15 Minutes of Lame

I had to speak the other say for a christian women's organization. The woman who called me had just one request. Could I please speak from a secular perspective? I wasn't to mention God. I asked her why and she said that they were trying to reach out to ladies who weren't christians in the community and so every month they had a theme and two speakers who would talk about that theme. There was a featured speaker (that was me) and an "approved" speaker who got to talk about the theme in relation to Jesus.

So, the theme was friendship and, that being something I am quite passionate about, I agreed to do it. The only thing is, it turns out that when you are not "secular" it's kind of hard to talk about something from a secular perspective. And it got me to thinking.

Shouldn't everything we do be influenced by Christ in such a way that it is hard to talk about much of anything without mentioning him? I'm not saying that when I go the grocery store and the person at the check out stand tells me my total that I have to say, "You know I really searched for the great buys today because I am trying to spend my money in a way that would glorify God." Although that would be a true statement, and could be an appropriate one sometimes. But, when I am asked to share something for a group, I want to be able to share from my heart. It's more authentic and comes a lot easier to me. But sharing from the heart necessitates that, at least some part of it, will involve Christ. And it was definitely hard to talk about the ways that God has blessed me with some of the most amazing frienships, and how he has used these women in my life to make me look more like him, without mentioning him. Yikes.

But, I wrote the thing out and rehearsed it a bit and it went off okay. I got a few laughs and I did the best I could to talk about God without talking about him. But truthfully, when you take Christ out of something that is so centered on him, it pretty much just sounds cheesy. And then, by the way, the next lady got to stand up and say, "But don't forget that Jesus is your best friend." I wanted to raise my hand and say, "Yeah I know that too but I wasn't aloud to say it."

All in all, I learned something about how to answer when someone asks me if I can speak from a secular perspective. Answer: You know, as it turns out, not that well. It's just not who I am.

Thank God for that.