A word of advice...

I had dinner with an old friend on Thursday. The last time we saw each other, he told me about a powerful dream he had that shook him to the core. It caused him to evaluate his life, and he's begun making some big changes. I'm happy for him, and happy for his rekindled passion and zeal for God, but he's certainly different now--he's changed some, and I don't necessarily like it.

I happened to be talking about my ex-girlfriend, and the struggles that I have when I think about her--about the thoughts I still have that perhaps there's a way to make things work, that perhaps she really is the right woman for me, and how there are still issues of concern. I began talking about how I try to envision the future, and project onto the years to come both the positives and negatives that I see as possibilities down the road, as a way to try to come to a point of decision.

He interrupted me, and from the position of his rekindled beliefs, he told me that he thought I just shouldn't worry about those things, and that I needn't really concern myself about them. He gave me a very Christianesque response to my conversation with him, and I didn't like it at all. It was essentially the whole "let go and let God" line of thinking.

I find Christian platitudes problematic, and his comments were irksome to me. We are rational creatures, and God gave us our rationality to help us make decisions. Of course, we need to put our trust in God, but that doesn't mean your brain goes comatose as soon as you pray about your future. When someone's baring their soul about personal issues, often it's not the best thing to dismiss them away by telling them not to worry about the things on their mind. It's just not honest, and doesn't acknowledge how we operate. Urge someone to trust God, yes, but don't dismiss his humanity and pretend that he's a robot who can flip a switch and immediately stop thinking about the issues that are burning in his mind. I find that line of thinking naive, and a bit insulting. Saying the "right thing" as a Christian, sometimes can be the most wrong thing anyone can say. Which begs the question for me: how often do we really know what is the right thing to say?

Best bet? Keep your mouth shut and just listen.