The Typical

So I have been doing some work with a friend doing construction while I have my summer off. The other day at the job site I slightly overheard the conversation when my friend asked who I was. My friend is a Christian guy, as is the rest of his crew. Long story short, this man jokingly referred to us as "typicals". At one point he said that he was surrounded by a punch of typicals. So I did some quick research.

In the United States, about 73%-77% of the population identify themselves as Christians. I'd cite my sources...but if you want to find out, google it. That means that in a group of 10 people, almost 8 would consider themselves Christian. If you walked into your local breakfast diner at 10:30 in the morning on Saturday, of those 20 - 30 people in there, about 16-24 of them consider themselves Christian. 

As I sit back and think about those numbers, I wonder if I really want to be a typical American. When you sit back and think about what that means in terms of being a Christian... well I understand why some people have a very hard time identifying Christians with the Christ of the Bible that we are to emulate. This isn't me coming down on people either. This is me being as guilty as any of, to a point, defiling the term "Christian". It also makes me realize how loosely we throw that term around. How easily people say, "Oh yeah, I'm a Christian." Like I talked about last week, getting married and budgeting and trying to stay Christ-like has been a very humbling event for me. It made me realize how poor of an example I have been of being Christ-like to those I come in contact with daily. 

I know I have talked about it before, but I'm talking about it again. If as many people who claimed they were Christians, lived a true Christian walk, can you imagine what this world would be like? If it was just those who went to church on a regular basis lived a true Christ-like faith can you imagine? If simply the number of people who read this silly blog could live a completely Christ-like faith... I'm not saying none of you do, it's more of a challenge to me. If I could only live a Christ-like existence. If I could love the people I came in contact with as much as Christ loved. If I could give as freely and without worry, with both time and money, as Christ asked us to. 

The best part of this is, God still wants to use untrusting, unloving at time, broken me. One of my wonderful, gorgeous, fiancé's favorite characters in the Bible is Peter. Not because of what Peter did, but because of how big of a screw up he was, and how great God was glorified threw him. We discussed this recently at a friends wedding as the read about the washing of the feet. Peter ask Jesus not to wash his feet. Jesus tells him that unless he allows him to that Peter cannot be clean. Peter immediately jumps to the other ends and ask's Christ to wash all of him then. Countless times throughout the New Testament you just shake your head at Peter. Yet God used him. Maybe there is hope for me after all. The major thing with Peter is that no matter what, he was passionate about God and was striving to seek Him and desired to serve Him. Peter may have been a screw up, but his heart was in the right place.

So I covered a lot there and my brain wasn't exactly flowing neatly so let explain...there is no time, let me sum up. If you consider yourself a Christian, think about your actions and what they say about Christians. Do you want others to see Christianity through your actions. But, have faith that if you truly try to follow Christ, HE will be glorified. We need to make sure we are seeking God with the right heart, and with the right motives. With or without us, however, He will be glorified. We just have to choose whether or not we are willing to die to self and be a part of it.

Ok I'm done, but as always I love you all and thanks for reading this. Tweet it, Facebook it, Myspace it (yeah right), share it. I hope you got something from this. Send me feedback or questions or comments. Either leave them here or e-mail me at optimisticprime15@gmail.com.

Finally, if you guys could pray for me and my future wife. We have to rely on God a lot as we move forward with our lives. It has been hard for me to trust in God to provide for us so just pray for faith for me and a willingness to allow God to move in His timing. Thankfully he has provided me with a wonderful woman to keep me focused on him. If you guys have an prayer requests, PLEASE e-mail me. I can share them confidentially on here and with friends, or I can simply pray for you myself. Either way, please don't hesitate. 

With love always,

Optimistic Prime