One of my favorite songs asks the question “Which Jesus do you follow?” It points to our tendency to turn Jesus into whatever makes us feel better about ourselves, rather than simply seeing Him for who He truly is. And in my own personal contemplation on the subject, my memory was jogged back to a book I read years ago titled “Is Jesus a Republican or Democrat?”
The book actually consitsts of about fifteen “hot topics” for Christians and to be honest I didn’t care for most of it, but I was always especially intrigued by this one question. And how much more appropriate is it as we enter into the homestretch of a major election season? Don’t worry, this is not a political blog and I fully intend to keep my own political persuasion and opinions to myself. But think about that question for a minute. Go and ask any random number of people if Jesus is a Republican or Democrat and I’d be willing to bet you’ll end up with Jesus perched high on an elephant rather than seated on a donkey. Even though it seems like more and more candidates from both sides are trying to promote their faith, Republicans are just more widely seen today as a party that is tied to the church.
But go back in your time machine fourty or fifty years or more and ask the same question. Chances are you’ll get a very different answer. Why is that? Did Jesus change his political affiliation? No, but society has changed. Many of our societal values have changed. Our culture is changing. But Jesus doesn’t change. Truth is, Jesus has no political, national, governmental, societal, racial, denominational or any other affiliation. That’s all conceived by us. George Bernard Shaw, in his cynicism of religion, once said “God created us in His image, and we have decided to return the favor.” How painfully true is that statement? Even within our own faith we have divided ourselves into different denominations because we have so many different versions of God. Why are we making God into our image rather than conforming to His? One church says that you need to respect and revere God. That you need to dress your best and sing the hymns of our forefathers. The next says God doesn’t care what you wear as long as you come. And everything is contemporary and culturally relevant because that’s how Jesus would be if He were here today. So, who’s right? That’s the $25,000 question isn't it? To be honest, maybe both are wrong. Maybe both are right. Or maybe, just maybe, it doesn’t matter.
Sometimes I think we concentrate too much on the how rather than the why. We spend more time convincing ourselves that we are doing things the way God intended than we do on simply finding out who God really is. Why do we waste our time trying to squeeze Jesus into a mold that, because of our own limited nature, can never hope to contain all that He is, when all we need to do is allow ourselves to freely fall into the mold of Him that we were made to fit into so perfectly?
Jesus didn’t tell us who to vote for. He told us to pray for those chosen to lead us. He didn’t tell us who to have as friends. He said to love all our neighbors as ourselves. He didn’t give us an outline of how to do church, saying exactly where the announcements should go, and what songs to sing. He simply said to love Him above all others and to spread His message. Jesus is so many things. He is The Creator. The Comforter. The Healer. The Almighty. The Teacher. The Judge. He is The Way. He is Love. He is The Father. The Bridegroom. The Shepherd. He was battered. He was beaten. He was scarred. He died. And he rose to defeat death. He is the one who is the Beginning and the End but who has no beginning or end. He Was and Is to Come. And he simply Is. But he’s not a Democrat or Republican.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Screwtape Chapter 8
So, here it is as promised last week. The Screwtape Letters Chapter eight in it's entirety.
My dear Wormwood,
So you 'have great hopes that the patient's religious phase is dying away', have you? I always thought the Training College had gone to pieces since they put old Slubgob at the head of it, and now I am sure. Has no one ever told you about the law of Undulation?
Humans are amphibians - half spirit and half animal. (The Enemy's determination to produce such a revolting hybrid was one of the things that determined Our Father to withdraw his support from Him.) As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation - the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks. If you had watched your patient carefully you would have seen this undulation in every part of his life - his interest in his work, his affection for his friends, his physical appetites, all go up and down. As long as he lives on earth periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty. The dryness and dullness through which your patient is now going are not, as you fondly suppose, your workmanship; they are merely a natural phenomenon which will do us no good unless you make a good use of it.
To decide what the best use of it is, you must ask what use the Enemy wants to make of it, and then do the opposite. Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks; Some of His special favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else. The reason is this. To us a human is primarily food; our aim is the absorption of its will into ours. The increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. But the obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself - creatures whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in; He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; He is full and flows over. Our war aim is a world in which Our Father Below has drawn all other beings into himself; the Enemy wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct.
And that is where the troughs come in. You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. But you now see that the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve. He is prepared to do a little overriding at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. But He never allows this state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs - to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. We can drag our patients along by continual tempting, because we design them only for the table, and the more their will is interfered with the better. He cannot 'tempt' to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood, Our case is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.
But of course the troughs afford opportunities to our side also. Next week I will give you some hints on how to exploit them,
Your affectionate uncle
Screwtape
My dear Wormwood,
So you 'have great hopes that the patient's religious phase is dying away', have you? I always thought the Training College had gone to pieces since they put old Slubgob at the head of it, and now I am sure. Has no one ever told you about the law of Undulation?
