Yesterday, I happened to see a post on social media about how some people can hide behind religion and use it as a way to hurt others or justify being monsters. I didn’t really sit and think about it for very long. I just read it while scrolling and kept going. But apparently, somewhere in my mind, it stayed with me. I wasn’t feeling well yesterday and had slept quite a bit during the day, so I didn’t sleep especially well last night. I kept waking up, and I still had a terrible headache, but at one point I woke up from a dream that I could remember almost every detail of. The strange thing was that the dream seemed to connect so closely with what I had read earlier. It made me think about how my dreams sometimes feel like a continuation or a spinoff of things I’ve seen, heard, or read during the day—things that maybe sit with me and affect my heart more than I realize in the moment. Or maybe, sometimes, God uses that quiet place of sleep to bring something to my attention that I need to think about, write about, pray about, or learn from. I’ve always felt like my mind can go in a hundred million directions during the day, especially with my ADD, but when I’m asleep and everything finally becomes quiet, I sometimes feel like God can get my attention in a way that He can’t when my mind is racing.
In my dream, I was in a situation where I was about to make a wrong decision—something I knew I shouldn’t do. I was with a friend who I don’t see very often, but someone I consider to be an incredibly sweet, thoughtful, compassionate person. I don’t know much about her spiritual life. I don’t know if she goes to church or doesn’t go to church, and I’ve never really heard her talk about those things. But because of the way she lives and treats people, I would probably describe her as kind and compassionate. In the dream, though, she was the one encouraging me to make the wrong choice. I had already decided that I was going to do it, but then something inside of me stopped me. I felt the Holy Spirit telling me, very clearly, that it was wrong. I felt that conviction and guilt before I ever made the decision, and I knew I wasn’t supposed to go down that road. So I told her, “You can do whatever you want to do, but I’m not doing this.” She questioned why I wouldn’t do it, but I stood my ground, and immediately I felt this incredible sense of relief because I knew I had made the right choice. That part of the dream really stuck with me because it made me think about how easily we can make assumptions about people based on what we see on the outside. We can look at someone who goes to church, talks about God, leads in a church, or is married to someone in ministry and assume we know their heart. And we can look at someone who never talks about church or religion and make assumptions about them, too. But we don’t actually know what is happening inside another person. Someone can look “religious” and still make terrible choices, and someone who doesn’t appear religious to us can still be one of the kindest, most compassionate people we know. And honestly, Christians can make terrible choices too. We are still human. We still have weaknesses. We can still fail. The enemy would love nothing more than to use one moment of weakness, one bad decision, one trusted person, or one situation to cause us to fall and damage our testimony.
That’s what brought me back to the difference between religion and having a relationship with Christ. I am a Christian—not because I think I’m better than anyone else, and certainly not because I’m perfect. I’m a Christian because I believe in Jesus Christ, I believe He gave His life for my sins and paid a price I could never pay, and I have given my life to Him. Do I go to church? Yes. Do I try to become more like Christ? Yes. Do I have a heart for other people? I hope so. Do I hurt when other people hurt? Absolutely. But do I always treat people the way Christ would? No. None of us do. We all fall short. And when I make a wrong choice, say something I shouldn’t say, think something I shouldn’t think, or do something I know isn’t right, I feel that conviction inside me. I believe that’s the Holy Spirit reminding me, correcting me, and protecting me because God loves me like a Father loves His child. So maybe the lesson I took from that dream isn’t that we should look at other people and decide whether they are monsters, religious, spiritual, Christian, or anything else. Maybe the lesson is that we should humble ourselves enough to realize that any one of us is capable of making the wrong choice. Instead of pointing our finger at someone else and saying, “I would never do that,” maybe we should say, “Thank You, Lord, for protecting me from that, and please help that person.” Because wouldn’t that be more like Christ? We are all one decision away from making a choice that could hurt someone, damage our testimony, or take us down a road we never intended to travel. And some of us may be one decision away from beginning a relationship with Christ that changes everything. I don’t know what was happening in the hearts of the people in that post I read yesterday. Maybe they really were using religion to hide behind horrible behavior. Maybe they were Christians who made terrible mistakes. I don’t know, and honestly, it isn’t my job to decide. What I do know is that God loves them just as much as He loves me. Yes, even the person we might look at and call a monster. God still loves them. We are all His creation, all capable of failure, all in need of grace, and all in need of Him. Maybe what this world needs a little more of isn’t more people pointing out how terrible everyone else is or pointing it towards religion in general but more people willing to look at themselves, humble themselves, pray for others, and remember that we are all just human beings trying to find our way—and we all need to be humbled and full of grace.