As a student
at Faith Baptist Bible College in Ankeny, Iowa, I participated for one year on
the traveling drama team. The cast, three men and four women, prepared a
Bible-based 3-act play and presented it at various churches in Iowa, Wisconsin,
Illinois and Indiana during the school year.
One of the
characters in the play was a griping, complaining, homely old woman who plagued
her browbeaten old husband, as well as anyone else around, with her incessant
crabbing. The part was played by Dee, a sweet and sensitive girl who was an
excellent actress. If you wanted a “witchy” character, Dee could deliver!
Sometimes
after our presentation, we visited with our audience while we were still in
costume, though not “in character.” Once, after this event, when we met in a
back room to remove makeup, Dee was in tears. She told us that during the
visiting time, a young girl had marched up to her, stomped her little foot in
anger and, with as much rage as her tiny self could muster, shouted, “I HATE
you!” Dee was crushed. She was unable to separate her own personal feelings
from the character she played. Though Dee was sobbing, the rest of us were
delighted. We heaped our praise on her. “Dee, the girl said those words because
you played your part perfectly!” “You were convincing!” “She believed you!”
“You’re a great actress!” I do not know if the honest praise of knowledgeable
friends could, for Dee, overcome the pain inflicted by one critic who could not
understand what had taken place.
If we call
ourselves Christians, we are, to someone, representing Christ. I hope we are
not merely “acting” in our role as “Christ’s ones,” however, we are, indeed,
two characters. We are ourselves – individuals specifically made by God – and
at the same time, we are representatives of Him. We should be striving to
represent Christ as closely as we are able. The better we “play our part,” the
more the “audience” will view us and treat us as they view and treat Christ. He
told us this. “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it
hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but
because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore
the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not
greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.
If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will
do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.” Jn.
15:18-21
Wait. That’s
not my personal goal. I don’t want people to hate me. I don’t even want them to
dislike me. If we are going to take on the “role” of Christ’s woman, not as an
“act” but as our real life, we are going to have to separate our own feelings
from our “part” as a character in Christ’s drama. While we may feel hurt if
someone hates us for Christ’s sake, He had a different perspective on that.
“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you
and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day,
and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their
fathers did to the prophets.” Luke 6:22, 23.
Blessed!
Blessed! Rejoice! Leap for Joy! The praise of the knowledgeable One is of true
significance; the pain inflicted by those who do not understand should not
distract us from our determination to play our part as accurately as we can. Let
us at least try to be mistaken for Jesus.
--Lynda Shenefield
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