Who's the winner?

Since Wednesday’s “Chick-fil-a Day” I have come to a conclusion.  Satan is the only one who wins in this whole deal.

I’ve said for a long time that this country is in real trouble if our politicians can’t find some common ground to work from.  To give up the us versus them mindset.  If Republicans block anything the Democrats want to get done and the Democrats block anything the Republicans want to get done, guess what.  Nothing gets done.

In the last 4 days I’ve seen every sort of post from people about the Chick-fil-a controversy and the subsequent Chick-fil-a Appreciation day.  And from where I’m sitting it looks like an us versus us situation.  The “Bible Thumper Christians” versus the “Free Love Christians.”  We are so busy fighting about which of us is wrong that nothing gets done. 

I lump myself into one of those groups, and I know people who put themselves in the other. (Though I think we would all argue with the extreme titles I've given them)  And I’ve read the posts from the other group and thought to myself “How can they be so narrow-minded and disagreeing?”  And then today I looked in the mirror, guess who is being narrow-minded and disagreeing too?  If we can’t find some common ground in Christ, then nothing is going to get done.

And then Satan continues to win.

Chick-fil-a Day

So…  Today I went to the mall intending to eat at Chick-fil-a.  I didn’t because I was not willing to stand in line for an hour plus to get my food.  So we’re going to approach the rest of this post with the mindset that my intent was to eat there

I’m not sure whether to be proud of my decision to eat at Chick-fil-a today, or whether I should be terribly ashamed of it.  I may be wrong, but I suspect there is no middle ground on this.  It either is a great a display of my faith, or it is a despicable act of polarizing non-love.  And unfortunately I’m leaning towards the latter.  Don’t get me wrong, I agree with Chick-fil-a and their belief of “a traditional family”  and I feel very strongly about that.  I was saddened that people were “shocked” by this belief of a Christian based business and boycotted them.  But, while I sat there eating my Pizza Da Roma, I wondered to myself; how many people are here to help make up for the boycotting and how many people are here to persecute homosexuals?  And if it is the latter, how does that fit in with Jesus’ example of loving everyone.

In an unrelated incident, I recently confronted someone who used to be a buddy of mine on something that they were doing that was, in my estimation, outside of the Word of God.  I did this with no solicitation on their part, I took it upon myself to write a letter and tell them that they were wrong.  I feel like I did this as lovingly as possible considering, but…  Despite trying to be as caring and loving as possible in this letter, you can imagine how the unsolicited criticism was taken.  Things that were already stressed between us went down hill.  I wonder how much damage was caused when a concerned Christian, who honestly cared, judged someone else.  Now I tell you, I still feel no different that their actions are still wrong according to Gods word, but how did me criticizing them do any good?

We’re called to love everyone.  I’m not sure what that looks like, especially to those who are clearly living in a manner against God’s will.  I am pretty confident though, that being polarizing and taking an us versus them mindset is the wrong way to do it. 

I’ve been getting beaten up pretty badly on this subject lately.  My hope is that in the future, I tend to show Jesus’ love first and not judge.  I read this blog the other day and it really hit home with me: http://lucallen.wordpress.com/2012/07/30/an-open-letter-to-well-everyone/  I just read it again, and it resonates with me even stronger today than it did yesterday.

Let’s love, people.  As Lucas said, “It doesn’t matter who hit first- stop hitting each other!”