Chick Chat Under The Stars Edition!!
This was a girls only bible study that my friend asked me to lead. I was kind freaking out because I had never done anything like that. Even though I was scared I accepted the challenge as I had no concrete reason for saying no. I thought it would be nice to have a picnic under the night stars at a park and see where God leads us. The bible study was awesome. Like I said before, I was really nervous as I had never done anything like that but now that it's done, I'm REALLY glad that I did. Just the preparation alone was well worth it as it made me draw nearer to the Lord. And that is always a REALLY good thing. I made some sandwiches and chocolate covered strawberries just to give the girls something to munch at while I talked. That's something I always do when I teach Sunday school. It makes me feel more relaxed because I know that people with full belly's are usually happier and more attentive...lol :D. I was going to take pictures but in my nervousness I forgot. But luckily my friend took a few photos so I will ask her to send me copies. So, I will update the post when I get them. All the praise be to God for it turning out so well and He even gave us a shooting star! How awesome is that?! Hope it blesses your heart as much as it did mine. :)
I got this idea from a commercial I heard on the radio about a girl who is riding in a train with seventy other people and how no one is looking at each other and how all she wants is for someone smile at her. That really stood out to me and got me thinking. Am I walking around with spiritual blinders on? I'm I so in my own world that I don’t even notice other people in the room? Am I so in my own world that I don’t take the time to acknowledge someone? I felt that it would be something good to talk about but I wasn't sure how I would go about doing it so I kept it in prayer.
Conformation of topic:
I kept thinking about it and started to think can I reach out more, can I do more to convey the love of Christ? I was preparing my coffee like I do most mornings at work and I normally use two packets of Splenda but that day I felt like using three. No particular reason I just felt that I might need three that day. Little did I know how God was even using a little Splenda packets to speak to me. When I laid them down on my desk about to use them. They were all flipped over to the side that contained a little text of “life’s little wisdoms”. In a nut shell they were in sequential order saying that we should sprinkle our inner sweetness around.
But then I started to think…what is sweetness and how can I pass this around?
So enter the fruit of the spirit…
"GALATIANS 5:22 BUT THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT IS Love, Joy, Longsuffering, KINDNESS, Goodness, GENTLENESS, and Faithfulness…"
Now…all the fruits are important and essential. (God wouldn’t list them if they weren’t) but two of them stood out to me: Kindness and Gentleness.
GOD DESIRES US TO BE KIND AND GENTLE (MORE CHRIST LIKE)
A. WHAT IS GENTLENESS, and KINDNESS?
1. Humility and Humbleness before God
2. Putting others before ourselves
3. Meekness and Gentleness, Christ like
B. WHAT IS A CHRIST LIKE PERSONALITY?
1. Not selfish but selfless
2. It’s outward towards others
3. It’s having a spirit of kindness and LOVE
As this LOVE is demonstrated in 1 CORINTHIANS 13: 4-6 :"Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth."
and most importantly...
The Love that is spoken of in 1 John 4:8: "He who does not love does not know God, for God is love."
C. WHAT DOES IT ACCOMPLISH?
1. Lets people feel your God given LOVE, (which in turn brings you more joy.)
2. It lets people see “Jesus in you"
D. WHY SHOULD WE SPREAD THIS GOD GIVEN LOVE?
1. Simply put God desires for us to be kind and loving.
2. We are to show love to other as He showed love to us.
We can see this clearly in 1 JOHN 4:9-11: "In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another"
So, just as we see that God desires for us to be more filled with the spirit…
He also desires for us to PRACTICE using those said fruits of Kindness and Gentleness, Etc.
We can see this stated in EPHESIANS 4:32: "And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you."
and
EPHESIANS 5: 1& 2:"Therefore be imitators of God as dear children"
The key word here is PRACTICE. We all know that we will never (in this life) be perfect but the Lord desires for us to try. The beauty is in the attempt.
1. Spirit filled believers are to act very kind and loving.
2. They try not to act out with bad attitudes
3. Spirit filled believers are tenderhearted.
4. Spirit filled believers forgive others with all the gentleness their heart posses.
5. They are to reach out to others.
How can I put this into use in my own life?
