There was a situation at work today that got my brain ticking again and back to a place where I used to be when I was extremely active in my church a few years ago.
I would like to find that middle ground. The middle ground for me would be not preaching to people, but not going to the opposite end of the spectrum either. I have been told by friends that I am an extremist meaning it is either one way or the other.
I had never really thought about it before until it was brought up to me. Looking at the past few years when I was very active in church however, and then my life for the past two years, I can see how that has been true.
We had only been open for about thirty minutes, and I was at the front door with a few of the other waitresses waiting to greet and seat people in our sections.
I didn't have anyone sitting at my tables yet so this man walks through the door and I ask if it is just him. He says he just wants to tell us something. He walks up to those of us standing at the door, and says, "There will be trumpets."
I don't remember word for word, so ethically I don't want to misquote him. He says that God will be coming again, and spoke of Jesus for a bit. I look around at the other girls and they are completely looking at him like he is insane and I can sense they are uncomfortable. Me, on the other hand, just look at him and smile.
After a few minutes of this one of the girls said, "Okay thank you!" I said, "Merry Christmas!" He looked at the other girls and said something along the lines of you will need more than a pretty face when he comes again. He looked at the girl who spoke to him and said, "If you want me to go away you must not be ready." He left after that.
The girls were saying, "What was that?" They thought he was crazy, and a few were a bit freaked out.
I wasn't freaked out. My reasoning is this. In my opinion he actually spoke the truth, he just went about it in an overly zealous way. Okay, an extremely overly zealous way.
Was he a prophet speaking the word of God? Probably not, but as long as he isn't hurting anyone, I'm okay with that. On the other hand, if he was a prophet, I wasn't rude and I let him speak his piece. You never know!
Perhaps he will be able to achieve his goals of spreading the word of the second coming with a little less zeal one day, and maybe more people will welcome that information.
As for me and my family, my children deserve to have that middle ground balance, and that is always a work in progress. I'm speaking from a recuperating extremist perspective of course. I am getting there though.
May everyone else find the balance that suits them and their own paths.
