Action vs. REaction

by Laura Hechel

Jerolyn asked me to share this experience, so here goes...

Almost four years ago, my family moved to Sacramento. Within the first week, I met a woman and her son in our apartment complex. She eagerly pursued a friendship with me and I was desperate for social interaction, so we became fast friends. I learned that she lived with her boyfriend, their son and her two dogs just a couple of buildings down from me. I learned she had been previously married, subsequently divorced and never wanted to be married again. I began to pray for a witnessing opportunity, for a window to share my faith with her. One day, we were sitting outside on the sidewalk while our children played and I mentioned I was in a Bible study at Capital Christian Center. Immediately, she responded with an excited, "I'm a Christian, too!! I go to Adventure Christian church in Roseville!" Confused, I wanted to address the hypocrisy of her current living situation and how the prevalent sin in her life was damaging her witness as a professing Christ-follower. But something in me told me that now was not the time. Every time we met up, I struggled with biting my tongue. As believers, we should hold each other accountable! It was Biblical for me to "restore her gently to the faith". But every time, something in me told me to wait. I prayed often about the situation...for God to convict her, for God to check my heart and remove all fear if it was standing in my way, for God to bring about yet another opportunity to speak with her about her beliefs...And it happened. One day, at the park, we got in an intense discussion over raising our children to know the Lord. The discussion ended amicably, but in disagreement. After some intense (read: obsessive) thought over lunch, I decided to call her to clarify my beliefs, which I felt I had not adequately articulated to her in our original discussion. I prayed before I called. She continued to disagree with me over the phone and lecture me on how I should raise my children. However, she did acknowledge that Christians can have different beliefs and still get along. To back her point, she stated that her pastor says things with which she doesn't agree, but she still attends his church and respects him as a person. I stopped the conversation right there. "Wait a second!" I said. "What kinds of things does your pastor say that you don't agree with? Because if he's saying stuff that's not scripturally based, you should NOT be there!" She responded by stating that her pastor believes that Jesus is God and that she KNOWS Jesus is NOT God because Jesus himself said he was the SON of God. At that moment, everything became clear to me because the Holy Spirit prompted me with, "THIS is the conversation I need you to have. GO FOR IT!" We spoke for over an hour about who Jesus was (and is). Jesus did indeed say he was the Son of God. He also stated he was the Son of Man. But his most "blasphemous" claims were that he WAS GOD, a concept that is difficult to grasp, but pivotal to the Christian faith. God gave me verse after verse after verse to reference to her. The conversation ended as friends...but in disagreement. We have remained friends and we eventually did have the discussion about her living situation. But I learned something very valuable that day: My REaction to visible circumstances can be scripturally-based...but that is radically different from having actions that are Holy Spirit-driven. If I had barreled forward to have the discussion about her living situation, I never would have had the opportunity to address the heart of her faith issue.