Is the Church Autistic?

The defining attribute of an autistic person is that they grow inwardly rather than outwardly. My daughter, Elle, is autistic. My wife and I have to work very hard to engage with her and to get her to engage with us and the world at large. She doesn't feel any particular pull to do it on her own.

Instead, Elle greatly enjoys watching TV and playing computer games. Then, she will repeat, over and over, script from the shows/games that she likes.

She'll draw pictures of the characters in the show. She'll pretend to be one of the characters (her favorite character is Quack from Peep and the Big Wide World).

She's a wonderful daughter and I love her. But if you don't engage her, she'll most likely ignore you, and she'll simply retreat into her own mind. The stuff she says will seem like complete gibberish .

In order to get her to break from living fully in her imagination, we have to get her talking about real things. Well press her for details about her day at school, we'll ask how you make lemonade, we'll ask what her favorite holiday is and why. In other words, we have to draw her out of her internal world and into the world all around her.

Sometimes, we have to cut off TV and video games for a while when she's retreating into those things a bit too often. Not as punishment, but in order that she can't simply seek refuge in a place where she won't have to put forth the energy to deal with people.

Does this remind you of the church in America? 

- Has trouble relating to people who aren't in the church.

- Likes to focus on something that really doesn't apply here and now (the afterlife).

- Doesn't want to engage, but would rather retreat into its own little world?

- Speaks with language that nobody else will understand (I'm not talking about tongues here, but rather the use of 'Christianese' like 'binding the devil' or 'the prayer of salvation', etc).

We can easily forget the the Body of Christ doesn't exist simply to get together for 2 hours each Sunday and make each other feel better, but rather that we are supposed to be going out and making disciples.

We build buildings, call them churches, and often restrict most or all of our activities in these places. This seems to me more like putting your light under a basket than being a city on a hill to me.

I think there are a lot of believers and a lot of churches that really are taking Jesus' mission to make disciples seriously. But I also think we need to increase the trend of engaging with the culture without losing our identity in the process.

By building walls to keep 'secular culture' out, we've also locked ourselves in. When we grow in a closed greenhouse, what good does it do to the meadow all around us?

Maybe it's not fair to call the church autistic, maybe it's just introverted.

As an introvert myself, I know it takes a lot of effort to socialize and engage with people, but I also know that it's important to make that concerted effort.

As I'm reading the book of Acts right now, I see the church growing, expanding, engaging. I wonder how we've arrived at the place where we are now - exclusive, stagnant or shrinking, stand offish.

We've got to get our from behind our church walls, and put ourselves out there, vulnerable, letting the Holy Spirit bear his fruit in our lives where it can actually make a difference.

What is the Right Way to Worship God?

In John 4, a woman asks Jesus where the right place to worship God is. Jesus, in his typical fashion, gives an answer that the woman isn't expecting.

He says, "God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth." (John 4:24)

Spirit and truth. I've thought about what this means. I understand that God is a spirit and I must worship him from my spirit, my soul...from within me. But what about truth? How do I worship God 'in truth'?

In that verse, truth is translated from the Greek word alētheia. It has the connotation of meaning ''in reality' or 'in fact'.

What I think Jesus is saying here is that we must worship God both in the spiritual reality where he exists and in the physical reality where we exist.

In our heart as well as with our hands.

From who we are and in what we do.

The issue, according to Jesus, isn't where you worship God, but how.

It's easy to get caught up in the mystical realities of a supernatural God, and I'm not going to say that's a bad thing. But I am going to say that we can't stop there.

I've heard many people express the desire for God to bring about 'More of you, less of me'. I understand the sentiment, but I'm not sure it's what God is after. God isn't trying to move us into oblivion as he takes over more and more. We're not just roadblocks in his way. He has called us to be full partners in his work and in his kingdom. He wants to fill us, not destroy us.

We are his work, not a hindrance to his purposes. You may think I'm being arrogant and acting a little too presumptuously. I assure you I am not. I say these things only because God clearly reveals them in the scriptures. I would agree that we don't deserve God's presence among us, or the freedom to invest our lives in him; but he not only makes it possible, he helps us to accomplish it.

But he has done all this so that we can be part of bringing his Kingdom and his will to this earth. He doesn't just want us getting happy off his gifts and his presence, he wants us to do something with them.

I think it's very possible to be so heavenly minded that you're no earthly good. And I would argue that you're forgetting to worship God in truth if you reach that point.

We are both in this world and also not of it. We must not run away from either of those truths. Because doing so would prevent us from worshiping God in the way Jesus said we ought.

Revenge

I watched season 2 of a show called Justified on DVD this past week. The show is anchored in powerful, well crafted story telling. It does have a fair bit of violence and language in it - so choose whether to watch it accordingly. (At one point in my life, I would not have watched a show with such material, or I at least would have felt guilty for it, but I’m in a different place now. Not more or less holy/sanctified, just different.)

Without giving spoilers, season two ends on a climax that deals with revenge. One character is pointing a gun at another character, debating whether they should pull the trigger as payback for certain actions.

In the dialogue of the scene, a third character is asking that the trigger not be pulled. This character tells the gun-holder “If you pull that trigger, your life is going to change forever…and not for the better.”

The thing about revenge is that, not only does it not heal a wound, it creates new ones: guilt over what you’ve done, and the injury to the other person.

If that person, or their family members decide to take revenge for what you did, you’re in a never ending cycle, perpetuating hurt and hate.

I started thinking about this in the context of what I read in a book written by Bishop Desmond Tutu called “No Future Without Forgiveness”. South Africa, divided and full of rage over the years of apartheid, where a white minority systematically oppressed a black majority, was attempting to enter into peaceful cohabitation. Many feared that the blacks would slaughter the whites in vengance.

But something alltogether different occured: The government established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, whereby crimes and attrocities on both sides (there were blacks who fought back with violence - and in war, terrible things always occur) could confess what they had done and avoid judicial punishment.

That’s right: if you said what you did, truthfully and completely, you were not held liable. People got to hear the facts about the death of their loved ones - how they died, who killed them, where the bodies were located, etc. Amazingly, this lead to a great deal of forgiveness.

People were tired of bloodshed. Most yearned for peace. Instead of dealing with skeletons in the closet and trying to pretend that they don’t exist, South Africa laid them to rest.

