It's come to my attention lately that living my life transparently, working through the anguish in my soul, is unacceptable Christianity.
Apparently there is no room or allowance for Followers to be angry, doubtful, incensed, curious, uncertain, etc. in the Body.
Even if you sense, as I do, that going through these emotions drives you deep into the claims of the Way.
So, be it known that if you are (or ever come to a point) where a battle like none other takes place in your heart and your soul, you've got a few options:
• you can be fake. Put on a mask. Put on your "I'm fine, how are you" tone with a broad smile. Put on a show and experience the lifelessness of superficiality while your soul gets emptier and emptier (yet everyone thinks you're a great brother or sister in the Lord).
• should you decide to be truthful about your heart, you will be required to restrict it to religiously acceptable expressions of emotion and word. As long as you express your situation in tones and verbiage that are deemed "acceptable" by churchgoers, you will be entitled to listen to well-intended Christianese.
(This will discourage you, but it will cause others in the fellowship to beam, for the Lord gave them an opportunity to "encourage you in the Lord". Oh, and if you don't "get" what they're saying, it's something in you.)
• should you decide to live absolutely transparently, you will be in very small company. You are welcomed at the Cross 24/7, to express your heart with whatever it is feeling, regardless of how strong, raw or ugly it is.
Prepare to witness a miracle, for in that very moment where you are unloading the most rotten, hurtful emotions that can be felt or experienced by a human being, at the same time you are doing that God will sooth, salve and strengthen your spirit with a compassion that cannot be described in earthly words.
There will also be a very small group of others who dip their ladle into the same salve God does. You will be surprised both who is and who isn't in this group. You'll be surprised both ways, pleasantly and disappointedly.
As you see this take place, remember Jesus' words about where to not cast your pearls.
1 comment:
This is so solid.
Unacceptable Christianity. Yeah. It's like there's all kinds of things you don't say and don't do, and one right response to everything you might encounter. So that's what these strings are for.
And the fact that your heart is wrestling with feelings of faith, doubt, violence, lust, love, indignation, resentment, and every other thing it's being bombarded with couldn't mean that you're giving a walk with God a real shot. It must mean that you've failed and it's all coming down.
And the way that your mouth confesses what is in your heart doesn't make you honest. It makes you ignorant.
It's really too bad that Jesus' heart wasn't slammed with all these temptations like ours so that we could learn about walking with God under fire.
And I wish Jesus had been clearer on His opinion about people who live one life in their heart and another life to be seen by men.
And most of all, I am so glad that Jesus always did and said the right thing, offending no one, so that we would know how to be nice.
Rock on.
Honestly, I think what's going on is that most Christian's faith is so fragile that they're afraid one prolonged suspension of belief could derail the whole thing. So people who appear to be unstable or questioning, or even brothers who are honest, threaten to bring their whole wax palace melting down around them. And for those times they just can't bring themselves to fronting, they at least have to learn to use "religiously acceptable expressions" to avoid frightening themselves.
The tragedy of living that way, with an opaque response for everything, is that it precludes authentic faith. It's like setting stepping stones up across the lake rather than giving walking on water a shot.
Yep, if you intend to live out an authentic, soul-rending, heart-mending faith, you will have to seek out hardy companions.
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