I've been in an online conversaton with someone for sometime now about their spiritual life. I've asked her if I could share with you something she recently said to me. I've been asking her to come and be a part of our services. I've waited outside for her on occasion and she has "stood me up." Just this week she told me that she actually had come to the parking lot and had watched us interact but decided not to get out. She told me how happy everyone looked and how we all seemed to have it all together. But she said my thought was "I'm not like that. I don't have it together like they do and I wouldn't fit in." I told her that nothing could be further from the truth. That we are the biggest collection of screw ups that call themselves a church I know of anywhere. I told her that my spiritual gift is messing stuff up. She and I finally met and I think she at least now sees that I am far from perfect (I spilled coffee on myself while we talked). I'm praying that eventually she will come meet the rest of you.
Talking to her reminded me of how important it is that we remain "church for the rest of us". It's important that we all keep clear how many poeple feel like they don't fit (even at our church where we do so much to make everyone welcome). It's important that we do whatever it takes and make the religious Christian people around us upset by how open our doors are. Not because we want people to be so comfortable that they just stay the way they are. We want to accept them like God accepted us (while we were still sinners Christ died for us) and help them see that God can and will change them and us together.
Saturday, January 26, 2008
We are "the rest of us"
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Having it all together conjures up images of having to carry an unbearable weight. Something that you cannot get your arms around, much less carry.
In the early years of my following Christ it was an immense struggle that I could not get things figured out or did not have it all together as I thought I should. I now know that in this life I will always be wrestling with one thing or another in growing into the image of Christ. We move from one challenge to another in this journey, hopefully making steady progress forward. The best thing that happened to me was James 5:17.
17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours; yet he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the land.
James 5:17 (HCSB)
The first part of this verse was the key to helping me understand some things. "Elijah was a man with a nature like ours..." That showed me that even the most respected and revered people of scripture were really no different than anyone of us but God was still working in their lives. The list of God's people in Hebrews 11, though they accomplished many things, were all people "with a nature like ours." That is a really cool thing to realize and continues to be an encouragement to this day. It was a part of what made me come to a definition of God's grace as being "God working in me, despite myself."
So, to the one standing outside, you are in the best place to realize you are at the very entrance to the Kingdom of God. Step on into it and discovery the adventure.
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