@stephss

Stephanie B., this is for you. I don’t know who you are, I don’t even know if you are reading this, but this blog post is for you. I want to say thank you for teaching me a very valuable lesson.

2 Corinthians 5:20 MSG

God has given us the task of telling everyone what he is doing. We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them. We’re speaking for Christ himself now.

Romans 12:1-2 MSG

Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

All over the Bible, God makes us aware of the responsibility we have as Christians. Essentially, we are always wearing Christ on our sleeves as believers. Yesterday, my friends and I met outside of Hillside Auditorium and began to talk. Talking quickly became venting which quickly became gossiping, or “trash talking.” We communed over our mutual frustration over people (especially Christians) who say one thing and do another- ironic, isn’t it? I didn’t think anything of it when I went to my next class and quickly forgot about those five minutes of talking. This morning, however, I received a text message from one of the friends I was talking to with a picture of a snapchat off of someone’s phone. The girl’s name I didn’t recognize, but I immediately recognized the people in the picture. It was us. The snap read, ‘“Sorority girls trash talking some girl. “Love her but hate her,” “she tries so hard to look like a good christian,” “She let him take her first kiss,” “I have to ask how her heart is.”’ To clarify, these words were skewed, some not even said, and taken far far out of context. However, the message is true all the same: people are always watching. We had allowed ourselves to slip into the culture around us, indistinguishable from anyone else around us, the stereotype “sorority girls.” You couldn’t tell it was me in the picture, but my heart hurts all the same because it was me. What my friends and I were saying was noticed by a bystander whose story I don’t know, whose beliefs I don’t know, and who was impacted by the words that had come from our mouths. I can’t help but think how things would have been different had I, instead, been speaking words of truth, speaking for Christ himself. We live in a generation where everything is documented, so, in turn, everything is noticed. We are trained to look for little details, little comments, little movements from others that we can post and receive likes, retweets, or snaps about. This makes it all the more important for believers to remember that we are wearing Christ always. It doesn’t have to be a bad thing that things are documented. So much good can come from noticing. Like I said, had we been speaking Christ, that is what would have gone noticed and maybe even documented. We have a responsibility. A heavy, eternal responsibly to the watchers. What we do and say can either persuade them into God’s work or prove the stereotypes true. This is something I allowed myself to forget. For five minutes I forgot. For five minutes I was noticed. For five minutes this girl photographed. Five minutes. That is all it took. We can’t allow ourselves to become like the culture around us. We are Christ’s representatives, speaking, doing, and loving is the closest we can come to showing others who he is and why he transformed our lives. We cannot waste a second of that.

I hesitate to post this blog because I am forced to admit a weakness, a sin. I gossiped, I was a hypocrite, and I didn’t represent Who created the very breath which gives me words to speak. But I am posting it anyways because, Stephanie, I hope you read it. Christians too often try to portray themselves as perfect, but we aren’t. We are broken, we make mistakes, we trash talk, we do things that betray what we believe and Who we love. That is why we need Jesus. That is why I need Jesus. As my pride beats to turn away from what I did and hide it, my faith tells me to bring all things to the light. Christ gives me strength to bear my shame, say I am sorry, and give me a clean slate and a second chance to do better. Your snapchat showed me Jesus. Thank you.