Raksha Bandhan

Last week, on the 20th of August, Hindus celebrated Raksha Bandhan. It’s a day when sisters wrap a Rhaki (sacred colourful string) around the wrist of their brothers to symbolise the love and prayers for each other.    

While I’m not Hindi, I like the idea of showing love this way to another.  I don’t know about you, but occasionally I feel that the differences I have with my Christian brothers and sisters can sometimes outweigh the things we have in common.

I reckon that it’s easy to become frustrated when you feel a certain way about how a church should look, how a church service should be conducted or when the sermon on Sunday isn’t relative to where you are spiritually.

The other day, I heard someone say 99% of our frustrations come from the fact that others aren’t behaving or believing as we think they should be behaving or believing.  We do it with our sisters, our brothers, our husbands and our wives.  We do it with our children, our parents, other church folk and our ministers and pastors.  I wonder what if we stopped fighting with them and allowed them to be them?

What if, Instead of saying “you should do this”, or “you should do that” we said, “I feel this” or “I feel that”  By empowering someone to be themselves, we actually empower ourselves to walk the walk Jesus has given us.

I think it would be wonderful if all in the family of God, who call themselves brothers and sisters wrapped prayers around each other but also wrapped strings around the wrists of each other as a tangible reminder of our love for one another.

What do you think?