Wednesday, April 14, 2004

He asked, "So, where are you and you're family going now"?  (As in where are you going to church?) I don't know why that one still gets me.  I mean, my wife and I are more honest now about who we are and our relationship to God.  We tell our children about Jesus and try to live in honest faith (and doubt) in front of them.  We pray and read our Bibles.  O.K., many may still feel I'm sorta "heriticish" since I believe God really does love everyone and will never stop, and I'm not quite sure about hell, even though I have some ideas. We have some dear friends that we meet with regularly; we sing, pray, learn from one another: o.k. it's in a  pizza parlor....  Does that count for church???? After several years of believing that God truly has reconciled the entire world to Himself in His Son; not counting men's sins against them.  And that it really did please the Father to reconcile all things to Himself in His Son; things whether in heaven or in earth ; I mean that ought to cover everything and everyone.  And that my performance, whether it is faith, repentance or obedience, is not a condition of His acceptance of me.  So, why is it that when someone asks me where I'm going to church, it gets under my skin as if I'm being measured up? Well, possibly it is because I'm being measured up.  We often compare ourselves with one another to see how we stack up against the crowd.  Another reason is because I love to be liked and accepted.  Maybe that's not your stuff, but it is mine and most of the time I don't kinow what to do with it.  For some reason I let other folks opinions tie me in knots.  Actually I feel ashamed as if I should have a good answer for the question, but since I don't or at least feel like I don't I get tied up in knots and try to act like it's no big deal.  And I hate feeling that way.  It's kinda like being between two worlds, the one being the world of the truth where you are desperately trying to get the truth of God's love into your soul and be set free and the other being the world of Western Christianity where performance and appearances are everything.  I told him that we and some of our friends met weekly in a pizza parlour.  I don't think he said anything, just sorta nodded his head as if trying to decided if that counted.  As I said above, that kinda stuff shouldn't mess with us, but unfortunately it does. In the book of Romans it says, "that all creation is groaning and travailing in pain (as in childbirth) waiting for the manifestation of children (sons and daughters) of God..."  I used to think that it was just talking about creation, as in nature and animals and things.  But, I'm pretty sure I'm groaning and travailing too.  You see there is stuff inside of us that is really glorious.  I'm not just blowing smoke, I mean we have divine life in us and we have been made daughters and sons of God.  And that reality is encouraging us and causing us pain.   Encouraging us because we have hope that we will be so much more than we see right now; causing us pain because damn it, we know we are more than we are experiencing and it hurts like hell. There is one verse in Hebrews that I haven't been able to get out of my head for the past couple of months and that is, "although He was a son yet He learned obedience through that which He suffered."  Pain or getting tied up in knots is not always a bad thing because it points to the truth; we have been desired, loved, accepted and embraced by our Father.  And the incongruence of our lives to this truth hurts, in order to pull us aways from the BS and remind us of who we really are and that we have a home. 7:54:28 PM

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