Kung Fu Master

Our singles group has a weekly Bible study - usually we're split up over Monday and Tuesday, but this week we had the whole bunch in the same night, in the same home. I didn't know BK owned that many chairs.

This series is on the Fruit of the Spirit. See 1 Corinthians. We usually have the same basic notes, and we just note the answers for ourselves. In my case, and I'm sure other people do this, most of my margins are taken up with additional notes about brainbenders people have said.

Tonight we're on gentleness. Or, if you like, meekness/humility. This is a doozy. I've heard a friend say, "Of all the cultures in the world, Americans have to have the hardest time being Christians. You have to submit to someone else, you have to admit that you can't do something on your own, AND you have to admit that there's something wrong with you. Americans can't do that." I don't know how accurate that is, but it made me think. Meekness is not a happy word in our vocabulary.

'Til we started exploring this further and figuring out, by a Christian definition, what meekness is. And contrary to the impression we've got, it doesn't mean having the temperament of Bambi's mother. Rather, it is the kung fu master, who holds the strength, and can recognize when not to use it.

The flip side of that is that if you can recognize when NOT to use it, you also recognize when TO use it - but we only made a note of that, it wasn't our point for tonight.

Meekness was Christ on the cross. He's God's son, he IS God, he has the power to bring himself down, or to call legions upon legions of angels to blast everyone there and carry him away. He's in so much suffering that a new word had to be invented to describe it - "excruciating" literally means "out of the cross". He's in pain beyond anything, he's humiliated, he can't breathe, his skin is hanging in ragged tatters, and he's likely excessively dehydrated. And he made the call, with every breath, that it was more important for him to die this way, for these miserable creations to be saved, than for him to come down.

We were talking about how that applies to us, in marriage (most of us aren't) and work relationships. J summed it up, "Yeah, I could win this argument, but then I'd do some major damage to the relationship." He's made the call to walk out of a fight, to let the other person come out on top, even though he knows he can completely destroy their argument. Not because he's afraid or submissive, but because it's more important to him that this relationship be maintained, and that they find a way to solve this (that's probably going to be longer and take more effort) that allows them to work together.

Strength under control. Having the power, and choosing to walk away from a fight. The kung fu master.

There's a lot of great stuff that was said tonight. I've got one that's definitely going on my quote board, and maybe three.

Britta: "For your own personal health, don't expect to be respected."
That one made us laugh, but she made an impressive point. Respecting the people around you, yes, we're supposed to do that. But as soon as you expect them to respect you back, you're setting yourself up for misery. If they don't, you're going to be irked, and you've effectively given them the power to wreck your day.
That's definitely another brainbender for me. I'll be working on getting my head around that concept for awhile.

I have one section that I'm definitely teaching on if I'm a counselor for the junior high or high school girls this summer. One of the girls read it, and you could see this smile spread around to every woman in the group, and then we all started talking.
By the way, the guys were NOT touching that one. It was talking about beauty of spirit, being more real, lasting longer, and being more attractive than physical beauty. Every guy in the room claimed that touching that one in any way was digging himself a hole.

Which made us laugh more.

There's a lot that we learn during these nights, but also a lot of goofy relationship building. Jared, who's very health conscious, made the celery sing at me when I chose the Oreos instead. Kristina and I were talking about some girl stuff on the stairs, Gabe came up to badger us, was perhaps kicked, and fell back down the stairs to land in a tangle with the bike. We're all in the same discussion during the study, but as soon as we're done, we break off into about six separate conversations, and there's this animated joy that just kinda hangs out in the atmosphere above all of them.

I love this group. :)