Humans are amphibians - half spirit and half animal. (The Enemy's determination to produce such a revolting hybrid was one of the things that determined Our Father to withdraw his support from Him.) As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation - the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks. If you had watched your patient carefully you would have seen this undulation in every part of his life - his interest in his work, his affection for his friends, his physical appetites, all go up and down. As long as he lives on earth periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty. The dryness and dullness through which your patient is now going are not, as you fondly suppose, your workmanship; they are merely a natural phenomenon which will do us no good unless you make a good use of it.
To decide what the best use of it is, you must ask what use the Enemy wants to make of it, and then do the opposite. Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks; Some of His special favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else. The reason is this. To us a human is primarily food; our aim is the absorption of its will into ours. The increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. But the obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself - creatures whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in; He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; He is full and flows over. Our war aim is a world in which Our Father Below has drawn all other beings into himself; the Enemy wants a world full of beings united to Him but still distinct.
And that is where the troughs come in. You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He chooses and at any moment. But you now see that the Irresistible and the Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to override a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve. He is prepared to do a little overriding at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. But He never allows this state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs - to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. We can drag our patients along by continual tempting, because we design them only for the table, and the more their will is interfered with the better. He cannot 'tempt' to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood, Our case is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.
But of course the troughs afford opportunities to our side also. Next week I will give you some hints on how to exploit them,
Your affectionate uncle
Screwtape
Monday, March 10, 2008
Why the Pain?
It's really late right now. Ok, so technically it's really early but you get the idea. Let me start by saying that I have no idea where this is going to go. I have no quote to write about, no song to post, no wonderful passage from the latest book I've read. Nothing. I just feel like writing. It's kind of soothing. I think that's why I started doing it in the first place. Used to be playing music did it for me (kind of still does) but now it's writing. Tends to clear my head.
I wondered a little tonight why God allows so much sorrow, heartache, and pain to enter our lives. Why joy is often seemingly held hostage until we pay the ransom of hardship. Why does it have to be like that? Why can't good things just happen to good people? Why can't a loving God make His children's journey through this time on earth a smooth one? But no. We labor for the sake of Christ and in return we often don't get all the joy we think we deserve. Mind you, sometimes we do. The narrow path can at times be very rewarding. But I think we expect sometimes that since we have God in our corner we should be shielded from the sorrows and heartaches of this world. It never happens like that does it? And you know what? Good. I'm glad God doesn't just swoop in and erase the pain of those He calls His children. How intensely unfulfilling would that kind of life be? (Just for the record, I'm going to bed now. I can't keep my eyes open and my thoughts are a little jumbled. It will be interesting to see what comes of this in the morning.)
Ok, I'm back. But it's not the next morning, it's a week later and I just erased about half of what I had already written. Not so much because I didn't like it. I kind of did. But God has once again decided to intercede into my thoughts and what I just erased didn't flow well with where I am about to go with this. Let me first of all say that if you've never read "The Screwtape Letters", you really need to. What an absolutely amazing glimpse into human behavior. Now let me go back a little. Last week when I started writing this, I wasn't sure if I would post it or not. I figured I'd look at it the next day and either decide to add to it or erase it. I almost erased it twice. But I hung on to it a little longer. I think mostly because of the pull that I felt to write it all down that night. I didn't want to dismiss that. So, on Wednesday I was working my second job. It's pretty slow in the evenings and I had "The Screwtape Letters" with me to read. And there it was; chapter eight. I knew almost immediately I had to write about it, but as I thought on my way home how to put it all down, it became clear that I had already started. So, here I am now a week later and I guess I do have a passage from the latest book I've read.
Briefly, for those that have not read it, "The Screwtape Letters" is a satirical collection of letters from one demon (Screwtape) to another (his nephew Wormwood) regarding Wormwood's efforts to keep his patient (a human) away from the path of God. I wish I could go into more detail but you just have to read it. In fact, I think I’m going to go ahead and post this chapter in its entirety next week. There's just too much good stuff for me to condense here. But I am going to pull out a couple of sentences that really summed it all up for me.
One of Lewis' points here is that while God is very real and seemingly present to us when we choose to accept Him, "Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience." Why is this? Why would God choose to withdraw those utopic feelings we have at the beginning of our walk with Him? He is certainly capable of lavishing those on us every moment of the day. As Lewis writes,
"He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs - to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best."
And here are the last couple of sentences.
"He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why He has been forsaken, and still obeys."
