Sunday message- the witness

Yesterday and today, I have learned something important.  The word, 'witness' works both ways.  And something happened- which I won't relate- that helped me once again to realize I was seeing things backwards.

You see, I have many friends who don't see God as I do.  Some disbelieve, and some just ignore.  And every one of them has their reasons. 

"I was with a church as a child, and saw evil.  I saw abuse.  I saw hypocrisy.

I saw nothing there for me."

"My father, mother, family member treated me so.  A loving God would never put a child in such a position. 

He can't be real."

"I am a Catholic.  I am a Jew.  I am a Muslim.  I am good enough as I am.

I do good things.  I'm better than so and so."

"You can't expect me to believe in something I can't see.

Prove it."

Yesterday, as I walked and prayed, I saw something that made me think, "How hard it is to break into the heart of someone embittered by their experience.  Their past, their health, their upbringing, who am I to tell them they are wrong?"

Moments later, I saw that I was wrong.

I saw that circumstance is NOT why these friends reject God, though they may think it is.  I saw that there are people out there who have had vastly worse experiences than myself- and some a lot worse than the ones I mentioned- and yet... and yet...

Bitterness doesn't come from an experience.  It comes from a CHOICE.  A choice you made, that you attached your experience to as evidence.  And despite ALL the evidence God has worked into creation, as Paul reminds us in Romans, They CHOOSE to ignore it, to be bitter.

To blame it on a God they claim not to believe in.

I saw someone whom I said to myself, "There is someone who has every reason to be bitter."  And I heard the Spirit say, "Witness."

While I told myself the above reasons why someone 'like that' would never be able to hear, that person came to ME and showed no bitterness at all in his condition- he showed JOY.

I wasn't supposed to witness TO him- I was supposed to WITNESS HIM.

He made a choice, and it wasn't bitter.  Did it involve God?  That I don't know.  But what I do know was, I had the whole thing wrong.

Maybe you do, too.