By ending the cycle of revenge, hurts could begin to heal. South Africa is far from perfect, but they have never descended into the genocidal civil war many expected.

Jesus said that loving people who love you back is easy. (Matthew 5:46)

The Children of God are called to love the wicked.  What a war we are called to fight when our weapons are love, mercy and grace.

You may think this is a great way to lose, but I look at leaders like Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., who used patience and endurance to defeat tyrannical forces.

In Romans 12:19, Paul even says not to take revenge. That’s a job best left up to God. He knows when it’s appropriate and when it isn’t. Our job is to love, not settle scores.

Two Edged Sword

I used to read the bible to gain knowledge; to find the ways scripture confirmed that my theology is correct. Now, I read it to be changed. The book of Hebrews describes the Word of God thusly: “[It] is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.” (Hebrews 4:12)

I so often used the scripture as a weapon against other believers, in order to show that I was right and they were wrong.

I know many believers who feel that they are the only ones who really, truly understand the character of God. That they have discovered the sacred secrets hidden in the scriptures.  And they have the theology and proof texts ready to prove it.

I’ve realized that the word of God is actually a weapon meant to be used on myself.

I love the song “The War Inside” by Switchfoot. It talks about the fact that living this spiritual life has less to do with fighting “what’s out there”, and more to do with what is inside of us. Here’s part of the chorus.

I am the war inside

I am the battle line

I am the rising tide

I am the war I fight

N.T. Wright also talks about this issue in Evil and the Justice of God. The line between good and evil isn’t something that we look and and pick a side to stand on. It runs right down the middle of each of us.

Paul himself talks about this in Romans 7: “…when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind…”

Reading the Bible isn’t about winning arguments, it’s about looking in a mirror that shows me what I could be. What I should be, then letting God work to bring that person into existence.

I’m no longer interested in getting people to agree with me. Instead, I’m interested in being more like Jesus.

Incentives

Most people probably know the old proverb: You catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Recently, I decided that I wanted my oldest daughter to read more books. She had winter break coming up, and I told her that I wanted her to read two books during the 10 days she would have off.

She wasn’t very enthusiastic about “having to” do all that reading. In the end, she only read one book, and it required a great deal of reminding and cajoling on my part.

I quickly realized that if I made reading into something that she was constantly being hounding to do, she’d learn to hate it. So I changed my course.

Instead, I decided that I needed to create an incentive that would get her into reading. I know once she gets into it, she’ll learn to love it. At 7 years old, I decided it was time to institute an allowance for her.

But unlike many households, she doesn’t get an allowance for her chores. Her chores are how she earns food and keep. I don’t pay her to handle her responsibilities.

Instead, I linked her allowance to reading. She earns 50 cents for every book she reads (I have to approve that it is long enough first - no less than 75 pages is my standard.)

She started reading every night, proudly announcing “fifty cents, please!” as soon as she finished yet another book and telling me all about what she had just read.

I wonder if we haven’t made living for Jesus more like a punishment than an incentive, and that’s why many people loathe Christianity and church life.

‘Accept Jesus or go to hell’ is an awful marketing pitch. It’s like me saying ‘read a book or you’ll be punished.’ My daughter would not want to read the book, and she would only do it at the last minute under threat of imminent punishment. Instead of loving to read, she would probably hate it.

However, I also think ‘Accept Jesus so that you will go to heaven’ is a terrible pitch. similar to the previous pitch, it puts all the emphasis on ‘the afterlife’ rather than the here and now. This essentially says ‘life is still gonna stink, but once you die, you’ll be happy forever!’

For me, one of the primary reasons to believe in Jesus is his promise and desire to bind up the broken-hearted in this life. To release people held captive in this life. To give sight to people who are blind. Today. Here. Now.

A more abundant life starting today, not when you’re dead.

God teaches us to live a life of love rather than strife. He teaches us to function with faith and hope rather than despair and meaninglessness. Not necessarily (or even usually) by changing our circumstances, but rather by changing us.

He makes us to be part of his family, his community, where we no longer need to compete and jostle for positions of prestige in order to gain more self worth.

I’m trying to remember this when I teach my teens at church. If you force somebody to do something, they’ll resent it. You must attract them. Allow them to leave if they want, without threats or insults.

Instead of coming up with better sales pitches for the life of faith in Jesus, perhaps we just need to do a better job of demonstrating it. Perhaps more people would be more drawn to the product if our smarmy sales tactics weren’t in the way.

The God Formula

We all know the story of Job. He has to deal with some pretty bad circumstances: losing everything and getting very sick. He has some friends that show up to comfort him and (very pointedly) try to fix his problems. The problem with Job’s friends is that they thought they understood God. They knew how God worked. They had the formula memorized.

If you live right, God gives you blessings.

If you live in an impure way, God will come against you with judgement.

Job lost his wealth, his family and his health. This meant God was angry with him; therefore Job was living sinfully.

Job’s friends were trying to help him: repent of your secret sin and God will forgive you! But Job was insistent that he had not sinned.

But his friends would not - could not - believe him. Because if what Job said was true, then everything they thought they knew about God would be wrong.

Listen to what the youngest of the friends says as he makes one final attempt to get Job to admit to his wicked ways: “Be assured that my words are not false; one perfect in knowledge is with you.” (Job 36:4)

In other words, “I can’t believe what you’re saying, because I know I’m right.”

I was struck when I read Elihu’s speech (Job 32-37) that it includes some portions that are almost identical to what God says later (for example, that he commands lightning and snow).

Job’s mistake was thinking that God had committed an error.

Elihu’s mistake (and the 3 other friends) was thinking he knew exactly what God was doing.

Job, knowing that he hadn’t brought these curses upon himself through foolish living, was forced to conclude that God’s sovereignty allowed him to act as he pleases, and the only viable choice of humanity is to accept that. As Job says it, “Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” (Job 2:10)

I’d love to pretend that Jobs friends were the last people to make this mistake, but when Jesus shows up, he tells the religious experts in his day that they have made the same mistake of making God into a formula which they understood.

“You [The Pharisees] diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” (John 5:39-40)

They thought they knew the formula, but when the the culmination of God’s design arrived, they didn’t recognize it in the least.  Jerusalem was destroyed because the time of God’s intervention arrived and they were blind to it. (Luke 19:44).

I think the fact that we think we have this whole God/Jesus/Bible thing down pat can turn us into monsters, too.