It is important to remember that God is always present in our lives. Always. But those wonderful, euphoric feelings are not. By His nature He can not actively woo us to virtue like the enemy can to vice. So he allows us to feel the pain. The heartache. The sorrows. All the while He is standing right there beside us, just waiting for us to realize it and call out to Him. To offer our prayers in the state of dryness. To continually desire to walk even though we may stumble. To carry out by sheer will, duties which have lost their relish. And to look upon a universe seemingly void of His presence, with no desire to do His will, and still obey. And in the end it's all because, as Lewis said, it's through those troughs, much more than the peaks, that we are growing into the creatures that He wants us to be.
How much would we really know about God's mercy, forgiveness and love for us if we never experienced those trials, sorrows, and hardships? It's so easy to call on His name and do His will when we are on top of the world, but it's what we do when we are looking up from the depths and no longer feel His presence that really matters. Are we looking to the heavens and saying "My God, why have you forsaken me?" Or are we bowing humbly before Him, knowing that He is in fact there by our side even though we can't always feel Him? Instead of bemoaning the trials and pain in our life, we need to embrace them. To realize that it is our faithfulness in those times of trial that draws us ever closer to the One who is and always will be right by our side. Even if once and a while He must take away His hand.
I wondered a little tonight why God allows so much sorrow, heartache, and pain to enter our lives. Why joy is often seemingly held hostage until we pay the ransom of hardship. Why does it have to be like that? Why can't good things just happen to good people? Why can't a loving God make His children's journey through this time on earth a smooth one? But no. We labor for the sake of Christ and in return we often don't get all the joy we think we deserve. Mind you, sometimes we do. The narrow path can at times be very rewarding. But I think we expect sometimes that since we have God in our corner we should be shielded from the sorrows and heartaches of this world. It never happens like that does it? And you know what? Good. I'm glad God doesn't just swoop in and erase the pain of those He calls His children. How intensely unfulfilling would that kind of life be? (Just for the record, I'm going to bed now. I can't keep my eyes open and my thoughts are a little jumbled. It will be interesting to see what comes of this in the morning.)
Ok, I'm back. But it's not the next morning, it's a week later and I just erased about half of what I had already written. Not so much because I didn't like it. I kind of did. But God has once again decided to intercede into my thoughts and what I just erased didn't flow well with where I am about to go with this. Let me first of all say that if you've never read "The Screwtape Letters", you really need to. What an absolutely amazing glimpse into human behavior. Now let me go back a little. Last week when I started writing this, I wasn't sure if I would post it or not. I figured I'd look at it the next day and either decide to add to it or erase it. I almost erased it twice. But I hung on to it a little longer. I think mostly because of the pull that I felt to write it all down that night. I didn't want to dismiss that. So, on Wednesday I was working my second job. It's pretty slow in the evenings and I had "The Screwtape Letters" with me to read. And there it was; chapter eight. I knew almost immediately I had to write about it, but as I thought on my way home how to put it all down, it became clear that I had already started. So, here I am now a week later and I guess I do have a passage from the latest book I've read.
Briefly, for those that have not read it, "The Screwtape Letters" is a satirical collection of letters from one demon (Screwtape) to another (his nephew Wormwood) regarding Wormwood's efforts to keep his patient (a human) away from the path of God. I wish I could go into more detail but you just have to read it. In fact, I think I’m going to go ahead and post this chapter in its entirety next week. There's just too much good stuff for me to condense here. But I am going to pull out a couple of sentences that really summed it all up for me.
One of Lewis' points here is that while God is very real and seemingly present to us when we choose to accept Him, "Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience." Why is this? Why would God choose to withdraw those utopic feelings we have at the beginning of our walk with Him? He is certainly capable of lavishing those on us every moment of the day. As Lewis writes,
"He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs - to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best."
And here are the last couple of sentences.
"He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why He has been forsaken, and still obeys."
It is important to remember that God is always present in our lives. Always. But those wonderful, euphoric feelings are not. By His nature He can not actively woo us to virtue like the enemy can to vice. So he allows us to feel the pain. The heartache. The sorrows. All the while He is standing right there beside us, just waiting for us to realize it and call out to Him. To offer our prayers in the state of dryness. To continually desire to walk even though we may stumble. To carry out by sheer will, duties which have lost their relish. And to look upon a universe seemingly void of His presence, with no desire to do His will, and still obey. And in the end it's all because, as Lewis said, it's through those troughs, much more than the peaks, that we are growing into the creatures that He wants us to be.
How much would we really know about God's mercy, forgiveness and love for us if we never experienced those trials, sorrows, and hardships? It's so easy to call on His name and do His will when we are on top of the world, but it's what we do when we are looking up from the depths and no longer feel His presence that really matters. Are we looking to the heavens and saying "My God, why have you forsaken me?" Or are we bowing humbly before Him, knowing that He is in fact there by our side even though we can't always feel Him? Instead of bemoaning the trials and pain in our life, we need to embrace them. To realize that it is our faithfulness in those times of trial that draws us ever closer to the One who is and always will be right by our side. Even if once and a while He must take away His hand.
