Still Learning...

I've been thinking a lot lately-- well more like the last several years, but especially in the last couple of weeks-- about how the way we treat people reflects God in us. Our home group has been watching the Nooma video series by Rob Bell. If you haven't seen them-- see them! They're great discussion-starters. The last two have led us into similar conversations about the way we live our lives. God has really been teaching me a lot about myself and my attitudes since my senior year of college (7 years ago!) and I thought I'd share a little of my journey.
Through most of my high school years, I was the worst kind of Christian. I mean, I wasn't out there door-knocking and telling complete strangers they were going to hell, but I had a pretty terrible attitude. And worse than being obnoxious to strangers, I was hurtful to people in my own family. I was too self-righteous to step down off of my self-assigned pedestal and share life with them. I was specifically horrible to my little brother. He's 16 months younger than me and was 2 years behind me in school. He was a rule-breaker. I was not. Obviously, this made him a terrible human being and me awesome. Well, at least in my mind it did. In reality, he was struggling and needed his sister to be there for him, not to judge him by his behavior. I left for college and our relationship improved a little, but it didn't feel very real. My senior year of college, my brother let our family know that he was gay. I, of course, struggled with this revelation for awhile. I had not seen it coming at all. From there, my brother began a dangerous cycle of surrounding himself with the wrong people, drugs, homelesness, etc. This went on for 5 or 6 years, and was really painful for all of us. In the last couple of years, my little brother has really turned his life around. He's been holding down a job for over a year, is off drugs and is in a steady relationship with a nice, responsible guy.
God has used my brother to teach me so much. I'm not sure why I ever thought that lecturing my brother about his choices would cause him to change anything. Throughout all of the most difficult points of our relationship, with all of his drugs, disappearing, and dangerous behavior, I could never stop loving or caring about him. God taught me that He had given me that love, and that love should be the foundation of all of my actions toward my brother. He taught me that homosexuality was NO DIFFERENT than ANY OTHER deviation from God's plan for sex. NO DIFFERENT. He has also taught me that if people do not know Him or have a relationship with Him, there is no reason for them to change their behavior. It is so useless and harmful for Christians to go around trying to make non-Christians behave like Christians. These revelations have made it much easier for me to just treat my brother with the love and kindness and respect he deserves as one of God's creations. I don't always get it right, but it is so much better. Through my relationship with my brother, God is also teaching me how to do a better job of loving the people around me. I want my life to show that I care about people. I know I will be continuing to be taught by God for the rest of my life in this area. Hooray for God for being willing to teach me!