my fingertips.

And by distractions, I mean my cell phone.

And by that, I mean Facebook. Or Twitter. Or what I can scroll through while I wait in line for these five minutes.

Last week my colleague and I took a group of students to a conference in Minneapolis, and on our first night, we heard Charles Baxter give a lecture as a prelude to talking about his book The Soul Thief.

He mentioned that the beautiful thing about being a writer is that we notice people—we pay attention to conversations. We notice behaviors and reactions. We listen to strangers and consider how they would appear as characters in our novel.

I always love to hear creative writers talk about their writing process because it reminds me that there are others like me—the people who hear dialogue and imagine characters and think of how every mundane encounter could be captured in a story.

But when I’m scrolling through Facebook, I’m not noticing.

Technology becomes not only distracting, but a barrier to the creative process.

When I’m too busy to notice, I’m not only self-focused and limiting my ability to minister to others, I’m also missing out and limiting my ability as a writer to capture the world with my imagination when I later put pen to paper (err, fingers to keyboard).

Jesus was never too busy. He was also flexible, willing to change His plans for the sake of people—for the sake of one person’s need.

I want to see people—strangers, too—as He does.

And as a writer, I want to capture people through His eyes for them.

But first, I’ve got to notice.

Click to Tweet: What happens when we notice people? @Grace2Write shares how technology can be a barrier to the creative writing process. 

God is Judge

I am to my final attribute – it’s hard to believe. This has been an incredible journey of discovering God’s attributes, experience Him in a new way. This season of my life has been about His asking me to have a deeper trust and contentment with Him. It has not been easy, but as I learn to put my expectation in Him, in His attributes, I am satisfied. He really is enough. On Saturday, he said to me: “Just as your trust cannot be conditional to an understanding, so, too, your faith cannot be conditional to my ‘performance.’” 

My trust in Him is based on Him, who He said He is, who He has shown Himself to be. Period. It’s been a fun study for the last few months, and I invite you to read the old posts if you’ve not read attribute #1 - #10 (click the tag “attributes of God” for quick reading). 

The final attribute from Acts from 17:22-31 comes from verse31: “because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” 

#10: God is our Judge

I’ve put off writing this post because this attribute is not only intimidating, but it’s not very positive, either. Who wants to read about God judging the world—even if I do believe it? 

But as I asked God what do  You want me to write, I felt like He laid something much more important on my heart: God is Judge, and as such, it’s not my job, my responsibility, or my right to judge others. I have felt for a long time that Christians are more critical of others (Christians and non-Christians alike) than non-Christians are of anyone. 

My feelings were confirmed while reading a blog post about the judgment homosexuals face by Christians (or other religious groups). Several points that this writer makes are worth repeating:

“The greatest spiritual leaders in history have all preached love for others as the basis for all happiness, and never did they accompany such mandates with a list of unlovable actions or deeds. They never said, love everybody except for the gays. Love everybody except for the homeless. Love everybody except for the drug users. Love everybody except for the gang members, or those covered in ink, or the spouse abusers. They didn’t tell us it was okay to love everybody with the exception of the “trailer trash,” those living in poverty, or the illegal immigrants. They didn’t tell us it was okay to love everybody except for our ex-lovers, our lovers’ ex lovers, or our ex-lovers’ lovers. The mandate was pretty damn clear, wasn’t it?

Love others. Period.”

“I know there are many here who believe that living a homosexual life is a sin.
Okay.
But, what does that have to do with love?

I repeat… what does that have to do with love?

 Come on. Don’t we understand? Don’t we get it? To put our arm around someone who is gay, someone who has an addiction, somebody who lives a different lifestyle, someone who is not what we think they should be… doing that has nothing to do with enabling them or accepting what they do as okay by us. It has nothing to do with encouraging them in their practice of what you or I might feel or believe is wrong vs right.”

He concedes that he's not a Christian, and he ends the blog with this sort of “love others and you'll love yourself” thing, and of course, that’s not where I would take it. But here’s what I would say. He is absolutely right on two accounts: as Christians, we are commanded to love others, period; and two, we are commanded not to judge anyone. 

I’m not sure where we put that “load” upon ourselves, but it should be freeing to know that we don’t have to carry it. It was freeing for me, anyway. It released me from worry about how God would deal with Person A who does x, y, or z – whether we’re talking about homosexuality or clubbing, prostitution or tattoos. I mean, God couldn’t possibly save person A who does x, y, or z, right? How did we, as the Church, get to labeling sins and categorizing them among a hierarchy of deeds? Well, those are “lifestyle” sin, some might argue. Yes, and so is my daily my struggle not to fear man. Is my fear of man more than fear of God any less problematic? Absolutely not. And yet, no one (at least that I know of) is questioning my salvation. 

