A couple of years back I was talking to a man who has had great influence in my life. At the time he was in youth ministry and I think he was just pouring some wisdom into me at the time. But he shared a nugget of advice that was hard for me to take at the time. He was explaining that when he and his wife found themselves in youth ministry they had to stop being sarcastic.. At first I was honestly almost offended.. How can one be funny without sarcasm, I thought!? See if you have known me for any amount of years you will know that I have changed a whole lot.. Or rather, Jesus has transformed my life! (And He is far from being done) See at the time I was offended by this advice because, well I was a very sarcastic person. In a definition of the word "sarcasm" from dictionary.com it has words like "sneering" or even "cutting". From the Greek roots it literally goes back to being "to strip off the flesh". I don't know about you, but to me that sucks.. This was honestly probably one of the toughest things for me to walk through, so far. You may be reading this thinking I am crazy, because it seems harmless. But I would like to walk through this with you and maybe evaluate it from a different scope. Lets go! 1. Build! Don't cut. Encouragement is such a HUGE deal in my life. I love dishing it out and just truly making people smile. Call me crazy, I know. But a couple of months back I worked retail with my good friend Ford! Me and this dude have roots dating back to kindergarten, I could go all day how great he is.. But that is beside the point. You see Ford and I share a heart for building, so we attempted to go around and encourage people at work and love on 'em. You know what we received? Laughs and weird looks. That is terrifying. Ford and I realized that our world has become so cynical and cutting that we do not know how to receive encouragement. As Christians we should look at our brothers and sisters and be devastated by this. We need to encourage and build each other up. I know it doesn't seem like much. But it could change your work, your school, YOUR FAMILY. Oh man.. I get teary eyed just imaging this. 2. Image bearers. "How you treat the creation reflects how you feel about the creator." I read this recently and it hit me hard. We are all made in the image of our loving God, whether that person acknowledges that or not. It is true for every single human. So saying that we are all image bearers, and yet we continue to "cut" and "mock". Who does God say we are? God is love and we can never fully comprehend how much He does love us. But man, every single person around you was made in His image!! See that and act like it. 3. Widen the scope. We honestly have no idea what each other is currently walking through. I mean we may have an idea but we never fully know. People have insecurities, past hurts, new wounds and when we sarcastically say something you have no clue how they will take it. Even innocent and harmless jokes could really rock someone. I would like us to just take the "funny" thoughts captive and pause for a second longer to analyze. Now saying all of this, I know that reducing these cutting comments isn't the key to all things. But as I travel from church to church and meet countless new people. I have witnessed the scars from these "jokes" and have seen church leaders buying into these comments. It breaks my heart.. "So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing." 1 Thessalonians 5:11 It says to encourage! And to build each other up.. Let that soak for a bit. How can we do these things right now? There are so many possibilities to love and to show Christ through our words! I know this won't be an immediate switch, or if you even agree with this. But my prayer is that is sticks somewhere. As I have distanced myself from sarcasm I look at it with a sadness. I don't know if we say it as a way to escape from our own insecurities or what, but I pray that we can truly build others up. It truly does seem harmless, but it's not.
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AuthorMy name is Andrew Berry! I am just living my life chasing after Jesus and trying to point others to Him. Archives
January 2017
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