We have hundreds of different denominations (which are basically forbidden in 1 Corinthians 3) because we think all the other denominations are doing something wrong, and we are doing it right.

We spend so much time and energy bickering and in-fighting rather than fulfilling the purpose Jesus gave us. To be conduits of God’s Kingdom come and will being done on earth.

God cannot be put in a formula. He cannot be understood. He cannot be explained. We can only say the things he has told us to say. To speak of the things we see him do.

Paradoxically, it is only when we accept that we never fully know him that we can actually begin to connect with him in a greater way.

Socrates and The Oracle of Delphi

There’s a story about Socrates that I love. Let me quote what pbs.org says: After his service in the war, Socrates devoted himself to his favorite pastime: the pursuit of truth.

His reputation as a philosopher, literally meaning ‘a lover of wisdom’, soon spread all over Athens and beyond. When told that the Oracle of Delphi had revealed to one of his friends that Socrates was the wisest man in Athens, he responded not by boasting or celebrating, but by trying to prove the Oracle wrong.

So Socrates decided he would try and find out if anyone knew what was truly worthwhile in life, because anyone who knew that would surely be wiser than him. He set about questioning everyone he could find, but no one could give him a satisfactory answer. Instead they all pretended to know something they clearly did not.

Finally he realized the Oracle might be right after all. He was the wisest man in Athens because he alone was prepared to admit his own ignorance rather than pretend to know something he did not.

Socrates thought that he couldn’t be the wisest man in Athens because he was conscious of how much he didn’t know. But it was that self awareness; the fact that he knew how much he didn’t know that actually made him wiser than the rest.

A couple years ago, I thought my knowledge of scriptures and the nature of God was vast and commanding. I had great confidence in my conclusions. As I worked through the program of my Master’s Degree, I began to discover that I was gaining more questions than answers.

I began to realize how much I didn’t understand, couldn’t explain, didn’t comprehend about God.

And I believe I have become much wiser than I once was. You’ll get a lot fewer definitive answers out of me these days. If you start a discussion about the nature of God, you’ll probably hear me asking lots of questions.

I’ve stopped pretending that I hold answers to the secrets of the universe, but I’d like to think I’ve started asking some of the right questions.

In Jesus' Name

I have made the decision to stop saying “In Jesus’ Name” at the end of all my prayers. Not because I believe that I shouldn’t pray in Jesus’ name, but because I believe that praying in Jesus’ name doesn’t mean slapping 3 words onto the end of whatever I say.

I watched a video by Francis Chan where he talked about this. We pray ‘I want, I want, I want, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme….In Jesus’ Name, Amen.’ and we call that praying in Jesus’ name.

I think that’s closer to taking the lord’s name in vain than it is praying in Jesus’ name.

The Seven Sons of Sceva (Acts 19) thought that they could toss Jesus’ name around in order to accomplish their own agenda. It didn’t turn out so well.

I’ve realized that I have spent most of my Christian life trying to get God to go along with what I wanted to do. I seem to forget that he is a lot smarter than I am. That I am the insignificant speck of dust and he is the infinite creator.

So these days, I have stopped tacking on the phrase “In Jesus’ Name” to all my prayers, and instead tried to learn to pray for the things he wants to do - forgiveness of sins committed against me; provision on a daily basis rather than an overabundance I can place my trust in; protection from the evil one - who is greater than me, but not greater than God; and for the coming of his kingdom and his will on this earth.

Rather than ‘how can I get what I want?’, my driving question is ‘how can I participate in what he is doing?’

Instead of saying that I’m praying in Jesus’ name, I’m actually trying to do it.

Shortcuts of Faith

There are no shortcuts in faith. You can’t get to resurrection without going through crucifixion. We have to go through the cross to get to new life. There’s no easy way, no way around it, no short cuts. And resurrection wasn’t to undo the crucifixion, it was to complete the process.

The scars Jesus got on the cross were still there after resurrection (John 20:27). They were badges of honor, not shameful at all.

We all have experiences in life that leave us scarred: death of a family member, illness, etc.

I don’t think God wants us to forget about them. I think the scars will always be there. They are a testament to the fact that God brought us through those times.

Not around them, or over them. Through them.

Peter Rollins talks at length in his book, Insurrection, about the Deus Ex Machina.  In ancient Greece, playwrights would sometimes find that they needed something to change in their script. Perhaps a character needed to die, or a character needed money that they couldn’t figure out how to obtain. So some playwrights would have an actor on ropes lower into the scene and simply make it occur. This character was God. Instead of having the skill to tell a logical, relate-able, moving story, they would simply use “God” to fix their problem. It was a sign of a poorly written play.

I think we tend to treat God this way, at least I know I do. I want out of my current job, so I beg God to just show up and change it. Rather than co-operating with the journey that will eventually lead me away from where I am, I demand an immediate change. (Having finished my degree and gotten some great opportunities to build my experience and resume in the area I want to work in, I can see the journey is happening. I just impatiently want it to happenfaster.)

I frequently view God as a way to get out of hard situations, but God wants to walk with me through them.  David didn’t say “Yea, though I can see the valley of death from where I’m at…”. He said “even as I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil because you are with me.” (Psalm 23:4)

Sometimes life sucks. Those are the times when I learn how much God cares about me. When I am so needful and he stays with me. I demand and beg and plead for him to make the situation different, but he wants to be with me. To comfort me. To weep with me.  You can’t find a better friend than one who won’t abandon you when times get tough. Solomon said it this way: “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.” (Proverbs 17:17)

You find out who your friends are when it doesn’t benefit them to be around you. God gave us a family to stand with us when no one else would.

And God himself shows his greatness at times like this. “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8)

He’s still in the business of loving us when we least deserve it. In being faithful when we are faithless. Because when the walk through the valley of the shadow of death is over, we’ll know that he really loves us. Not in some vague way, but in the way that he knows everything about us - especially how weak and selfish we are - and he still wants us to be his son or daughter. That his adoption is bourne of love, not obligation.

If we were to take shortcuts in faith, we would miss this lesson, which is the most important of them all.  We do not serve an unreliable genie, who occasionally grants wishes. We serve a loving God who draws closer to us when we need him most.

The Poison Pill

There’s an analogy about Jesus and Hell and Salvation that I’ve heard a number of times in my life: that people have been poisoned and they will die without the antidote. The poison is sin, death is hell and the antidote is salvation. So we seek to get people to pray the prayer of salvation in order that they would be saved from hell.