Think about how you feel when someone reaches out to you and just smiles or just says an encouraging word. Just being there can mean the world to someone. And we can share the love the God has shown us to someone else by simply giving them the time of day. You give your time, your love, your effort, you give them what was so freely given to you. You never know how much someone truly appreciates you. (and not to say that you should do it for recognition but we should do it because we should share the love that God has put in us) You never know (and might not ever know) how you could impact someone’s life in a way or to a depth that you never thought was possible or could make a difference in.
My Social Experiment
So with all of this in mind I came up with a little social experiment. I got an idea that I would smile and say hello to every single person that I came across. I figured…why not? It’s something little that doesn’t take very much effort and might just make someone’s day. I did it with the radio commercial in mind. I went about my day and of course I got a lot of weird looks…lol, but I also received some feedback. Some people looked genuinely happy to say good morning or hello. That made me feel good of course but as time went on in my day that ‘’good’’ feeling started to diminish. You could say the “why is this crazy girl talking to me?” looks out numbered the good looks. So I got discouraged and just said “forget it. No one cares.”. But of course God thinks otherwise. So I get up to go to lunch. I’m walking down the hall way at work and see a lady I have never seen before. She’s still kind of far away so I haven’t said anything to her. As her and I start to get closer to each other (she was walking in the opposite direction of me) I made the decision to deliberately not say hello (just out of sheer stubbornness because I had let my feelings get in the way. I convinced myself that “no one cared”) Well it turns out that the Lord used her. She went out of her way to say hello to me and even stopped and turned to me to talk to me. I of course said a surprised hello and instantly felt the Holy Spirit Minister to me and say “you see how people do notice and how you should say hi”. How are you going to convey my love to someone (stranger) if you don’t even try? I felt so guilty after that and decided that I should try not based on my own “feelings” but because the Lord desires me to and because it’s what Christ would have done.
Below are two examples of how the simple act of reaching out to someone to show them Goodness and kindness can make a world of difference.
EXAMPLE ONE: A friend of mine (at the beginning of his walk with the Lord before he gave his life to God) had been visiting different churches and nothing really spoke to him. So just like any other church he decided to go for a visit at another church (Let’s call it God’s Church) so he stopped at God’s Church just as he ad visited all the other’s before. But something happened that touched his heart that made him feel welcomed and noticed. Someone reached out to him and said hello and smiled and the warmth that he felt was what made him decide to stay at church and ultimately give his life to God. The point is not that he stayed because of what church it was but because a brother in Christ showed him Christ like love. We can see that just one smile and hello can make a world of difference.
EXAMPLE TWO: On the night of August 16, 2008 I got into a huge argument over the phone with my husband at the time. I don’t remember what the fight was about but the topic is not important. That day was my friend’s birthday. She had come over my house to get ready for a 70’s themed birthday party that was being thrown for her. So like I said we were both getting ready at my house when she witnessed the whole argument first hand. I was so upset after the argument that I started to cry. You know that place of despair, of pain, of darkness, of crying that no one sees except for you? Well that’s where I went after that fight. I have never really asked her to this day how she felt that night. I’m sure she felt uncomfortable or whatever but she still decided to reach out to me and say hey let’s sing a song of praise to God right now. At the time it seemed kind of crazy and she said I think we should do it even though I know it sounds crazy or stupid. But yet what stood out and still stands out to me to this day is that even with what I believe were feelings of
“this is stupid” and “she’s gonna think I’m crazy” or whatever else she probably felt she acted against those. She found the God given courage to do something like that to reach out to a friend in need. And I’m not gonna lie when she came to where I was and said what she said I thought it was super random. But little did I know at the time how much power that had. She came out smiling (I don’t think she realized it) and she had this glow about her and obviously I know where that comes from now but at that moment I just didn’t get it. I was just in total shock and even thought I felt crazy. I took her advice, because I figured I had nothing to lose. So we sang ( I honestly don’t remember what song it was) and I pushed through it and offered that sacrifice to God and I felt so much better after that. All because she heeded to the Holy spirit and smiled and reached out me even though she probably felt other wise or whatever.
Exhortation
So I challenge you to create some sort of a little social experiment of your own or you can try the same one I did and see what happens. Think about how we can convey through our kindness the love of Jesus. It’s something that we can do that doesn’t cost anything and is not that complicated. Through my experiment I was reminded of the power of a smile and how everyone has their own battles to fight everyday. Maybe somehow we can create a little experiment in all of us to smile and/or reach out to at least one more person in our daily walk and just maybe we might make someone’s day and be that bridge that Jesus uses to bring them back.
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