Comments on: Frustrations From the Christian Fishbowl

By: April Terry

April Terry — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 20:43:52 +0000

Gotta love C.S. Lewis, Randy! Thanks for the generous compliment.

Helen, you’ve made a good point about the payoffs of investing in relationships. I guess I just struggle with those people that I fail to establish relationship with. As you know, there are times when people aren’t up front with you or maybe we just don’t always get along with everyone. For me, the question becomes “what do I owe people I can’t reach or who don’t like and understand me?”

By: Helen

Helen — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:17:38 +0000

April, I’m sorry they moved you to another office even though you didn’t want to move.

What’s wonderful about relationships is that within them we have room to be human. I think the investment you make in relationships will prevent your friends from using your humanity against you. They’ll forgive you and accept you. The people who, unlike you, make a big deal of being Christian without caring about their relationships with those they tell, are the ones whose failure to live a perfect life will be used against them.

By: Randy

Randy — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 01:34:05 +0000

“Some of us who seem quite nice people may, in fact, have made so little use of a good heredity and a good upbringing that we are really worse than those whom we regard a fiends. Can we be quite certain how we should have behaved if we had been saddled with the psychological outfit, and then with the bad upbringing, and then with the power, say, of Himmler? That is why Christians are told not to judge. We see only the results which a man’s choices make out of his raw material. But God does not judge him on the raw material at all, but on what he has done with it. Most of the man’s psychological makeup is probably due to his body: when his body dies all that will fall off him, and the real central man, the thing that chose, that made the best or the worst out of this material, will stand naked. All sorts of nice things which we thought our own, but which were really due to a good digestion, will fall off some of us; all sorts of nasty things which were due to complexes or bad health will fall off others. We shall then, for the first time, see every one as he really was. There will be surprises.”

-C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 92

Lewis also said (somewhere…I couldn’t find it) when asked to explain the moral, kind respectful unbeliever versus the bitter, mean, angry elderly churchgoing Christian, that you must consider the raw material. Imagine how much more wonderful and beautiful that young man might be if he were to follow Jesus. And imagine how much more intolerable that elderly woman might be without him.

So, I guess what I am trying to say is that I’m not perfect, but I care. I care enough to spend a lot of my time thinking about how I treat others and a lot of time trying to be good to them, but if you happen to see the bad side of this sweet little Christian lady, don’t blame Jesus. He’s doing the best He can with what He has to work with.

LOVED this. Thank you for being so transparent with us, April. For what it’s worth, I think Jesus is doing a damn fine job with you. And I’m quite sure he is relieved to be able to work with you after trying to work with me!