I don’t think this analogy is a very good one. Here’s why:

If I get bit by a snake, I’ll drink the antidote and the poison will be gone. Then I’ll go about my life the same way I did before I took the antidote.

Jesus isn’t a quick fix. You don’t pray a prayer of salvation and find that sin has disappeared and you just bide your time until heaven calls you home.

We stress the need for people to make a ‘decision for Jesus’. We see it as the determining factor on whether they end up in heaven or hell for eternity. We say things like ‘God will write your name in the book of life’ if you respond to the altar call.

Like God just has a holy excel spreadsheet and the only column next to each persons name is ‘Accepted Jesus’ with a yes or no in the field.

If I hurt somebody, and I tell them I’m sorry, than I walk away, was I really sorry? If I was really sorry, wouldn’t it show? Wouldn’t I try to make right what I caused to go wrong?

I don’t believe Jesus is after people who will just intellectually acknowledge that he is saviour. I believe he is after people who act like it.

Even Jesus gives an example that shows intellectual ascent isn’t what he or anybody else is after:

There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’

“‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.

“Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ‘I will, sir,’ but he did not go.

“Which of the two did what his father wanted?”

“The first,” they answered.

Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.

Matthew 21:28-31

The belief in God that the Pharisees had wasn’t the antidote to the “poison” of sin and the world.

And as James says, even the demons believe in God. They know Jesus was saviour. I don’t think the ‘antidote’ cured them.

What if I told you that you were poisoned, but that the antidote would cause you a great deal of pain? Would you still take it? You’d have to put some thought into it, right?

Because accepting Jesus means living a life of dying daily (1 Corinthians 15:31). It means that, at the minimum, you have to take up a cross (Matthew 10:38). It means living a life where you do the things you don’t want to do. (Romans 7:15).

How’s that for an antidote? Is that a quick, easy way to fix all your problems?

Jesus isn’t some snake oil cure all, but we make him out to be exactly that. Jesus hasn’t made my life easier. He’s made it better, but it isn’t without cost, and it certainly wasn’t some one-time thing.

Dual Citizenship

I started reading a book called You Lost Me by David Kinnaman today. It’s one of those books which is depressing to read because it presents truths that you wish didn’t exist. It’s about young adults who leave the church - and often their faith - behind because of how frustrated they are. The worst part is that their arguements are pretty darn valid. In the book, Kinnaman refers to an idea which the church promotes a lot: being in the world, not of it.

We’ve all heard the saying that we are “in this world, not of it” many times, I’m sure. It comes from Jesus’ prayer for his disciples in John 17.

But I think when we in Church say it, we tend to have the idea that we need to add the word ‘but’. We are in this world BUT not of it. The obvious emphasis being that we need to remember the fact that we are above and beyond this valley of tears we call earth. We are looking forward to eternity in glory with the creator of all, the source of light and truth and love and peace! We just have to endure this nightmare a little while before we wake up and all is well.

And I think that’s the wrong mindset. In the prayer we refer to, Jesus says this: “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one.” (John 17:15 - emphasis mine)

I think that instead of saying “In this world BUT not of it”, we should say that we are “In this world AND not of it”. We’re not trapped here in the previews, waiting for the movie to start. The movie has begun! God’s kingdom is here. God’s kingdom is now.

The two concepts of “in this world, not of it” are not either/or, they’re both/and!

Songs like “When I die / Hallelujah by and by / I’ll fly away” speak to an escapist mentality that clearly wasn’t the intention Jesus had for his followers.

Let’s not view this life as a prison sentence where we are waiting for our parole. Paul balanced these dueling ideas when he said “To live is Christ, to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21)

There wasn’t a “bad option” that he wanted to avoid. Both were good. Heaven AND earth. We are in this world AND not of it. Let’s not seek to be so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly good.

We must build relationships in this world to have an impact. And relationships mean seeing eye to eye with people, not looking down on them. We are in this world just like everybody else is in this world. Let’s connect on that level, so that we can speak of the one who can make us to also be ‘not of it’.

Sin to Serve

When I was younger, I struggled greatly with pornography. It was, by far, the greatest battle I’ve ever fought in my life. When I finally got past this addiction (and I thank God for this), I found that I despised that particular sin more than any other. It had held me in bondage for so long and caused so much grief and pain, I just couldn’t stand it. And that feeling bled into people who were still trapped in it.

Here’s what I’m talking about: On my way home from work, I pass by a porn shop. Anytime I saw somebody going into the shop, I’d get mad at them. Didn’t they know how disgusting that place was? Didn’t they understand that they are hurting themselves as well as the girls being exploited? Why are they being so stupid?? Can’t they see how trapped they are?

But all this anger I felt at them was really anger I had felt toward myself. I had to learn to have compassion for those who are aren’t yet free from bonds which held me. To truly love the ‘sinner’ while hating the ‘sin’. Instead of passing the disappointment I felt in myself onto them, I had to learn to pass the hope that would eventually be fulfilled when I was free. To have the compassion upon them that God had on me. I completely deserved to be cut off forever from his Grace for what I did, but instead, he loved me when I least deserved it. This is what I had to learn to feel for those who were/are still in the midst of the quicksand I was pulled from.

See, I don’t believe getting delivered from a sin is enough. I believe God wants us to actually work to undo it’s effects in the world. To serve those who need a hand up.

I completed a race this past year call The Tough Mudder. Toward the end of this grueling 10 mile event was an obstacle called ‘Everest’ (link has some language, mute if you prefer). It was a quarter pipe, like you’d see at a skate park. We had to run up the increasingly vertical side of the pipe, grab onto the ledge, and pull ourselves up and over. The problem was that the preceding 9 miles of running up ski slopes, overcoming obstacles and being purposely kept wet in the freezing temperatures left most of us far too drained to beat this challenge. The surface of the quarter pipe was also pretty well slathered with slick mud.

So what happened is this: people built human chains for others to climb up and get on top of the ledge. Then, the people at the top of the ledge would lean over and help pull others up to the summit. At the point I went, I had to run and jump, barely grabbing onto the ledge that was 12 or so feet off the ground. At that point 2 or 3 guys grabbed my arms and helped haul me up. I probably would never have made it on my own. Once I was up, I turned around and helped the guy who came up behind me.

