Questions about "Stumbling Blocks"

A question for Christians: 

Since you've been a fully cognizant Christ-follower, has someone ever "tripped you up" with their words? Has someone ever said a thing that caused you to "stumble" in your walk? What thing was that? What did that look like?

Let's say your life was progressing happily, your faith had an upward trajectory, your hope was being strengthened, you were trusting God more and more each day with your life, worrying less and giving more of yourself to those around you… then, somebody says something and it throws you off. Maybe it sends you on a downward path, sets you back a few paces.

Has that happened? I want to know about it. I want to know who it was in relation to you, what they said and how you responded. It would be helpful to me.

Please leave your story (keeping people anonymous would be reasonable) in the comments section.

A question for non-Christians:

Since you've been a fully cognizant person, has something a Christian said ever caused you to doubt their faith? Has some comment or explanation turned you off to Christianity? 

Let's say at one point in your life you were open to believing in some sort of God, but somebody came along and said something and you became more closed-off than open. 

Who left that bad taste in your mouth? What did they say, and how did you respond? Have those words shaped your life and what you believe? If so, in what ways?

Please leave your story in the comment section. I think your story would be really helpful to me and a lot of people.

Thanks,

Matt

Friends Are What You Like

You make good friends by having things in common them. You can bond over things you dislike, but in order to make it really work I think you have to enjoy the same things. Your friends are dictated very much by your definition of fun.

I see this in myself and with the people I make time for. I like long, meaningful conversations, so generally I like to spend time with people who like to converse. Sometimes I don't make friends very quickly, and I’ll admit that until I trust someone I will not go very deep with them. It can be hard to develop meaningful relationships with random folks in my line of work. For some, the bridge between fanship and friendship is short. For me, for whatever reason, it can be longer. It could take me minute to trust you, or a year, it all depends on how the conversations go. I like good conversations. I used to think house parties and keggers were fun, and thus my friends seemed to be people who enjoyed that same lifestyle. The point is, my definition of fun has changed, and so it seems my prerequisites for good friends.

I like people who are aware of their surroundings, who can take the temperature of the room and can engage in a conversation without being distracted. I like people who don't overtly break the rules, but don't necessarily follow them either. I like people who are impulsive. My idea of fun now just involves a handful of good friends. I no longer wish to roll the dice with strangers at a bar or a club. I want to meet people one at a time and have more focused relationships.

I was thinking about this recently as Kristie and I spent some time with a couple who are good friends. Jason and Jen are a few years older than us and have three kids. Lifestyle-wise we have very little in common, but somehow we still seem to connect on that deeper level. I think it has something to do with our idea of a good time. Both couples love good conversations. After everyone else leaves they stay, sometimes for hours, just to talk (It's the same when we go to their house, we can never get out of there at a decent hour). It’s as if they too are searching for a chance to experience one of those conversations that leaves you feeling energized and inspired. They relish the same things we do. Their definition of fun is consistent with ours, so when they visit, we expect a 2 A.M. departure. Sleep, work and the priorities of the morning become secondary and unimportant compared to our visits. Sometimes during these conversations we expose truths about ourselves that we wouldn’t otherwise expose, we laugh, we cry, you know, we say things that make us feel vulnerable. Without trust and friendship, doing this would make us ripe for injury and embarrassment, but in this case it just causes us to love each other more. It's been said that the greatest fuel for hate is ignorance. If that is true, would that make the greatest fuel for love awareness? How many of us are really aware of our friends struggles? How many of us make our friends aware of our own? I think "relational ignorance" is too common these days and it can really limit true friendship and love. It starves people of their life bread! How does one survive without a confidant or two?

Some people don’t want to be exposed, its uncomfortable, so they keep their friends at arms length and remain ignorant themselves. To be honest, I’m kind of tired of those people.

I'll be really honest here. I am extremely tired of people who are my age but maintain high school mentalities. I am tired of those whose passions come from gossip magazines and reality shows. I'm tired of those who think they know everything and have bought into the idea that life is ultimately about serving themselves. I am tired of those who seek their own comfort at the expense of everyone around them. I can't be friends with those people, because those people don't need friends. They need their friends to abandon them so that they can hit rock bottom. They need to hit rock bottom to find what life is really about. I am tired of selfish motivations. I am tired of fake, fickle, flakey "friends." I believe in the statement that life is about more than struggling to accumulate money to purchase things you don't need to impress people you don't even like. I know everyone needs love, perhaps these ones need a lot of love, but for a time I think these people need pain, and a hefty dose of it, otherwise they'll just die unhappy and alone. That's me being honest.

Back to the part about your friends being dictated by what you like. When I was thirteen, I got into online gaming and my friendships were formed mostly around that. When I was sixteen I got into partying, and thus, my friends became those who enjoyed that activity. It was the same with sports, drugs, music, church, etc. For the last six years most of my friends and I have shared the common bond of music. Good conversations, however, are one of my favorite activities, so regardless of the lifestyle inconsistencies I can enjoy a friendship with pretty much anyone who gets the same kick out of discussing things that matter. I'll go so far as to avoid situations and environments that are not conducive to quality conversations. Nowadays, when the bar is too packed, people are too drunk and the music is too loud, I'll start looking around for the exit sign. I don't even have to think about it, I'll just want to leave suddenly. I think thats why sometimes I am tempted to pick up smoking again. I used to have the best conversations outside and away from the noise. Those good old one-on-ones with a smoking buddy. Now I'll just shiver and check the time... when your body doesn't need to smoke, its hard to motivate yourself to stand outside and mingle.

