WWJD?

Greta and I had an interesting conversation last night. Interesting in a good way.

Sometimes when I say things (sentences), I'm not exactly sure where they're coming from/why I'm saying them, but I find myself repeating them in a conversation and feeling them literally resounding through me. It is then that I figure out where they came from/why I'm saying them. Heavenly Father has a funny way of doing that to me. Last night was one of those times. I actually stopped the conversation to jot down some notes, so I could record them here.

Anyway, we'd started discussing how a few of our friends had done something pretty funny, but that it made us uncomfortable. Hillary had asked some boys to take a sign for her. There was a no swimming or ice skating sign by the little pond on campus, and she gave a couple of them boxes of cheezits to bring it to her. And like, yeah, it's pretty funny. It's funny that she thought of it, it's funny that they brought it to her, it's funny that she has it hanging in her room now. But it's still wrong. Greta and I think that now the fun is over, they should give it back, though we've not tried to tell Hillary this yet. The other day, when we were sharing with her that she probably shouldn't have done it, she wasn't really receiving it well. She didn't get defensive quite, but she definitely thought we were being silly/stupid for worrying about "just a sign." I stopped trying to talk to her about it.

The situation still makes me uncomfortable though. It really got me thinking. Talking it out with Greta helped me come to some important conclusions.

Hillary is one of my best friends and she is a very good person and I respect her and love her very much. But as good a person as she is, Hillary is an example of someone who seems to fudge the little things sometimes. That is unfortunate because it is the little things that get us--little things add up. When we go back to the Father at the end of our days, it's going to be those little things that are gold stars on our "records." Black and white? That's easy. "Don't commit murder." Okay, cool. Got it. Obey authority? For example, don't speed. It's the law. It might be dumb, but it's the law. It is wrong to speed. Rules like that are not quite as easy to "accommodate" sometimes. It's a gray area. It's "fudgable." I fudge on it frequently in fact. It's those little things, those gray areas that The Enemy uses to trip us up. To guide our feet further and further along a slippery slope. Pile on enough little things, you'll slip.

And if we're not worried about ourselves, about our own salvation, what about non-believers? What about "greener" Christians? Shouldn't we be at least be worried about them? They look to us for an example of what is right. We become the standard for what is good. It may not be a conscious decision made by anyone involved, but the fact is we're being watched and our actions are being noticed and taken into account. Not everyone knows what's right and what's wrong. There's not quite a clear distinction. I want people who know me to be able to say, "What would Heather do?" and to know that what I would do is what Jesus would've done and what God wants me to do. To know that if what I'm doing is approved by them, that it is very much the right thing to do.

I wish that I had been a better friend and done my job by helping to hold my friend accountable for fudging on this.

It's just a sign. But it's also an inconvienence to those that now have to deal with the replacement of it. It's some one's money, some one's time. Taking that sign was still stealing, and so was asking someone to take it for you. Stealing is a sin. That's not gray. And it's definitely not white.