Sometimes you feel like you finally have all your Monopoly money and properties organized only to find out everyone else is now playing Scrabble. And just when you get a word with that pesky "Q" tile and are ready to play the game has changed, and someone is calling out "Uno!"
This life is full of relationships and situations that are out of our control. We live in a world where "My way or the highway" is the motto of many. I have spent too much time and energy trying to play the right game and making other people an idol, just hoping they'd acknowledge and recognize that I am a good person, that my heart is good and my desire is to do right. In those times I put other people before God. I had lost sight of my worth in Christ alone as a daughter of the King and heir to His inheritance.
Sometimes the best decision when you wake up one day and realize this situation is silence. Sometimes the best decision you can make it to not respond, not reply, not defend, not speak a single word. Your heart doesn't have to be angry or full of hate to remain silent. I have actually found that choosing silence and stepping away from some relationships has released anger and frustration and filled me with peace and contentment. I have made the choice to seek God and His direction for me in some relationships and time and time again I read in his word affirming words about my decision to remain silent.
I am not called to reconcile every relationship I have ever had to another person's approval and I am not called to be "best friends forever" with every person I meet. I am called to love my neighbor as myself and to love and pray for my enemies. We are all fallen, lost and hopeless without Christ. My prayer in these difficult relationships is that my silence speaks Christ. My silence allows me to love my neighbors by being able to pray for their hearts and for their relationship with Christ to grow without me hindering their walk or causing them to sin with anger towards me. It also allows me to draw nearer to Christ as I walk each day not hindered and burdened with anger (let's be real... sin) with every interaction or thought of them.
So sometimes the game is best not played. Folding your cards and silently walking away in prayer is an option. The world will scream back "Why are you so angry? So full of hate? Why won't you talk to me? Why won't you play MY game?" I know. I am walking the road of choosing silence and have been accused of some really nasty and ugly things because of my silence. I find comfort and hope in the words spoken by Jesus in John 16:33 "In this world you will have trouble, but take heart I have overcome the world."
Take heart my friend. There is hope in Jesus Christ in world of chaos when our eyes remain fixed on Him alone. In Christ alone we know how this life ends and how our eternity begins. Find comfort and peace in silence resting in Christ.
What if it changed your life?
