1 Peter 1 – Live your Lives as Strangers

2 Peter 1 – Faith, Goodness, Knowledge, Self-Control, Perseverance, Godliness, Brotherly Kindness, Love

1 John 1 – Joy Complete

2 John – Your Children

One of the learnings from my time as a sole practitioner is that I do better at everything when I have something to work on. Something outside myself that is. My Bible study group has been through 1 Peter and 2 Peter and are marching through 1 John with the intent to do 2 John, 3 John, and Jude before we shift on to another sequence. We meet in a coffee shop, and it has a stream of strangers pouring through all day. We teach our kids to fear strangers and not talk to them. Not all of us do. Apparently, some people teach their kids to talk to strangers and make friends. What a novel idea. Unless of course the strangers are strange.

Peter tells us to live as strangers. I do not think he is telling us to not engage with others. I think he is telling us to be different, to be bold in our difference, and to not care if others think us strange. I spoke with a stranger on a trip this week and he was outgoing in a super zealous manner. I found it strange. I was not afraid, and I knew he meant no harm, but it was outside my comfort zone. I have heard stories of overzealous people in the coffee shop who make young girls afraid, and I am taken aback that anyone at my coffee shop would not be harmless. So, there is a huge difference in being strange or being strange.

Peter also tells us about the fruits of the spirit. It is in a different form than that used by Paul as Peter used a ladder of fruits that build upon one another. I like this vision as it aligns with the idea that we are maturing and able to do so much more as we experience the blessing of God and rely more on Him. Our strangeness should be that we exhibit these fruits when we interact with strangers and make it clear that our intent is to be friends and not remain strange.

Complete joy. I am on the phone trying to use travel credit from a past trip we canceled. I have before me some credit cards to help facilitate payment and I see that almost every card has a different arrangement of my name. One has just the short form of my first name and last name, one has my whole first name and last name, one adds my middle initial, and one has my whole first, middle, and last names. Two have my engineering business name on them. Just as with the fruits, my name is only complete when everything is all together. I take this as an indication that our joy can only be complete when our whole lives are only about the one thing of following God.

Your children. My natural reaction when I read this phrase is to think about my two girls. And while that is 100% accurate, I got the distinct impression that the topic was not just those two, but all of the people who were less mature than I that I ever helped or will help grow toward God. At a retreat I used to participate in, the groups were known as families and for that weekend and the rest of my time in college, I thought of those individuals as my kids.  I have not thought much about any of them individually and almost certainly not with the aspect of being their parent since. I was called to help them along and then I went forward on my path. I struggle with who to keep up with and how much effort to put into who. I know we are set up to have seasons in our life, but like the weather in Houston, it can be hard for me to tell when they change. But I want to rely on God to make my paths known.