Glory

Sunday, March 2nd, 2008

Today has not been a good day.

The reasons are numerous, but even as I sit down to write, they feel silly. Petty. Unimportant.
But my day was still bad. And so here I am... trying to make it better. Talk it out. Tell you what I’m learning. Tell you how short I’ve fallen, how far I have to reach.

I told Larry about my struggles. We’re told to seek wise council. He’s the closest thing I have. He told me all this sounds like healthy emotional struggling.

And then he said something wise.

"The struggling is what makes us feel alive."

I cried today. I don’t cry a lot. When I do, I’m embarrassed. I try really hard to control it, to keep the tears from getting out of control. I managed to only let a few tears be shed today. But that’s not a healthy practice. We cry for a reason. There’s a purpose behind the tears we shed.

So we started talking about church. Or... "the Church". Or "going to church". Or all of the above. We talked about spreading ourselves too thin. About recognizing when we are spent. When what we have has been used up, our resources, wisdom, words are depleted.

And this is what we came up with.

We are the church. That’s not a new idea. The church is not a building. We are the church. You are the church. I am the church. They are the church. We are not many churches. We are one church. One body. One purpose.

What is our purpose?

Do you even know?

We are sick of the way the Church behaves. We have misrepresented our Jesus. We have been horrible ambassadors, leaky vessels of His love.

This is not a new idea either. We know we are sinners. We know we are not pure.

We just forget.

We forget that it is grace, and only grace, that separates us from the whore. From the murderer.
From the abuser.

We haven’t come up with a new idea yet. How is it that we all know these things... and yet fail to remember?

We get wrapped up in religion. In the "politics" of religion. Consumed with ideas of righteousness and purity... holding others to higher standards than we hold ourselves. There are a few of us who have abandoned so-called "religion". We declare that Christianity is not about the steeple or the translation of your Bible. And then... we woke up one day and had turned spirituality, had transformed our non-religion, into a religion all unto itself.

A change has to be made.

I went driving this morning. As I pulled out of the parking lot, I began to pray out loud.

And I prayed until I’d reached Wal-mart.

Prayed for you. Prayed for me. Prayed for the Church. Prayed for my broken family. Prayed the way I usually pray.

And then I asked Him to show up.

The way things are, just aren’t working. The way we think, the way we love, the way we seek Him... just wasn’t working anymore.

I told Him we expected Him to be here.

Not just hoped. Not just believed.

Expected.

We are spread thin. In the process of loving others, we’ve forgotten to love ourselves. We’ve forgotten to love the ones we stand beside.

We’ve broken commitments and promises... we’ve begun something wonderful, with ambition and passion, and let it fizzle out...

Far too often, we forget our purpose. We forget why we were created in the first place.

And more often than not, we behave like whores. Like Gomer. We are sinners. He has loved us, taken us in, shown us grace. And we run away again... returning to our promiscuous behavior and lying in another’s bed. We are cheating on our Christ.

A change has to be made.

On an individual level.

No more blanket statements.

No more "church-wide" commitments.

No more holiday offerings.

On an individual level, a change is required.

You must change.

I must change.

I must know, love, and be committed.

You must know, love, and be committed.

If you do, and I do, and they do so...

That will be enough.

I encourage you, today, to remember.

Remember you were created to bring Him glory.

Whatever that looks like...

Bring Him glory today.