I think that’s how beating sin should work. If I had stood at the top of that obstacle and shook my head at how pathetic the people below were, I would have been the worst hypocrite on the planet. It also would have resulted in a ton of failure. Once you get up, give a hand to the others trying to get up.

I know God is the one who delivers us and frees us. But I also know that he made us to live in community and to help one another. If we don’t fulfill our roles, fewer people are going to make it over the challenge. And how horrible it is to be like me and instead of helping, standing at the top and angrily shaking my finger, discouraging anyone who would seek to ascend.

Jesus never sinned. But instead of loathing the wrong that people did, he had compassion on people. He alone had the right to look down on us, and he didn’t. He was the only person who could beat the obstacle of sin on his own. But instead of continuing to run off, leaving us to follow in his example, he stopped and reached over the ledge; ready to grab the muddy hand of anyone who would follow in his footsteps.

We must follow this example. We must accept his help to get over the challenges of sin we find in the path of our lives, then be ready to turn and offer a hand to others.

The Incomplete God

I believe in an incomplete God. I pray to an incomplete God, sing praises to an incomplete God and read the scriptures of an incomplete God. It’s not that God is incomplete, mind you. It’s that my understanding of God is incomplete. So I am left believing in a God who I only partially comprehend. I worship the tip of the iceberg, knowing that there is so much more which is beyond my perception.

I can’t tell you why one person dies of cancer while another recovers against all medical odds.

I can’t explain why one person wins the lottery while another struggles to feed their children.

I don’t know why some of my prayers yield amazing results while others seem to go unnoticed.

But the thing is, I’m a super analytical person.  I don’t like unsolved mysteries. I want a God that I can understand and explain. That way, everything makes sense. I don’t have to be confused or surprised in any situation.

So I fill in the blanks.

I take the God who in judgment destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and the God who in mercy spared Nineveh and I draw connections to explain the differences.

I take the God who stuck Annanias and Sapphira dead and the God who forgave the adulterous woman and I color the spaces in between.

I take the God who killed almost everything on earth in the time of Noah and the God who came as a man and bore the guilt of the entire human race and I figure out a way to explain it simply and easily.

And I end up with something that isn’t God. Or rather, it’s a God created in my own image.

Because, despite vaguely understanding how feeble my mind is in comparison to the greatness of God’s existence, I prove over and over that I’d rather have a complete but false God than an incomplete/incomprehensible real God.

Only when things in my life occur which can’t be explained by my false God do I have to wake up to what I’ve done. And those are the times where I must do violence to the God I’ve created. Instead of having the ability to understand and explain what’s going on, I simply have to echo Ezekiel who, when asked something beyond his comprehension, answered “O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.” (Ezekiel 37:3)

I have to face the fact that most of the time, I don’t know why God does whatGod does when God does it.

It’s when I start trying to improve God in my own eyes that I get myself into this trouble. When I try to make better sense of him in my own understanding.

So I do my best to worship the God who I can’t fully see or understand, leaving the blank spaces free from my own conjecture and speculation. The places where he has clothed himself with shadows, I cannot force him to be revealed.

He is, for me, the incomplete God who is greater than I could ever imagine.

The Sinful Invalid

In John chapter 5, we read the story of a man who had been an invalid for 38 years (v. 5). Jesus approaches this man and heals him. Amid the commotion, Jesus slips away into the crowd. Later, after the man has been accosted by religious people that are upset with the fact he is carrying his mat (at Jesus’ direction), it says that Jesus came back and found him again.

And this is what Jesus says to him: “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.” (v. 14)

Whoa.

What?

I’m so curious here about what Jesus is referring to. Did the man become an invalid through sinful action? Or is Jesus indicating his sinfulness while he was apparently unable to do more than lay next to a pool, hoping to be healed?

I have no idea. There’s simply no way to know for sure.

But the fact that Jesus tells him to ‘stop sinning’ tends to indicate (at least to me) an active continuance as opposed to something that happened long in the past.

But without the physical ability to do much more than talk and lay around, it seems that any sin he was committing was internal.

Was the man full of bitter and anger over his condition?  Or perhaps lustful or greedy for what he could not have?

This hammered home to me a point I read in Psalms this week. In Psalm 24, David asks who is able to be in the Lord’s presence.  He then provides an answer to his own question in the next lines of the song:

“Only those whose hands and hearts are pure” (v. 4)

People who are pure, inside (heart) and ouside (hands). What we think/feel (heart) and what we do (hands).

We put a lot of emphasis on whether what we do is sinful. But honestly, I think our actions and words aren’t the issue. Those things come out of who we are.

We spend so much time trying to change our fruit, but we do it in silly ways. You can’t glue oranges on an apple tree and think that the tree has changed.

I think the work the Holy Spirit does within us is about planting new trees. God’s not after lip service. He’s not after us doing stuff to get points from him. He’s about us acting out of the resurrection life he is creating in us. Rather than attaching oranges to an apple tree, he’s taking the time to uproot the apple trees and plant orange trees in their place.

That process takes time. For the first few seasons, my orchard is still going to produce more apples than oranges. But as the work continues, as there are fewer apple trees and the orange trees mature, slowly but surely there will be evidence that this orchard creates oranges, rather than apples.

Just because the invalid may not have been able to act on his sinful nature doesn’t mean it didn’t exist. And Jesus was warning him, not as a threat, but in love. The man had just been given the ability to but action behind his desires. If his desires aren’t corrected, that only gives him the ability to head headlong into his own destruction.

What Jesus did seems dangerous to me. Why heal a guy that may end up being a real jerk?

Clearly, God’s respect for our free will is astounding. He gives chances that may be completely squandered. I make stupid, selfish, shortsighted choices all the time. I wish there was an easy way where I could turn off the part of me that wants to find spiritual shortcuts or loopholes. But instead, God insists that I should have the ability to frustrate or ignore or undo his work.

What an amazing God we serve. That he lets us co-author the story of our life to such a degree. A God that offers us new and abundant life, instead of mandating it.

