Saturday, November 1, 2008

Does this beeswax belong to you?


Rosalie Grace Carlson is one of my dearest friends. She is very far away right now and I miss her terribly. Perhaps you can relate to this, perhaps not, but I am starting to think that the best friends are those who are enough like you to force you to face yourself, and at the same time different enough to give you a better view of God than you had before.
One of the things Rosie and I agreed on was this: It is none of your beeswax to try and change anyone based on your own feelings, resentments, or wishes. For one thing, it is impossible. For another, the minute you depart from God's Word and start trying to change someone because something about them bugs you, you have ceased to pay attention to God's work in yourself. Don't get me wrong, I am NOT saying we should not confront and encourage one another to seek God better, only that we must do it based on God's Word and through his grace and leading.
I fail at that. When I take my eyes off of God and what he is doing in my heart, and look at what I think he should be doing with the kid sitting next to me, I am no longer within my own beeswax.
My mother tells me nearly every day "Mind your own!" Today I realized that doing that does not only make life easier for others and me less of a pain, it frees me to live for an audience of One. Which equals loving Him more, which equals loving people as He would, which means another paradox. Living solely to conform myself to God shows Him to others, in far clearer ways than my own strength ever could.

P.S. Please critique. I don't mind, really I don't. I won't sue you. Good grief, that sounds so American. But then, if the shoe fits.....I always think of Lucy from the Peanuts when I say Good grief. now i'm really rambling and my punctuation has flushed itself as a result. keep your noses clean. (that means behave yourselves.)