On Preferring Our Own Realities.

Ok, maybe we are ready for a little “weighty.”

Here is the first of what I have written that I am deciding to share. This may be all I share. This may be just the beginning. We’ll both be learning as we go, capiche?

I love to travel because when you travel you find yourself in someone else’s reality.

I sometimes say that I have been everywhere, and while that is only partially true, it is true enough for me to know that most places I travel to are NOT where I live.

J

Those places are not my reality.

For instance. Here is a picture of me in Italy.

News flash: I don’t live in Italy now and never have.

Here is a picture of me in Switzerland.

This just in: I don’t live in Switzerland and don’t ever plan on it.

Here is a picture of me in Washington, and Colorado, and Chicago.

Here is a fact about me:

I don’t live in Washington, Colorado, or Chicago.

So I have found myself in all of these realities that ARE NOT MINE.

But they are some peoples.

And finding yourself in someone else’s reality makes you evaluate your own.

It’s not that we hate our own yards, but sometimes we do think the grass is greener on the other side of the fence.

Being in someone else’s yard, though, can also show me where I have judged them, only to find out that what I thought were weeds in their yard (i.e. sins that needed to be pulled out) were actually just different kinds of grass (i.e. things that are necessary in their reality [but not mine] and that to them are not issues to be dealt with or weeds to be pulled out).

Ok, that was all very esoteric. Let me try to put it in understandable terms:

We all tend to prefer our own realities and are very quick to judge the way other people live as being wrong or sinful, simply because it is not OUR realities.

Now, before we all start breathing very heavily and you all start yelling at me, let me clarify: If someone else’s reality involves a lifestyle of sin, or living in sin, or blatantly going against the Bible, then YES, they are wrong and those weeds need to be pulled out.

But what if they are not going against the Bible? What if they are surrendered to the Lord? What if they are running from sin, and yet, their life still looks different than ours?

I think, from my own experiences, that because we prefer our lifestyles or realities or whatever you want to call them, we also then become judgmental of other people’s claiming it is somehow wrong, or un-Biblical, even when there is no evidence of that being the case. Even if we can’t find any in-context scripture to back up how we feel.

Let me give a tangible example.

I have never ridden a horse.

I know, I know. I lived next to Amish my entire growing-up life but have never ridden a horse.

I am an American, but have never ridden a horse.

However, I know some people who love horses. They own them, they ride them, they train them, they break them. They are horse people.

And horses, from what I have heard, are expensive animals.

Because there is not a single horse in my reality, I could look at those horse people and call them all kinds of frivolous names.

I could say they are out of their mind. I could say they are wasting money. I could say they are not being good stewards of their time. I could go on and on and on saying why it is not entirely Christian to be a horse person.

And why could I say that? Why could I argue that point?

Because horses are not my reality and I prefer my reality. And sometimes, I believe that my reality is the only way. All people should live the way I live, I could say.

Here is another example. I have a friend who lives in a very glamorous society. And in her closet is a section of evening gowns. She is a wonderful Christian woman who is truly desiring to serve the Lord in that society and does it very successfully.

In my reality, however, there is not a whole lot of use for an evening gown and if I owned one, it would be excessive, unnecessary and absolutely a waste of my money. I would be all kinds of frivolous. However, because her reality is what it is, she has cause to wear those gowns sometimes 15 times a year.

See, for her, having a closet of evening gowns, isn’t excessive.

It’s necessary.

I could get all huffy and claim that somehow that lifestyle goes against God.

But that’s not in the Bible.

So I wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.

Is any of this making sense? Am I conveying the fact that we make judgments about other people’s realities based on our own, even when they are not the same? I mean, we aren’t comparing apples to apples here, we’re comparing oranges to steak.

There is no comparison.

Not all of the same rules apply.

Considering that we all prefer our own reality, aren’t you glad that God judges impartially (I Peter 1:17)? Because what if he preferred his reality? We would all be in deep trouble.

Ok, so here’s another newsflash. God actually DOES prefer his reality. “Be holy because I am holy,” He says (I Peter 1:15-16). Holiness is his reality.

Now, maybe you haven’t realized this, but holiness isn’t possible for us, and I don’t care what reality you claim.

We are not holy people in and of ourselves.

So the issue, then, is that we get all fired up about yelling at the way someone else lives, based solely on preference, NOT on scripture, when the only claim to judgment we have towards fellow believers is how they are walking in that holiness, which is only imparted to us through the blood of Christ. We can only be holy BECAUSE he is Holy and because, for the believer, he is IN US.

That’s it.

It doesn’t come from a lifestyle. It doesn’t come from a preferred reality. It comes from a life covered by Christ.

“Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.” Col. 3:11

Let’s also add “there is no horse people or evening gown wearers” to that list.

God’s chosen people come from all different societies.

And I think that’s the point, too.

Acts 17:26-28 says, “From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being.”

God has put us in our societies; he has assigned us our realities, so that we will reach out for him. And we remain in those realities because there are people who live the same way we do who do not know Jesus. And THAT then, becomes the reason we are there. Because in wherever society the lost are, there Jesus wants none to perish (I Tim 2:3-4).

Jesus died for Jews and Greeks and slaves and free and horse people and evening-gown-wearers.

Be Jesus to whichever of those categories you find yourself in.