Life Above Reproach Testimony

William Mothershed

            You may not have noticed this, but people in this world are seriously messed up.  Even the good ones.  Between our prejudices, our moods, and our attitudes, it’s a wonder we ever get along at all.  I got so tired of trying to get along with difficult people that I became a difficult person.  Not a good thing!  It spiraled down into a long prison sentence.

            I think my biggest mistake is that I took it all personally.  I failed to see how broken people are.  I wanted to blame them for the way they were.  You don’t blame a person with a broken leg for limping.  Why was I blaming people with broken minds, broken spirits, and broken hearts for acting like what they were?  My brokenness was a damaged sense of pride.  I was a counterpuncher.  If they did bad to me, I had to do that to them.  I remember a guy in junior high who liked to play tough and walk directly at people to make them get out of his way.  So, I took to plotting his course and getting ahead of him and just standing in his way.  It never occurred to me to think about how broken he must have been inside to make him act this way or to ask what was happening in his life that made him so insecure that he had to prove how tough he was.  And it certainly never occurred to me to ask what was going on in my own life to make me feel the need to deliberately get in his way.

            You would think that eventually becoming a Christian would have solved this problem for me, but no.  What changed when I became a Christian is that I acknowledged that I was messed up, and I needed God to help me get right.  It didn’t fix me, but it did put me on a path.  Some of us have been on that path longer than others, and some put more effort into walking it than others.  Being on the path to riches won’t put a penny in your pocket if you camp out on the first mile and never move on.  But I’ve tried.  I’ve gotten far enough along on the path that I can look on broken people with compassion.  Instead of being angry at being disrespected, I can start talking to the rude, miserable, wretch of humanity that disrespected me and maybe try to shine some light into the darkness of his life.  Why should I match his hateful misery and join him on his road to darkness?  I can invite him on my path.  It doesn’t matter whether he mocks or snarls or laughs.  I know the truth and have come to be absolutely certain of the truth of the Gospel.  The mocking of a lost soul, who is not even aware enough to know he is lost, cannot rock me off my path.  I can afford to take the insult and not take it to heart.

            Sometimes the broken can see the love of God through such actions.  Sometimes they are too strongly bound by their own misery to see anything.  That is up to God.  The important thing is that I have decided to stay on the path of God leading to joy and peace and love.  If the broken people the Lord puts in my path want to join me, I will help them find the way.  If not, I will pray for them and let them go their way.  Each of us gets to choose.  We can choose to let the miseries and hatefulness of this world drive us down a road to self-destruction and ruin, or we can choose to look to God to put us on a path of joy forever.  Jesus paid the price for my misery, and He opened the path to His joy and love.  I chose to change paths.  It was that simple.  My prayer for you is that you will join me on this path and share in His joy and love.  You get to choose, and no one can take that from you.