On other people and my flaws.

So I sit here having just finished helping with an Alpha Course session, how did it go? Not good, or at least not as good as I'd hoped it would. The talk given by Nicky Gumble was awesome, gave me an insight into the Bible I've been needing, a clue as to what I should be doing with a 2000 year old book, but the discussion with our small group was a tad dispiriting. For one I made the biggest mistake of all by offering an answer to a question as if it was THE answer to the question. For one I should never have offered an answer in the first place, and secondly I certainly shouldn't have offered it as if it was the only answer. It brings to light one of my big flaws, when I think I know something, I think everyone should know it as I do. Which is evidently wrong, I'm not infallible, far from it in fact, I'm as flawed as the next person.

This is probably the flaw that bothers me most at the moment. I know that if I want to help people I need to be assured in the comments and answers I give to those people, but there's a difference between being confident and being arrogant.  When it comes to spiritual matters I cannot be guaranteed to be right. I can give the best answer as it applies to me, and hope that it also applies to you, but I shouldn't give it as if it will apply to you because my answer is obviously right. My answer obviously is right, for me.

I've also been having an issue with another human this last week, it's only really surfaced in the last couple of days, a slight (read: massive) incongruity between the man's stated beliefs and his actual actions. With no apologies for the schism between the two. It annoys me. Like nothing else on Earth. I can stomach mistakes, I make enough of them, I ought to be able to deal with them. I dislike hypocrisy with an intensity though.  A mistake is something you can acknowledge, it's something you will apologise for, it's something that can be highlighted without causing a blazing row. Hypocrisy is when you do something that is utterly against something you have stated before and when called out on it, you simply ignore it and try to pretend it doesn't conflict. Like a Christian sacrificing a goat to Satan and then claiming it's not at all at odds with the Bible. It's nonsense.

But the issue isn't really with the guy, it's with his understandings with his stated beliefs. He's not what he thinks he is, far from it.  The reason he's so far from being what he wants to be is that he doesn't understand what he actually thinks he wants to be.  Not even a little bit. If I'm honest I shouldn't give a damn, it's none of my business what he believes in, but when he's so very far from his own ideal and won't admit it, should I not get upset then?

I strive to be like Jesus, in every detail, I'm not though, I know I'm not, I'm petty, jealous, envious, not at all at peace with myself or my God and a myriad other reasons why I'm not even close to Christ. I know this though and it makes me strive harder. Why can this guy not see he's not close to his ideal, why does he not strive harder? That is what bothers me most about the whole situation.

So for all you folks not reading this, am I being far too hard on this guy?