Normally (and my look at normalcy has changed and continues to change) I am a glass half full type of girl. I tend to trust most everyone and most everything people tell me. I don’t expect someone to tell me a lie, I don’t expect someone to deliberately take advantage of our friendship and I don’t expect to be treated any differently. It’s sad to say but I’m slowly leaning towards the glass half empty nowadays.
Here in Kenya we are continually warned to be careful how involved we get with people and told we usually are not getting the full story (being lied to). That is so against my nature and I’m learning fast how quickly my attitude can change, for good or bad. At first it seemed I was crying out to God to fix them so I could go back to my “normal” sense of optimistic thinking, but then I started (and I’m still working on this) asking God for a renewed heart in me.
“Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.” (Colossians 3)
Please don’t misunderstand, there were people we ran into in the States who lied, took advantage, etc. but it was the exception not the rule. Living Colossians 3 doesn’t mean being unconcerned or unaware of our surroundings and the people we come into contact with but to me it means learning to live in the presence of the Holy Spirit, which in turn means learning to live here in Kenya.
Chuck and I joke when Neo (from the Matrix) is offered the blue pill (blissful ignorance of illusion) or the red pill (embracing the sometimes painful truth of reality) we both know I’d rather choose the blue pill! Seems I’ve been given the red pill and now it’s time to live in the knowledge that I am created in the image of my Creator and live out the “new command”:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34-35