Hey shorty. It's your birthday.
You gonna party like it's your birthday?
I remember when one of my best friends became a kindergarten teacher. "Does this mean I can't go to the club?" she sighed. After hemming and hawing, she decided that no one was going to stop her from getting her dance on. The first night she went, she fell asleep on a couch, and luckily her other friends were there to make sure she got home okay. The next time she went, she saw some of her students' parents there and felt embarrassed, like she had done something wrong. No one told her she was wrong. But she knew that for the image she wanted to put out there as a teacher, she would not want her own child's teacher to be popping and locking.
Being a Christian doesn't mean that you can't have fun in life. But there are some things that you may have to pray about changing. Here's a quick run down:
1. Your words. Your words are very powerful. It was the spoken word from Adam's mouth that named all of the animals. God has given you the ability to speak so that you can communicate with Him. He has given you the ability to bless others with your words, or curse them. And to curse someone is always a poor reflection of you. You are called to bless your enemies and love your neighbours(Luke 6, Mark 12)! You, are the salt of the earth... your words should be delectable and savoured slowly( Matthew 5:13). You who are explicitly instructed in the New Testament not to swear and use profanity (1 Peter 3), but also to make sure that the topics of your conversation are not loose and inappropriate (Ephesians 4 & 5).
Something else: words represent a commitment to God even if the emotion isn't there. If you bless your enemy and do not feel it, continue to say it over and over until your feelings catch up. It might take hours, days, weeks months, et cetera... but as long as you are committed to doing right by God, He will honour your words and allow you to cultivate appropriate feelings.
2. Body language. We will get into issues with dressing and modesty in another post, but for the moment, I want to make you aware of physical boundaries. Here in 2015, we don't seem to have any! Or if we do, they are marked by violation and abuse. This is an area to surrender to the Holy Spirit in prayer. Ask for His help in selecting your clothes and guarding your heart. There are many gestures that we learn when we are kids that are manipulative and flirtatious. You need not send those signals out to all and everyone, and unconsciously, you may have been doing so all your life. Christian women must strive to not be manipulative and controlling. It's an easy trap to fall into.
Now you may think I'm plum crazy, and too bad so sad, you were with me until I went there but I want to encourage you that if you have resistance to this suggestion, bypass it and come back some day to reread it. I need to make sure my friends are attracting the right kind of people into their lives... people who will bless them, give them opportunities and see the heart of Christ in their actions. Don't be completely vexed with me, okay?
3. Consumption of goods. This one is also controversial. How much do you need to survive? Is your priority to have all the things you want, or to tithe first, and then take care of your needs? I only mention it because our society has gone off the deep end when it comes to consumption, and I am guilty too. We need to have so much of everything. Most of the time, we're thinking of ourselves. 2 Timothy 3:2 says, "People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy..." What I want to point out is how that list gets worse as it goes on. It's a good thing to fast now and then, and go back to basics with God. In the next seven posts, I'll talk about this more.
4. Consumption of culture. Have you ever heard that old line, you are what you eat? That if you fill your body up with fresh water and fruits and veggies, and keep good portion control of carbohydrates and proteins in your diet, you will be running like a well oiled machine? On the other hand, if you only drink soda, and eat junk food, you are most likely headed towards a world of obesity, diabetes and hypertension.
Think of your spirit as a stomach. All day it takes in what you feed it through your eyes and ears, and other senses. It receives what you read and look at, things that you hear people saying. It absorbs feelings that come from various interactions we have in our school/working lives. It listens to the same music as we do.
What you put into your spirit will be reproduced and reflected outwards. If you surround yourself with darkness, eventually you will become part of that darkness. Maybe you won't even realize what has happened until you are confronted by light.
I did an exercise once with a group of adolescents who admitted to going to sleep while listening to their iPods. I asked them if they knew which songs they were listening to in the night; some said yes, but most use the shuffle tool that allows one to skip and play different songs. I asked them to not listen to music for five nights and to report on it the next time we met. The results were surprising, given that majority of the group did not identify as religious or believers. Majority of the group reported that they woke up happier when they didn't listen to music overnight.
Now, this is not a hard and fast rule... some people really like to listen to worship music when they are sleeping. I personally do not. To each her own. Having said that, I ask you to have a conversation with God about what kind of music you listen to, and what He thinks of it. This also applies to movies, TV shows, books (those romance novels, sigh), websites and chat groups.
I can share a bit about my own struggle with the music of an artist known as R. Kelly. When I was in da club, I loved R. Kelly songs. When they would come on, I would squeal "This is my JAM!" and rush to the dance floor. When I recommitted my life to Christ, I didn't get rid of my R. Kelly collection. And then something really annoying began happening.
When I would start to pray, or read my Bible, I would find myself bopping along to the Remix to Ignition. Now! I will bet you when you read that, peer group, the next thing you said to yourself was "fresh out the kitchen", because the song is addictive. I would go walking, and a car would pull up next to me, windows down, blaring that same old song.
Someone has got to be asking what is wrong with that?! I can tell you. R. Kelly music mentally took me back to da club. It took me back to dark, smoky rooms, big booming speakers, and that special heat you get from too many people being too close together. It reminded me of past lovers, romance and sex, which was no longer part of my life. It made me WEAK. I wanted more and more of it, because it comforted my flesh. I had to battle it out until my love for God surpassed my blast from the past trigger. When I tried to let go of it, it seemed to grasp me even tighter. Peeps... I gave away my CDs. I actually went through the collection and got rid of everything that would remind me. Not everyone is like me, but for me, that music opened a door that would lead to other things. With prayer, and help from the Holy Spirit, I was able to get control over that area of my life.
5. Self-regulation and stewardship. The common thread to all of these items is that these are things that no one can decide for you. The Bible is clear sometimes, and in other places, not so clear. Generally speaking, any behaviour that opens up a door where you will be tempted to sin is probably one of these areas where you need to proceed with caution. One of the questions I am asked the most is about alcohol consumption... is it wrong for Christians to drink? For my answer, I turn to Ephesians 5:18 "Do not be drunk with wine, it leads to debauchery..." Yikes. Can you drink a glass of wine with dinner? Depends on if you can handle it, and when you aren't sure, err on the side of caution and skip it altogether. Does the Bible say the same thing for drugs? Well... let's put it this way.
If I make the decision to drink, I am inhibiting my ability to hear the Holy Spirit. So basically, I'm a car with a GPS that's on it's last leg of battery. I still will need to know where to go, but I've hindered the relationship we have by recharging myself with wine instead of God. Anything that takes the place of God becomes dangerous. You don't want to end up on the sidewalk again, bleeding!
Stepping back to see the big picture, you'll recognize that God has given us stewardship of our lives. We have the ability to choose what we want for ourselves, and what courses of action to take. The difference comes from living a life with Him, we now have access to 2 things that make all of those choices easier; first, the Holy Spirit, who lives inside us and helps to guide us the right way, and second, the Bible, God's definitive word. This is why it's so important to read the Bible daily, so that you'll be familiar with what God desires for His people. One of the most powerful verses that speaks to me is Hosea 4:6 "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge..." It is your responsibility to know the Word of God (baby steps... a little every day) and then to do what it says. If we hear the Word and do not live by it (Luke 11:28) we are making ourselves vulnerable to the enemy and sin.