Jantzen Louder preached a few weeks ago, and at one point in his message, he made the comment that everyone should have at least one friend who is not a Christian. He didn’t mean a passing knowledge of a person who’s not a Christian, but a relationship with a non-Christian. I’m sure this was shocking for some, but for me, it was encouraging to finally hear someone say it from the pulpit. 

However, if you would have asked me 8 years ago if I knew a single non-Christian, my answer would have been “no.” In high school, all my friends were Christians. And in college, I fell into the same group. And that’s why I thank God that I met Jane* my senior year at ASU. Jane and I worked together, and after a week of working together, I knew she was a lesbian, and she knew I was a Christian. At that time, I had no idea how to handle knowing and working with a lesbian (gasp, I know). But God told me this: I love her as much as I love you or anyone else. And I said okay, then I love her, too. After working together for a month, we had this conversation:

Jane: “You know I’m gay, right?”

Me: “Yes, I gathered.”

Jane: “So, now you’ll tell me how wrong it is, right? It’s a sin? And I’m going to hell?”

Me: “No, I don’t think I’m anyone to decide who gets to go to heaven and who has to go to hell.”

Jane: Pausing for a moment, clearly confused. “Well, I know what all the Bible says about homosexuality. I’ve read the verses, not just the Old Testament, but in Romans 1, too.”

Me: “Then, I don’t guess there’s anything you’d need to know.”

Jane: “So… okay then.”

Me: “Okay then.”

Jane and I went on to be friends, and we still keep in touch from time to time. And today, I have lots of people in my life who hold different beliefs than I do. And for some of them, they’re not just people I know in passing; they’re people I love and respect deeply. And, more importantly, I'm not friends with them to save them, convince them, or change them. If you think being friends with non-Christians is about having "projects," you've missed the point. And if you think it's your job to defend or sell Christianity, you've missed the point, again.

I know that I can’t, for one second, pretend that I have all the answers about sin, anyway. My response to Jane is as true today as it was 8 years ago: “I don’t think I’m anyone to decide who gets to go to heaven and who has to go to hell.” 

Here’s the truth: anyone with any understanding how wretched we are in our sin, anyone with an understanding of how amazing His grace is—in short, anyone who “gets” the depravity from which we were saved—should know this: Who am I to judge?  

“A new commandment I give you to, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

*Jane was not her real name.

A Lesson in Imitation

Ephesians 5: 1 & 2

Verses one and two give us instruction on how we are to walk as Christians. Paul begins the chapter with two commands:

1) Be imitators of God
2) Walk in love

While these seem overwhelming at times, notice the way in which Paul presented them--both as behaviors modeled to us. In verse one, he reminds us that we are beloved children of God. Often, children pick up their parents mannerisms just by being in the same house with them. My mom and I haven't lived in the same house for almost ten years, and yet when we're together, I laugh at how much I already act like her. Paul is evoking the same natural reaction here. As children of God, we ought to act like God.

The second command, to walk in love, is also a modeled behavior for us. He tells us that we're to love others with the same love that we've been shown. If ever there was a perfect model for love or a perfect reminder of what love looks like--it's Jesus at the cross; it's his sacrifice for our sins; it's giving himself in order to give us a relationship with God again. Paul is reminding us that we've already been modeled the best behavior of love, and we've been loved with an everlasting love, despite our undeservedness. Therefore, we ought to know how to walk in love, as Christ did, because we have the perfect reminder of love living inside us.

I think the "catch" is that to really imitate someone, you have to know them. Not just on the outside, but from the inside. You have to know what they are like, how they move, what they would do in a given situation, how they respond to adversity and success. You have to know their heart. And you can't know God without having an intimate relationship with Him. I believe the same is true for modeling Christ's love. When you fully experience the fullness of Christ's love and sacrifice, then it becomes an outward response and expression to others. You begin to walk humbly, knowing the gift you've been given, and you walk with grace because of His grace toward you. If you only know Jesus' love in part, or through logic, or just as facts of salvation, you'll never be able to effectively respond to Him or to others in love. Modeling Chris's love, as Paul commands here, is a learned behavior, developed from a revelation of who Jesus is and how much He loves you. Only with that hidden in our hearts can we take the first steps of walking in love.