People Will Let You Down

This is so strange. My last post was about a blessing. This post is about a discouragement.

That's how life is, isn't it? Peaks and valleys, ups and downs, laughter and tears, Light and Darkness.

Everyone is human; everyone has faults. No matter how wonderful, spiritual, consecrated, or wise they are, they are still flawed in some area. I have always known that people will let you down (God won't). Sometimes it seems like I don't know it though.

Saturday I got a good hard shock that thoroughly proved the accuracy of this post's title. At an event that day (for time's sake, and to avoid finger-pointing, I won't name names or go into all the details), a group of people who I have respected, trusted, and looked up to, behaved in a manner completely foreign to the people I thought they were. I respected, trusted, and looked up to them, because of their character, integrity, spiritual-mindedness, purity, and set-apartness (I don't know if that's even a word, but it serves my purpose). Witnessing their behavior, I was completely dumb-founded. Disgusted. Embarassed. And heart-broken. I turned to Mom and told her, "These aren't the [people] I know!" This was so unlike them! It was like living a nightmare, where strange and shady-minded characters take the bodies and voices of people you love, then behave like the fiends they are.

Oh how I have prayed that the Lord would pierce their consciences! Shame them to their core; wake them up, startled, to the realization of the message they were sending.

I also have the impression that I should try to speak to them. They knew I was there; they know I saw. I cannot conscientiously stand by, silent, and act like everything is OK. It's NOT okay! I must, as a loving friend, approach them and give an account of what their actions spoke to an outsider. But I am so afraid. Afraid I will not have the right words. That I will not time it right. Afraid for their testimonies. Afraid to lose them as friends.

The sovereignty of God is a great comfort!