For the past several weeks these Shabbat encouragements have been dancing around a very sensitive topic, our world view differences that if we are not careful can destroy relationships and inhibit our own spiritual growth. Perhaps it is in these most basic differences that the evil one gets his strongest foothold to lead us away from the light.

Religion and politics – two topics that we are cautioned to avoid at family gatherings in order to keep the peace. Such a sad commentary on our actual inability to live in the higher reality of God’s love lived out in this realm. Just as spiritual maturity takes daily discipline to study the Bible, pray, and prioritize God in our lives, so too, embodying God’s love in our interactions with others takes intent to do so. Our progress in this work is evidenced by how we live, love, and learn from others, and they from us.  Growing in these abilities not only broadens our understanding of others but also enables us to love unconditionally in the model of Yeshua.

Years ago you may remember a Shabbat encouragement in which I described a Jewish friend I was getting to know better but who didn’t know yet that I was Messianic Jewish. It was a new relationship so we had not yet gotten that deep but really liked each other. One day at a dinner party she started out with, “You are not going to believe this . . . . . . I met someone who is Jewish but she believes in Jesus!! Can you believe it??!!! Mashuga!” She went on for quite awhile ragging on that person while I listened with many thoughts going through my mind including what will she think of me now when I tell her. Will we still be friends?

Once she finished and I made the big reveal, doing so began the next level of our friendship. Fast forward several years and we are now best friends. We’ve had countless conversations about religion and she is a regular attendee of our Bible study group. This is not to say she believes in Jesus (yet). That part will be between her and God.

I guess it would only be the way God works that she and I would end up being complete opposites politically. Like complete opposites. We had never ventured down that area of conversation until one day last week. . .

We had planned to take a walk together after one of my dance classes. As it turned out I had just had a rehearsal for this weekend’s festival performances back-to-back with the dance class so I felt way too tired to take a walk. I stopped by her house to tell her let’s go another day but she really wanted to go and said it can be a short one. Looking back I think our Abba was leading his daughters to the next level of knowing His love.

Somehow when we stepped outside to start our walk I felt so good!! It was the opposite of being tired. It felt as if I now had free time and could hang with my buddy on a beautiful sunny day and just be rather than do. As we started out she, for the first time out of the blue, jumped in and asked me how I felt about a certain political event that had just happened. It involved people vandalizing Teslas. Needless to say we both could agree that such behavior is wrong. Her vulnerability and our mutual ability to see common beliefs on a potentially hot political topic kept growing and by the end of the walk we were deep in. Not only could we discuss areas of agreement but we could debate back and forth unemotionally and with insight the pros and cons of our different political positions.

I was amazed as I thought back at what had just happened. It had started with her putting her toe in the water to see how I would react. After the first question, as the questions and statements became gradually more divisive I would just be honest with my replies. Since I was not familiar with much of the information she was sharing with me I would respond with, “That’s interesting. I hadn’t heard that. I’ll research that. I like Reuters as my source. Yes, but by his doing that did you know this was a consequence? Did you know this happened? As a result of that did you know this will happen? We clearly can agree on that. Do you think that was the best way to handle that? I like to watch the actual conversation rather than the media reports – they’re so misleading.” We later did our fact checking and both of us learned information neither knew before our conversation.

The walk felt like a divine appointment. It felt like a glimmer of hope for the future for all of us during these growingly even more divisive times. Conversation leads to understanding. I was reminded that Yeshua changed the world not from the people in charge down but rather from the groundswell up.

We are His servants on earth here to bring His love to all. It’s not easy to control our biases and set aside our egos when listening to others. That’s the work, but He’s showing us how to do it if we only listen and interchange with loving conviction rather than judgment. We become able to feel the hearts of our fellow travelers and through our growing abilities to better hear Him we slowly and patiently from the bottom up become able to build, one person at a time, a world of peace and mutual understanding.

I can’t wait for my walk with her this afternoon.

Shabbat shalom.

Diane