In these past weeks, we had the opportunity to have Mr. Hawkins speak in Chapel about the way Christians should demonstrate a character that reflects God. This topic addressed several issues that we as Christians do not see unless someone points it out. Therefore, how do you know if you are acting accordingly to what you’re preaching? Well, let’s dive in the scripture and discover what we are doing wrong. Let’s situate ourselves in the story that is well known to those who have been to church before. The story of the good Samaritan shows exactly an example to follow on how we need to react and act in everyday situations. In Luke 10: 25-37 we find a story that gives an answer to the question at hand. In this parable, we see three philosophies of life and three types of people.
The thief aka the roommate who uses things and “forgets” to tell you: his philosophy of life doesn’t respect the private property. He believes that “everything that you have is his.”
The Priest and the Levite aka your next-dorm neighbor that loves to sleep as if he was in a freezer or that roommate that has a pathological need to let everyone know what he’s listening to: His philosophy of life expresses: “What I have is mine.” This is an attitude that reflects individualism. It’s selfish and puts aside the needs and suffering of others.
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The Good Samaritan aka the roommate that we all should want to be: His philosophy of life says: “What I have belongs to you“. This would be the Christian philosophy of life. In other words, it would be expressed like this: “What I have is yours if it can be of help.” All things belong to God and we are his administrators.
Now which one would you say it resembles who you are in your everyday actions or is it more like a little mix of everything, every other day. I feel like we all fall in the same category. One day we feel that we lived up to our expectations of what Christianity should be and other days it seems like we don’t want anybody near us.
This kind of attitude is what often cuts short the great plans that God has for us and for others. What we tend to miss is that we all have our days counted in this world. We do not have many opportunities to tell others about Him unless we create time in our busy agendas. I personally have fallen in the trap of being “too busy” to let others know about who Jesus is and how he has changed my life. We are not here to convince anyone to believe in him, we are here to make him known. Therefore, our limited time should be inspiration enough to focus on showing who God is to our roommate, friends, even our family members that get on our nerves. Now, I understand that changing is not always easy but is worth it when God is behind it. But we must be open to change if we really want to see it happen.
My practical advice, coming from a person that has been in the same position, is as follows:
1. Be open to let God change the things that He sees not the ones that you see.
2. Stop using the excuse “I’m too busy” or “I can always do it later.”
3. Make Him instead of your phone your priority when you wake up.
Media by Abbi Murillo.
