Its Been a While

Sorry but I have been away for a while and just lately life has been a little hectic, I was thinking about writing my next thought and I got this in the mail. I hope you like it. It spoke clearly and loudly to me...

When we first meet Jesus, we never carry cynicism, contempt or indifference in our spirits. Simply gratitude, passion, and joy over this new relationship we have with an amazing God!

So, why then are millions of Christians bitter, mocking, skeptical, bewildered, derisive, uncaring, disheartened, hopeless?

As absurd as it sounds, many never even give themselves a chance to choose a second road, the road of Trusting God, after having first selected the path of Pleasing God. You see, not all make it back to the fork in the road after leaving the Room of Good Intentions.

Scattered along nearly the entire Pleasing God path back towards the fork, you’ll find them. Some sit alone, tucked away, almost out of sight. Some collect in twos and threes. Some spend the rest of their journey here. The Room of Intentions broke and jaded their hearts; disillusioned them, robbed them of hope. It made them so sick they’re nearly anesthetized to believing it can or will ever be different. Man-made religion has beaten them down. Horribly, many of them are the most passionate, gifted and dedicated servants of God.

This wounding expresses itself in many forms. Some are cynical and smug. It’s a cover. They’re self-protecting from vulnerability. They’re still articulate and insightful—they just usually now speak from the edges of the arena. They’re still bleeding from having risked love and vulnerability in a Room of Good Intentions community that didn’t know what to do with it. Some are bitter—lashing out at anything with more structure than an agreed upon meeting time. Some create straw men, globalizing their enemies into generalized categories, where they can ridicule them more easily.

When they do get together they spend much of the time rehearsing their wounds. They talk about what they don’t like. Their banner here is mistrust of any authority. They brag about being free from the bondage of religion. They say this often in the same breath they rehearse their wounded identity. They can no longer remember the innocence of trust. They’ve seen too much.

For a season what they are doing can be right and deeply corrective. They see from the vantage point of having little left to lose. But after awhile it makes them sick in bitter unforgiveness. And there are now very few surrounding them who can help guide them to forgiveness.

No one matures in bitterness.
No one gets free in isolation.
No one heals in rehearsing the testimonies of bad religion.
No one gets to love or be loved well in self-protection.

Self-protection is one of the great oxymorons. We’re the only person in the world we don’t have the potential to protect. And once we hide from trusting God and others with us, we just get more inflamed, more self-justified, more calloused, more rehearsed in repeating our blame.

They are accurate about their pain. Their wounds are real. So real, they can’t make it back by themselves to the fork in the road. Few destinies are more beautiful than the ones given to those who set out from the Room of Grace to go find them.

If you have experienced the Room of Grace and all its stunning, panoramic, life-giving surroundings, perhaps you are one of those to rescue and stand with those still outside. But be careful the idea is not to join them but redirect them.