Theology: Knowing God

I think that studying God, theology, the bible, etc, is like studying the moon.  If you buy the biggest telescope you can find and put it on maximum zoom, you’re going to learn a lot about the part of the moon you can see. You can also move the telescope around a see zoomed in pictures in different areas. But there’s two things to keep in mind:

1. You’re not going to be able to scan the entire surface of the moon with that telescope (or if you do, it’ll be so fast you won’t really see anything)

2. Even if you did see the entire surface of the moon that way, you’d still have a lot to learn about the moon.

See, if we just focus on one area, we’re going to miss a lot. At some point, you need to step away from the telescope and look at the whole sky. To see how beautiful the moon is, suspended in the black with stars around it. To see how the moon affects the tides here on Earth.

Don’t miss the beauty in the midst of the study.

I could focus my telescope on one particular crater and learn everything there is to know about that crater. Then, when people talk about the moon, I could talk for hours about that one crater. And people would be interested for about 5 minutes, then they would want me to shut up. There’s more to the moon than the one crater I know all about.

We can get so fixated on one point that we miss out on what’s really happening.

Alot of evangelical theology is based on the message that people who don’t believe in Jesus are going to hell, and they need to be saved. So we hand out tracts and talk through bullhorns and try to force people to come to church with us where we use an altar call to try and get them to say they believe.

I’m not saying that people aren’t going to hell. And I’m certainly not suggesting that it’s a minor deal.  But God is bigger and greater and grander than ‘the being who sends people to hell.’

God created this world, where we find joy and sorrow; heights and depths; pain and pleasure. More than that, he became one of us. The infinite, in one man. He who holds the galaxies in the palm of his hand, using feet to walk from one town to the next.

People who are so locked into their own theology that they think they are the only one who really ‘gets’ God scare me. A lot.  Because I have totally been like that in my life. And I was so blinded by my ‘right answers’ to let God be who he is. I turned the bible into a book of answers and doctrine instead of what it is: The story of a God and the flawed people he loves.

In Christianity, we say that we don’t have a religion, but rather a relationship. Then we put so much structure and so many requirements on that relationship that it becomes a religion.

I have a feeling that there is a great deal of truth in this world that we refuse to acknowledge because we didn’t think of it.

I believe that everyone is looking for God, whether they know it or not. And I believe that God has left signposts that point to him in the most unlikely places. Signposts that reveal truth about him. People who are paying attention will pick up on these truths, and believe in them.

Nature speaks of a great creator.

Intimacy speaks of a need to be completed by somebody or something.

Dreams point to the existence of something greater just below the surface.

Mercy and compassion reveal that there is something within us that works against the primal urges we’re told that we consist of.

Art reveals a need to see more than just what our eyes can perceive.

I once thought that God needed me. That he needed me to tell people about what he is really like because I had so much insight. He couldn’t sideline me, because I was too clever and smart.

Now, I realize that I’m about as useful as asking an ant to explain a supercomputer. A know-it-all is about the last thing God needs representing him.

I don’t understand God. I can’t explain why he does the things he does most of the time. If I zoom in, I can probably start to explain small parts of him better, but I’d rather step back and see the vastness, the grandeur, the beauty of who he is. And I’m content to be amazed and surprised by what I can’t contain.

The Gospel: Marketing the Message

I was having a debate with another Christian over whether I should forbid my kids from hearing music by people like Lady Gaga. The other person was adamant that because she is lewd and vile, I should ban it from them in any form (including watching the new Chipmunk movie because they do a take on Bad Romance - you know, the whole Rah Rah Ah Ah Ah sequence).

But I disagree. Not that Lady Gaga isn’t lewd and what not. She totally is. That’s her whole image. It’s why people pay attention to her. I’ve seen her before she became the character of Lady Gaga. She was normal. And nobody cared about her. All the hyper sexualization and the crazy hair and clothes styles? Just a sales technique. One that has worked great for her.

Same with Katy Perry. She was a gospel/inspirational singer. Then she did ‘I kissed a girl’, started wearing different clothes (specifically, less of it), and suddenly she’s popular and trending.

I think they just do whatever will get them what they really want: fame and fortune. Selling their soul to gain the world seems like a great deal to them.

But I digress.

The reason I don’t really worry about my kids hearing/liking the music of such “poor role models” is this: If my message is better than Lady Gaga’s, then why should I worry if my kids hear what she is saying?

If my kids see/hear what she’s putting out there, are they going to latch onto it? maybe temporarily. We all try out images and styles from time to time. But we end up going with what proves to be genuine and true for us.

If I give my kids a genuine, true message of love, compassion, joy, etc through my words and my actions, what am I afraid of? That a woman who uses shock tactics to get attention is going to lead them astray? My kids are going to encounter such messages sooner or later. By delaying it until they’re out of my house, I don’t think I’m doing them any favors.

Now, I’m not saying that I have started letting my 7 year old watch MTV. I do believe that there are responsible restrictions to have in place. But letting my kids hear so much as a riff off a song adapted to a kid’s movie? Not one of them, in my book.

We serve the God who made the whole universe, intervened on our behalf by becoming a man, dying for us and preparing a place in heaven for us, yet we’ve made that message so boring that people are looking for something more interesting. How the heck did we get here?

Should we get mad when people at church spend most of the time on their phone playing a game? Or should we figure out why what we’re saying/doing doesn’t interest them? The idea of ‘show some respect and pay attention’ has given way to the attitude of ‘earn my respect and do something to deserve my attention’.

Our sales pitch of ‘come be bored for 2 hours each Sunday because you better be grateful for God’ isn’t working. Nor should it.

Lady Gaga has a terrible message, but she markets it well. So people listen. We have a great message, but we market it horribly.

So in my house, I’m trying to give the message of the true Gospel. Because if my kids see the real deal, I don’t need to worry about a cheap knock off keeping their attention for long.

It’s like if I give my kids hearty, healthy meals every day. Am I going to worry if somebody shows up trying to feed them dog food? Of course not. Shoot, I probably want them to try the dog food at least once so they better appreciate what they’re getting!

People hear lots of messages. I try to ask myself a question regularly: “Is mine worth hearing?” Because if it isn’t, they should probably just go back to playing Words with Friends so I don’t waste any more of their time.

Is It Wrong to Doubt God?

Over the course of the last year, I have had a hard time trying to figure out what God’s plan for me is. Honestly, it’s been disheartening. Because the more I’ve tried to hear God’s input on this topic, the silence has only grown more deafening.