It's always good to make yourself define the things you enjoy the most. Make a list. Your relationships, your identity and your personality are all things will be influenced by that list. That list will define you. Friends will enter your life because of that list, and nothing will have a greater effect on you than people. Someone once said, "Show be your two best friends and I'll show you your future." You may be a strong person, but spend enough time with a person and you'll find yourself on the same path. Be careful of your priorities, and be careful of the things you start to like. Make them good things, so you have good friends, so you can live a good life.

These are all things I was told by my parents and mentors, and most of these things I disagreed with. My friends accepted me, I loved them, what was so bad about that? To this day I love all of my friends dearly, past and present, but I am very thankful I did not continue down some of the avenues I travelled with them. I'm the exception. By the grace of God my lifestyle today is productive as opposed to destructive. It is only because of my wife and a few others that I am not an addict or in rehab or prison or worse. Where I am today is dramatically different than where I was headed because of a few who invested time, prayers and positive energy.

So, be honest with your friends and invest in your relationships. Expose yourself when the timing is right. Be vulnerable, it builds trust, and trust is the most valuable thing between two people. Define the positive things you enjoy. Make a list of the goals you want to achieve and surround yourself with like minded people. There's my fortune cookie wisdom for the day. I'm done now.

Friendship

Do you have any deeply rewarding friendships? Could you call a friend at 4 a.m. with the expectation that they would wake up, talk to you, and perhaps meet you somewhere? Would you even feel welcomed to? How many of these friendships do you have? My guess is very few, if any.

I think many in our generation have attempted to maintain only fickle relationships, and I think some have attempted to insulate their lives completely. We have developed a habit of accumulating 'party friends'; shallow friendships that are mostly based around weekend festivities. Sometimes it's to the point where we feel awkward around those friends if we are not actively doing something. It seems we have this insatiable need to be constantly distracted and entertained, and as a result there seems to be an overwhelming sense of loneliness in people our age. Why is it that in our society we choose to stay so isolated, so guarded? Is it the fear of being known for who we really are? The fear of responsibility and commitment? The fear of vulnerability and failure? It might be a combination of all of those things, but fear seems to be the constant theme.

You may have friends who make plans and then break them, their words about as fickle as the passing moment in which they spoke them. How many friends out of insecurity and fear of disappointment make multiple plans with multiple people in one night, and in some lame effort to appease everyone they end up making the majority of their friends resent them? Sound familiar?

You may have friends who call you only when they need something. Or friends that refuse to hang out with you if all it means is just 'hanging out.' There has to be a common goal to battle the inevitable awkwardness. The awkwardness that we are all so fearful of.

I can tell you this; when my close friends tell me they are going to do something with me, they usually do it. I suppose this is why they have rewarding relationships with other people as well. My friends whose words lack integrity seem to suffer in all of their relationships. They are always wanting more out of life, never being deeply satisfied or deeply known. They tend to move from friend to friend, or from new thing to new thing, searching for what they would most likely be rewarded with had they practiced relational integrity in the first place. They end up living on the empty carbs, or the 'pixie sticks' of life, bouncing from one sugar high to another, never really satiating their appetite. You can't live on candy, at some point you have to have something meaningful.

Humans are born with a deep need for community. Even if you don't believe in the Bible; where Adam, while in paradise, felt empty and longed for a friend until God gave him Eve. Even if you don't believe all that stuff, you should believe that ever since you were a baby you needed attention and affection from your mother, and as you grew you needed attention and care from your parents, and as you got older you longed to be accepted into social groups at school, to be asked to play with the 'cool' kids... to be known in some way, to be liked by somebody. And as you got even older, you longed for a soul mate, somebody to know you intimately, down to the core. Someone to love you despite all your faults. Even if you don't believe in the Adam and Eve story, it's still a great metaphor... Adam had all he wanted, but he was lonely, like most people are who have a lot of stuff and nobody to share it with. This is human nature... so why are we so afraid of it?

A few months ago there was a snow storm in Seattle. I think they called it Ice Storm 2008 on the news or something clever like that. As a result, snow and ice had covered all the roads for about a week straight. I was amazed at what happened during that time. Complete strangers started talking to each other, apparently bonding over the thing they had in common: the weather conditions which had affected every ones lives.

One of these nights Kristie and I went to watch a musical at the 5th Avenue Theatre. We took the bus there, which arrived a bit late because of the snow. The bus driver, a boisterous lady, was very loudly and comically speaking of her fear of crashing the bus or getting it stuck in the snow. She told us how he wanted to get home quickly because she was already late to see her grand-daughter. She started opening up and explaining personal details about her life, and so did the people around us. We all started talking, apparently bonding over the common fear of the road conditions. People started chuckling and smiling at each other, looking at each other as humans instead of strangers or potential threats. It was remarkable. If you've been on a city bus, then you know that bus etiquette is much like elevator etiquette: avoid eye contact, be quiet, mind your own business etc. It's that whole I-don't-want-to-be-here-awkwardly-packed-in-this-machine-with-a-bunch-of-strangers-so-lets-make-this-as-painless-as-possible vibe. Suddenly, because of this thing, this fear that we had in common, people started empathizing with each other. Guards were dropped, prejudice was thrown out, and people started treating each other as people.

Imagine if we chose to look past the different exteriors of people, if we chose to give them the benefit of the doubt, if we chose to ignore these unspoken rules on a daily basis. Imagine if we believed in the humanity of strangers. Every time I've experienced someone casually breaking the silence it has generally brought smiles, eased the mood a bit, and allowed me to feel more comfortable. The point is, it's true that we all want community, yet we are fearful to step out and create it. Even on a shallow level we want to find things in common with others, but instead we act against it and for no particular reason. In the same way, I think the folks who deep down desperately long for rewarding friendships can sometimes be the ones who are doing everything they can to keep people at a safe distance.

So, be friendly and brave, and stop being afraid of community... its only natural.