First Impressions

Since graduating from high school I have lived in three states and about eight different cities. Needless to say I am constantly meeting new people and kid you not as I was typing this a guy at Caribou approached me needing help finding directions to an interview in Bloomington.

What do we notice first about people? The way they look? Dress? Talk? How they present themselves? A friendly air about them? Whether we like to admit it or not first impressions are mainly based on shallow presuppositions. We accept or reject further relationship based on a limited amount of information.

I have a friend named Jeremy who is the coolest guy I know. He is the bomb.com.net.org.gov.edu. In wikipedia next to "cool" is a pic of this dude flashing a bright smile. It sounds like I'm exaggerating, but anyone who knows him knows that he is a solid man of God with incredible character and integrity who also happens to be super cool. Naturally when Jeremy was single I thought it was my right, no my duty as his friend to hook the brother up. We were both living in CA at the time and the beautiful ladies were plentiful. My first attempt fell flat when the first words out of her mouth to Jeremy were, "Do you like my shoes? They were $200." I totally mistook the first impression I had of this girl. I focused on the shallow points of her beauty and style and thought that she would be a good match. I was dead wrong. I was so wrong that the next time I tried to set Jeremy up he almost declined my offer...but thankfully he trusted that I'd learned my lesson about first impressions.

This brings me to Mikaela, a young woman from MN who had just moved to CA a few months before. A mutual friend was throwing a New Year's party and thought as fellow Minnesotans we needed to meet. By the time we met, she was heading out the door on to another party, but we did talk for ten minutes. Seriously, only ten minutes! Of all the words I used to describe Jeremy, she surpassed them all. In ten minutes I got a picture of an amazingly beautiful, sincere woman with an even more amazing heart. Her outside captured you, but her heart made your mouth hang wide open. I called Jeremy the next day and the rest is history. They were married last August.

It makes me think first impressions really are important, but not in the way I've always thought. It says in the Bible that there was nothing special about Jesus' appearance that would attract people, but that is just what He did. He attracted people by the droves with his heart. So maybe I need to think less about my wardrobe choices and hairstyle as I do the condition of my heart. We all say that we want to work on our character, but do we really believe character can come out in a first impression? I do.

I'm not gonna write you a love song

Have you ever felt like you were under the thumb of someone or something? Life is full of prescriptive mandates and you play the game according to the set rules or...what? You become a rebel?

Can faith be prescriptive? Follow this set of principles, stroll down the "Romans Road", pray a prayer and Bam!, you are saved. For as long as I've been a Christian I have struggled understanding certain tenets, especially the logistics of salvation. It may have a lot to do with my denominational mut status. I was raised in a Lutheran church, attended a Baptist college, went to church with Vineyard and AG friends, and have a whole side of my family claiming to be Catholic. Needless to say the messages about "being saved" have swirled about my brain in a confusing picture that looks like a finger painted Picasso. And interesting to note, the first mention of salvation wasn't until my first year of Baptist college. What??? What the heck is going on? I have gone to church my whole life? What are you telling me? The concepts, terminology, logistics surrounding salvation frustrate me. I often feel like it becomes divisive. If you believe this theology, proceed to camp A. If you believe in this theology, please proceed to camp B. If you do not believe in either, please proceed to hell...in a handbasket. I'm not saying that theology is not necessary, but it seems to aid in our grouping and distinguishing of individuals' salvation based on what denomination they ascribe to instead of the state of their heart.

Also, once you are counted among the "saved", your responsibility is to "save" more. I'm sure there are many people in my life that stood by me excitedly awaiting the day where I would come to a relational faith with Jesus Christ, but thankfully no one pushed, forced, or coerced me to pray a prayer before I knew what I was doing. I wish I could call those friends that I thought were a little loopy for being baptized in what looked like a hot tub when we were juniors in high school and say, "Guys, I get it now". Those friends loved me. They didn't try to change me and most of all they never tried to prescribe a certain journey of faith I needed to be on. God was pursuing me. The Holy Spirit was working and my faith was growing and developing.

This brings me back to my experience in Africa. As part of the medical clinics, patients were invited to receive counseling. For a weary heart and body I'm sure this sounded like a much needed respite from the harshness of their reality. I was expecting an opportunity to show compassion, share tears, embrace a broken soul facing a life with HIV, but instead I was shocked to discover the mandate of salvation. I felt myself becoming physically ill when a patient was hounded about her lack of relationship with Jesus and her desperate need for Him. Never mind that you came in here to talk about how scared you are to tell your family you have just been diagnosed with HIV. Never mind that you are scared to die. Never mind that you want a compassionate face and someone to accept you the way you are. You need to change. You need to have a relationship with Jesus before we will speak to you. Let me start by talking about sin and (y)our need for a Savior...

Really? We are going to talk to her about how she is a sinner? Right here? Right now? I could feel the uneasiness in my stomach begin to creep it's way up my esophagus. I've never gotten physically ill before, but everything in my body was screaming NO!!!!!!!! JUST LOVE HER!!!! You can listen and love her and tell about this amazing man named Jesus that gives you hope, but don't make her pray a prayer. Don't prescribe her faith like a pill to swallow. Let her be herself and love her just the way she is. I pray that after we left she was able to speak with someone she trusts about the grace, love, hope, and redemption found in this man Jesus and not just the freedom from sin.

I attended a class about missions in which a man once told a missionary, "Your message of Jesus comes to us already planted in a clay pot decorated the way you like it. We love the message of Jesus, but we had to break the pot and replant it in our own." We can't tell others how to know and love Jesus. We can only show and tell of Jesus' love for them. Let's leave the prescriptions for the doctors.

I walked out of the counseling and couldn't return for the rest of the week in Africa. I couldn't write the love song they asked me to write. I couldn't add to the number of "saved" that week, but it doesn't bother me because I know God is pursuing the hearts of all He created and He is drawing them unto Himself in His time.