It’s frustrating. I have started to wonder why God doesn’t seem to care. In my head, I know God cares. But in my heart, I feel like David, when he said “Why, O Lord, do you stand far off? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (Psalm 10:1)

Or again when he said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent.” (Psalm 22:1-2)

Like Job, who said “Why is life given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in?” (Job 3:23)

I used to push away doubts about whether God sees, whether he cares. Now, I’m embracing them. Not because I believe God is unseeing or uncaring, but because I believe it is part of the divine plan, that we are to wrestle with doubt…to struggle with it.

Jesus himself in the garden of Gethsemane is begging God to give him a way out of the impending events. On the cross itself, he echos the words David sang about being forsaken of God. (See Matthew 26-27)

Why do we believe doubt is faithlessness?

I understand that we can point to scriptures that say things like “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you.” (Luke 17:6)

And “without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6)

With these scriptures, we make Jesus into an angry, scowling savior who can’t stand anyone who he so much as catches a whiff of doubt coming from. When Peter walks on water and then begins to sink, maybe Jesus is actually smiling when he says ”You of little faith…why did you doubt?” (Matthew 14:31) After all, Peter had just WALKED ON WATER. When’s the last time you did that?

Maybe after calming the storm on the lake, when he says to the disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?” (Mark 4:40), Jesus isn’t saying that faith and doubt are unable to co-exist. Maybe he’s saying to have faithdespite your doubt and fear. In addition to it.

One of my personal heroes in the bible is the man who came to Jesus and asked him to cast a demon out of his son. The man asked Jesus to help “if he could”. Jesus responds by putting this back to the man: “If you can?…Everything is possible for him who believes.”

The man’s response? “Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24)

This guy clearly doubts. Anybody can see that. He’s grasping at any straws he can to help his son.  But Jesus sees that along with doubt, he also is determined to believe. To have faith that his son can be made well.  Jesus then makes his son well.

I know God is good. I know he cares. I know he has a plan for me. But sometimes I doubt it. Sometimes I ask God to help me ‘if he can’.

Rather than try to hide my doubt from him, I try to be honest. I don’t keep it locked in some dark closet that nobody can ever know about, pretending it doesn’t exist. I let it out. Because I do believe, and I need help with my unbelief.

Christianity: Spiritual Microsoft?

I think it’s healthy and valuable to do a broad, sweeping overview of your life from time to time. I’ve started doing that with church/Christianity lately.

What we’re doing doesn’t seem to be working well. I look at all the crime and poverty and famine and war and violence and oppression and selfishness in this world and I wonder why it seems that the Kingdom of God is shrinking rather than expanding.

And why the church seems to be an impotent force in the world at large.

Why do we gather in a “church” building for a few hours on Sunday?

Why do we have “worship leaders”? I never see Jesus including music in his ministry. So why do we feel it’s a requirement?

I’m not saying there should be no music in church. I’m just wondering why we say “okay, church will be 2 hours and the first hour is music”, or something like that in almost every church. It’s like we came up with a template and decided to copy/paste everywhere.

And why do we call that music time ‘worship’ and the music leaders ‘worship leaders’? I love singing to God, and I have been a music leader at various churches for over a decade, but worship? To me, worship is living a life that is devoted to God just as much Monday through Saturday as it is on Sunday. Singing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs to God (Ephesians 5:19) are one part of living a life of worship to God, but without the full life commitment, they’re just nice songs.

Why do we appoint (and often pay) somebody to study the bible and pray, then tell us what we should believe from a pulpit?

What’s our goal? What’s our point?

Is Christianity like the Microsoft of the spiritual world? A good, solid choice that will work for most people and doesn’t need to really do a lot of expanding because it’s pretty popular already?

I’m serious. What is this thing we’re doing???

Church shouldn’t be like groundhog day. Doing the same thing over and over and over. Shouldn’t there be some progression and innovation? What are we doing wrong?

We need challenges, a vision, goals. At least I know I do.

I learned this about myself a while back. I decided that I needed to get in shape, so I started running and doing situps and pushups. It was great for a few weeks, then I slacked off.

A few months went by and I decided to get serious again, so for several weeks I ran and did pushups and situps. Then, it faded.

I finally realized that I needed a goal. So I signed up for a race called the Warrior Dash. I knew that 9 months from that time, I was going to have to complete an event that I wasn’t ready for. I knew that if I didn’t exercise and get in shape, I would embarrass myself in front of my friends on October 21st, 2010. So I spent the next 9 months getting in the best shape of my life. By the time the race happened, I was vastly over prepared for it.

Until I had a goal, a set reason to exercise, I couldn’t motivate myself. I feel like a lot of churches are like this. They don’t have a goal other than some murky ‘We’re going to get 250 people saved in 2012’ type goal.

Is that God’s goal for us? A numbers quota? That we recruit enough people into our club so that the shareholders are satisfied?

What are we trying to accomplish? Why can’t the 1 or 2 billion people who claim to be followers of Christ come up with some kind of unified purpose? I mean, come on! If every Christian committed to some particular plan, is there anything we couldn’t accomplish? If Christianity said: “nobody is going to starve to death from now on”, and we put our money and energy behind it, don’t you think we could make it happen? Or getting clean water to everyone? Or clothing the naked? Or caring for the sick? Or taking in the outcasts?

Instead, we have our little cliques, and most of our time is spent infighting.

I don’t have some great solution. I understand that getting people to give their time, energy, money, etc is tough. I understand that getting people to work together is harder when you start getting bigger groups, probably darn near impossible.

But I also think the way we’re doing church, for the most part, doesn’t seem to be working. Yet that seems to be where we put most of our focus.

We keep the system going because it’s easy. Maintain the status quo and almost everybody is happy.

Rather than saying “I don’t like the way we do church, so I’m going to start my own church and ‘do it right’”, I’m starting to wonder how I can start to undo church. To break down walls rather than put up new ones. I want to break free from the system, because I don’t think it can be fixed. I don’t think God exists in a ‘system’. At least not one I can come up with.

Do You Really Believe What You Say You Believe?

Why do you believe the things you believe? I hope it’s because you’ve examined something to the best of your ability and made up your mind about it.

I fear that all too often, we simply believe what somebody told us.

I read a book a while back by Carlton Pearson called God Is Not a Christian, Nor a Jew, Muslim, Hindu…: God Dwells with Us, in Us, Around Us, as Us.

It’s gotta be the longest book title ever, or close to it.

