Updates are good and one's with substance are usually better, so this one will hopefully be in the "better" category, at least it was for me. :)
I'm reading through a book called Knowing God by J.I. Packer for my Theology Proper class in Seminary. (side-note here, I got accepted into City Seminary Sacramento something like a week after I got back from England and I am enrolled in two classes this semester; Theology Proper and Introduction to Homiletics)
In this book, Knowing God, I came across something he said that struck me profoundly and then all at once enticed me to consider it's implications to our every day life and then share it with whomever would hear it.
He said "...the quality and extent of our knowledge of other people depends more on them than on us. Our knowing them is more directly the result of their allowing us to know them than of our attempting to get to know them. When we meet, our part is to give them our attention and interest, to show them good will and to open up in a friendly way from our side. From that point, however, it is they, not we, who decide whether we are going to know them or not."
Ponder that truth for awhile, consider the depths of it. Why are we so distant from people? How is it that we don't have many close friends if any true friends at all? You see we can read that at first and say, "well they didn't open up to me" But have you opened up to them?
It is very true that if someone does not want to be open, if they don't want to tell you about themselves, then there is little you can do to bridge that gap. What immediately challenged me is "am I that person?" Do I keep people at arms length? Are there portions of my life which I don't want to share even when directly asked about them? The overwhelming conclusion is, many times, yes. For fear of judgment or condemnation, being stabbed in the back or being written off, I keep people away from the parts of me I don't want them anywhere near. In fact, I could say that I've gotten very good at this. I'm a molder of conversations. This is a gift from God that has allowed me to bless many people, however, because of my wickedness, it also allows me to guide and direct people far away from the parts of me that I don't even deal with. And in so doing, no one ever gets close enough to really know me at all.
Ponder that truth for awhile, consider the depths of it. Why are we so distant from people? How is it that we don't have many close friends if any true friends at all? You see we can read that at first and say, "well they didn't open up to me" But have you opened up to them?
It is very true that if someone does not want to be open, if they don't want to tell you about themselves, then there is little you can do to bridge that gap. What immediately challenged me is "am I that person?" Do I keep people at arms length? Are there portions of my life which I don't want to share even when directly asked about them? The overwhelming conclusion is, many times, yes. For fear of judgment or condemnation, being stabbed in the back or being written off, I keep people away from the parts of me I don't want them anywhere near. In fact, I could say that I've gotten very good at this. I'm a molder of conversations. This is a gift from God that has allowed me to bless many people, however, because of my wickedness, it also allows me to guide and direct people far away from the parts of me that I don't even deal with. And in so doing, no one ever gets close enough to really know me at all.
I'm not advocating that we share every part of ourselves with every single person we meet, simply stating that the sparsity with which we open ourselves up to people will be equivocal to our friendships that are actually worthwhile. How close you want people to be has much to do with how open you are with each other.
It is my hope that through this God both challenged and encouraged you, it certainly had that effect on me.
Grace, Love, and Peace
-Andrew
