Bubbles

Warning: "Soap-box" issue at play.


 Bubbles. When you are a kid they are one of the most mesmerizing things you can play with. When you are a parent they are cheap and hours of fun for your kiddos. Winning! (not in the Charlie Sheen sense of course) My favorite was to watch the really talented people who could blow a bubble within a bubble. Even if you popped it - there was still a bubble. Cool! 

At one point in my life, many many years ago (yes - I am old), I remember watching a movie called The Boy in the Plastic Bubble. He had a disease that caused him to risk death if he came in contact with germs and therefore was place in a sterile "bubble room" to live. He even had to be in his bubble if he went outside for fear he would contract something that could end his life. To live secluded from other human touch and contact with the outside world was what he needed to survive. 


Some of you may have heard  people talk about the "Christian bubble". This phenomenon takes places when Believers (those who have decided to make Jesus Lord of their lives and accept His free gift of salvation) decide that in order to survive in this dirty, sickness filled world - they must seclude themselves from all things that could contaminate their Christian walk. Christian books, Christian music, Christian clothing, Christian friends, and the list could go on. Nothing that is not "of Christ" is allowed in if we can at all help it. It is to dangerous. In fact, I loved the bubble. It took time and effort on my part to create this safe haven and it was amazing.


I took part in the purging of all my Cd's that were not "Christian". I surrounded myself with the "bubble" and it was good. All my friends were believers, all my music spoke of the One that I worship with my whole life, I had plaques and reminders everywhere I looked of the One who is most important to me. Great! Awesome! Good for me! Except I slowly began to realize that the story I was telling with my life only had listeners who had the same story. I was preaching to the choir, so to speak. 


Now, I do believe with all of my being that one of the things I am called to is to disciple and spur on other believers in their walk with Christ. But I began to see the walls of my bubble and started to feel very claustrophobic. I began to realize that I couldn't think of the last time I had a spiritual conversation with someone who didn't share my love for Jesus, the last time I had had personal contact with someone diseased and dying. I began to see that although my life was sterile and as uncontaminated as a life on this earth can be - it was not the life that Jesus led and therefore calls me to as one who desires nothing more than to be like him. 


In fact, I slowly realized that Jesus had great disdain for people like me in His day.  Those that wanted nothing more than to immerse themselves in their religion and not let any of the "sinners" in to the bubble they so carefully created for themselves. I began to wonder at what point "Christian" became and adjective to describe the "things" I surrounded myself with and ceased to be the noun that told others who I am and the verb that described how I live my life. I began to hate my bubble and want desperately to escape it. 


I remember one particular day, driving down the road listening to my favorite Worship band on the radio and heard the Lord ask me how I could possibly relate to the lost and dying in this world who have the same passion for music that I do if I didn't speak their language. I couldn't name secular bands. I didn't know secular songs. It was that day that I turned my car radio to a non-christian station and there it has remained for the most part for the last several years. I decided to learn a new language for the sake of being able to open doors with other music people and hopefully share Jesus with them at some point. I had popped the bubble.


At the end of the movie I describe above, the boy decides it is worth losing his life to be in contact with the world. And so he does. He leaves the protective confines of his sterile sanctuary and braves the germ filled outside world. And his reward was more than he could ever have imagined. (you should really watch the movie some time)


1 Corinthians 9:19-23 says this: For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.





How about you? Are you in the bubble? Do you need to get out? Ask God where to poke - I promise He will show you.