It could be more a problem in our shouting social media age, when any idea any person has can be blasted out via the internet to any other internet-connected person, but it surely has been a problem too for as long as people in this cursed world have known other people: it can become too important to one to maintain a certain perception and to be seen in a certain way, to be respected and respectable even at the cost of acting according to one’s preferences or even one’s beliefs. I know that it has been a problem for me.
Sigh.
It does matter, in a way—when one has friends who one cares about and loves and whose opinions one values, one wants them to be happy and at ease with one’s decisions and actions. If I truly had no concern for what others thought about my own change of theological leanings, I’m not sure I would be living in a very Christian manner. I do care, but yet may be I should be careful not to go too very far overboard with my attempts to persuade or convince or demonstrate or prove to everyone I know that actually, I’m not just going with the flow—that I actually have studied the issues—that I actually do pray to God to guide us.
I do care, but how much of this effort is out of love for others and how much is about proving that I really am respectable and to be taken seriously?
And I don’t have time to do that. There is too much that I am called to do. I need to work and raise three children and take care of a wife and be part of a church and possibly do a handful of other things that must come before squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching at the dragging tatters of my reputation.
Sigh.
Blog Of My Sojourn 