“Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak.” -excerpt from 1 Corinthians 8 (NIV)

Have you ever wanted to do something because you saw a friend do it? Not something bad, just something different that you wouldn’t usually have thought to do on your own.

After school, I rode the bus to my friends’ house to play until my parents got home from school. One year after Black Friday, I learned that their mom hid all my friends’ Christmas presents in the hall closet upstairs. Being the nosey person that I am and wanting to be in on the secret of what my friends were getting for Christmas, I ran upstairs to snoop in the closet. After all, who cares if I knew what gifts my friends were getting?

My friends’ eyes grew wide with fear as they realized what I was up to. They sprinted up the stairs after me and yelled. They blocked me from the hall closet door and begged me not to open it. I remember looking at them very confused. Why did it matter if I looked?

My friends said if they knew I snooped through the presents, even if they weren’t around, they would just be too tempted to snoop too. They really didn’t want to ruin Christmas for themselves or their mom. But they also knew they didn’t have enough self-control to keep themselves from snooping with me.

I didn’t want to ruin their Christmas either. So I left the closet alone. At the end of the day, it didn’t matter to me what they were getting for Christmas, so if they felt so strongly, I figured I could give up my opportunity to snoop for my friends. In the end, by sacrificing a bit of my freedom, we ended up coming together all the more, as we mutually dreamed together what Christmas morning would be like.

It’s funny how giving up some of our personal freedoms can actually turn into a bridge that unites us with others. Perhaps we are united by one liberty given by God to serve others over ourselves.

Read more at fbcmuncie.org/blog.