But this book was the journey one man took from being an evangelical Christian pastor and big time leader (I was at a conference he hosted called Azusa 97 that had T.D. Jakes speaking at it) to the point where he embraced Universalism. He now believes that there are many paths to God and that Jesus is simply a good, moral teacher.

In the book, Bishop Pearson talks about how he was raised to believe in the God that evangelicals believe in. He believed in all the orthodox beliefs that many Christians hold to be non-negotiable. At one point, he began questioning how God could allow such suffering in the world. (In case you’re interested in learning a new word, the discipline of explaining why God allows evil and suffering is called ‘Theodicy’.)

Bishop Pearson believed the Holy Spirit spoke to him and explained that the starving children in Africa were not bound for hell, but rather that their hell existed here, on earth.

Once the belief that he was obligated to go and tell every person he could find about Jesus because they were hell-bound crumbled, he began to disbelief everything he’d ever been told. If one thing he has been raised to believe was untrue, then perhaps more things were also not true. He reassessed all his beliefs and dismissed many of them.

Here’s my point in going through all this: I don’t think Carlton Pearson ever believed the things that he proclaimed. I think he believed that the people who told him were right. His faith wasn’t in what he believed. It was in who had told him.

How often do we hear a pastor preach or read a book/blog or hear a televangelist/professor/minister say something, and we just accept it?  We believe it because they told us.

It’s so easy to do that. Because if, in the end, it turns out they are wrong…well, we can’t be to blame for it. “I didn’t come up with that.  It was him/her.”

We sign off on what other people say they believe because it’s much easier than going through the process of examining it ourselves.

Why did Jesus die on the cross? “Well, at my church we say it was to pay the price for my sins.”

Okay. Do you believe that, though?

Are you sure it wasn’t to be an example to us? Are you sure it wasn’t to defeat the forces of evil? Are you sure it wasn’t to appease the justice of a wrathful God? Why did Jesus ask to avoid the cross? What does it mean that God forsook him on the cross?

I’m not saying that what your church says is wrong. I’m asking: do you really believe it? Or are you just accepting what you’ve been told?

Because if it’s the latter, sooner or later you’ll end up in a crisis of faith. Faith has no coat tails. It can’t be imparted or transferred or given away. You can’t just go along for the ride.

Faith is an individual climb up a steep, treacherous mountain. You can’t hook a trailer up to your parents or your pastor or anybody else and simply end up in the same place they do. Without having gone on the journey, you won’t understand how or why you’re in the place where you are, and instead of wanting to venture father into difficult conditions, you’ll be happy to stay where you’re at, until you start to ask ‘why’.  ”Why did we ever come up this mountain in the first place? There’s a perfectly nice, smooth path down at the bottom. All this effort doesn’t seem worth all the trouble.”

I don’t mean this to be rude or disrespectful, but forget what your pastor has told you. Forget what your parents and teachers have told you. Forget about what us bloggers and the televangelists say. What do you believe? What is the purpose of your life? What is it that God wants to do in and through you?

I believe that Jesus is God in the flesh. I don’t believe because somebody told me. I believe because I’ve looked at all the information and evidence, I’ve examined my soul, and I’ve made the leap of faith that goes beyond proof or empirical data. If somebody asks me to show them proof positive that Jesus is real, I don’t have it. But I believe it is true. Everything else is subject to being cast aside.

Because I believe he’s the Son of God, I want to be as much like him as I can. He said to love God and to love people, so I’m trying hard to do that. Not because that’s what is expected of me. Not because other people say I should. But because I believe I should.

Human Flaws and the Perfect Saviour

I always love reading about Peter. I just read Luke 5:8, where, after Jesus tells Peter to go fishing and they pull in a huge haul, Peter falls at Jesus’ feet and shouts, “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” Peter thought he was the kind of dude that God didn’t love. He was a sinner.  He wasn’t some fancy pants religious guy. Peter did his own thing.

He probably figured that as long as he showed God the proper respect (going to synagogue sometimes, respecting the rabbis, not breaking the ‘big’ commandments, etc) and stayed out of his way, God was content to let him do his thing.

But suddenly, Peter realizes that God’s chosen one is sitting in his very boat.

This was bad. This was really, really bad. All his life, he’s tried to keep himself out of God’s crosshairs. As long as he wasn’t too bad, God didn’t have a reason to single him out for punishment, right?

So when Peter realizes that God has come near, his only reasonable solution is to beg him to leave. Simon isn’t worried about what he could miss out on…he’s worried about what God might do to him.

But what Peter doesn’t realize, at least not right away, is that God isn’t interested in all the people who are acting religious, who are only acting holy, who have the best attendance at synagogue, who have the fanciest looking robes.

Jesus is looking for people who are genuine and real. People who are broken and need to be fixed. People who will respond to the love he gives. And that’s Peter to a tee.

So the first words out of Jesus’ mouth are “Don’t be afraid.” I can’t see him saying that without a smile on his face. He knows all about Peter, and loves him none the less. Then Jesus says that he’s got a plan for Peter: “from now on, you will catch men.”

Despite his gruff, rugged exterior and brash, loud-mouth ways, Peter was looking for something bigger than himself to believe in and to pour his life into. It’s why Peter won’t leave Jesus after the hard sermon in John (see 6:68).

It’s Peter who boldly declares that Jesus is the Messiah when everybody else is debating (Matthew 16:16).

It’s Peter who pledges to die with Jesus, if need be (Matthew 26:33). Peter falters the first time, but he bounced back. Eventually, according to Christian tradition, Peter did die for his faith.

Peter is willing to tell Jesus what he thinks and how he feels. He’s open and honest and raw. Half the time, he’s wrong or mistaken, but Jesus doesn’t send him away or punish him for saying what he thinks and how he feels.

In the church, we seem to want people to be restrained and to suppress how they really feel. Say nice things and smile at all times. I hate that. It’s some kind of creepy, fake gospel that I want nothing to do with.

When I read the Psalms and Job and the Gospels, I see real people who love a real God and have real problems in a real world.

You want shiny happy people all the time? Join a cult.

I follow a real saviour. One who was willing to get his hands dirty and bloody in order to pull me out of the mud pit I was stuck in. I thank God that he’s transforming me, and the transformation isn’t to a boring wallflower.

I want my life to bring attention to how wonderful he is, and the only way I know how to do that is by being genuine.