Oh...The Things That Hit You In The Gut!

We all grow up with our own belief systems. By this, I mean beliefs that were passed down from our parents, from our experiences, and from the culture that we live in. Some belief systems are even passed down generationally. As we go through life, some of our beliefs are challenged and we adapt them to our new understanding.

My Belief systems are grounded in the church and that Jesus came to die for our sins. That we are all sinners and that we need to accept Jesus into our hearts to be born again. As I mentioned in the post ‘Loving What Is’, I believed this so much that I asked Jesus into my heart constantly when I was younger. This was my belief system passed down through my parents, the church we attended, and the school that I went to. The problem with this belief system was that I truly did not understand it. Hence the constant guilt for my sins and not truly believing I was ‘saved’, so I had to keep asking Jesus into my heart.

The one thing I can say about our beliefs is that they are deeply ingrained into every fiber of our being. When they are challenged, our first instinct is to ‘protect’ and ‘defend’, or at least this is my reaction. Am I alone in this? Even if I am not ‘living’ according to my beliefs, I still want to defend them.

This led me to be a pretty judgmental person over the years. If you have read the post mentioned above, you have an idea of the anger I had inside of me. That anger was my best defense against people I disagreed with (my poor husband). It jumped to the forefront of my interactions and my defensive side would take over all reason. I held resentment towards others who didn’t believe the same as I did and I thought I knew better than them.

Thank goodness this is not me anymore! Or is it? God has been bringing to light many of the things about myself that don’t jive with His truth, and how He wants us to live.

The other day I was in by bedroom getting ready for the day. I love listening to podcasts during these times. I find them inspirational and it is nice to hear other people’s stories. Well, on this particular podcast, the people hosting were talking about something that I have a deep seated belief in. The problem was, they didn’t have the same belief as me. As I listened, I felt the anger inside of me rising to the surface. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! My brain was screaming at me to berate these people and call them out. How dare they speak this way? I wanted to unfollow the podcast immediately. I also wanted to call my mom and sisters to tell them about these people and how horrible they were. I wanted everyone I knew to not like this podcast, agree with me and justify my anger towards it.

Before I could do any of those things, I stopped, took a deep breath, and brought it to God. He calmed my anger instantly. What I felt in that moment was peace and love. My best reaction to this situation was to pray for these people and to love them. I’m not talking about sending them love notes or anything, but to accept them for who they are in that moment and respect the journey that they are on. Condemning them and being angry only brings me down. I don’t need to add my voice to all the others out there that are loud and angry and condemning of others beliefs. We are called to love people and to live in peace.

Our job is to pray and give these things to God. He will do the hard work, and only He can judge people’s hearts. I am so thankful that my job is to love people where they are. It gives me freedom to not judge but come alongside them and share in their pain and hopefully be a place where they feel safe and loved. This is not something that I have mastered yet, as you can see by this post, but if I bring every situation Back To God, He is faithful to meet you in your moment of need and calm your heart. And if you listen to His nudges and guiding, you will find a way through the judgement and emotions threatening to overwhelm you, to peace and love.