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
I don't like your Christians
It’s kind of funny how things come together sometimes. I was mulling over this particular subject for a long time. I had always wanted to write about it, but for some reason I just kept putting it off. So one Sunday I was sitting in church, and wouldn’t you know, the pastor spoke about this same topic. The best part is that it gave me a great quote to include that I had heard before but forgot about. I'll give you the quote first. I hate to say that I don't remember the exact context, but it was spoken by Ghandi. He said, “I like your Christ. I do not like you’re Christians. You’re Christians are so unlike you’re Christ.” During the message that last sentence was excluded, but I think that it is so vital to the subject.
I remember years ago working the front desk at a hotel. It was a smaller hotel, but it had a meeting room and a pool. That meant that we got a lot of groups wanting to book meetings/birthday parties/slumber parties/pool parties etc. What struck me when I started there was another employee telling me how much she dreaded church groups. I have to admit I was a little offended at the time, being myself a Christian. That lasted only until I experienced my first church group at the hotel. And I know that almost anyone in foodservice will say the same for the Sunday lunch rush as churches let out.
Let me give you one more example before I move on. I knew a couple that was going through a very difficult time in their marriage. The wife especially needed a lot of support. What I witnessed irritates me to this day. This wife had a best friend of many, many years. A friend claiming to be a Christian and very involved in the church. But this friend turned her back on the wife. It always seemed to be one excuse or another, but what it really came down to was that she was uncomfortable with the situation the wife was dealing with. The wife did end up finding the support she needed, but it was from friends who really didn’t go to church, and didn’t profess to be Christians. Please, don’t misunderstand me. By no means am I saying that it's unusual to find that kind of love, support and understanding from those who don't profess to be believers. Everyone is capable of that. But what does it say about the body of Christ that the one person who you would have expected above all others to lend support, turned away? All of these examples lead me right back to Ghandi. “Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
There is one other quote that comes to mind as I write this. I posted a song in another blog once titled “Stained Glass Masquerade.” The jacket to the CD included comments about each song from the songwriter, and I love what he said about this one. He said, “I don't think it bothers the world that we sin. I think it bothers the world that we act like we don't.”
In the end I’m left wondering what it is about Christans that makes the rest of the world feel and say what they do. Maybe it’s that sense of arrogance the songwriter spoke about. That we take for granted that we have been given a miraculous and totally undeserved gift of forgiveness, and instead of being completely humbled by it, we walk around like our s**t don’t stink. Maybe it’s just much broader than that. Maybe, like Ghandi said, we are simply unlike Christ. So concerned with just being in church on Sunday because it’s the moral/right/trendy/good etc. thing to do, but we don’t bother to dive deep and investigate the true meaning and cost of being a disciple. Or maybe Christians will just always be viewed more harshly and held to a different standard no matter what. After all, we’re foreigners here. Aliens. Strangers. We don’t belong. Christ said to expect it.
The catch is that, as Christians, we can’t use that as an excuse. We can't profess and show the love of God only when it's convenient for us, have somebody speaks ill of us because of it, then turn to God and thank Him for the persecution that we are experiencing.
As I’ve stood back over the last couple of years, I’ve seen all of this. In fact, as I look back at my own life I see it. And quite frankly, it’s disturbing. So, what’s the answer? Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t think there is any one particular answer. I do have a few more thoughts, but I think I’ll just leave them for another time and let you all comment.
I remember years ago working the front desk at a hotel. It was a smaller hotel, but it had a meeting room and a pool. That meant that we got a lot of groups wanting to book meetings/birthday parties/slumber parties/pool parties etc. What struck me when I started there was another employee telling me how much she dreaded church groups. I have to admit I was a little offended at the time, being myself a Christian. That lasted only until I experienced my first church group at the hotel. And I know that almost anyone in foodservice will say the same for the Sunday lunch rush as churches let out.
Let me give you one more example before I move on. I knew a couple that was going through a very difficult time in their marriage. The wife especially needed a lot of support. What I witnessed irritates me to this day. This wife had a best friend of many, many years. A friend claiming to be a Christian and very involved in the church. But this friend turned her back on the wife. It always seemed to be one excuse or another, but what it really came down to was that she was uncomfortable with the situation the wife was dealing with. The wife did end up finding the support she needed, but it was from friends who really didn’t go to church, and didn’t profess to be Christians. Please, don’t misunderstand me. By no means am I saying that it's unusual to find that kind of love, support and understanding from those who don't profess to be believers. Everyone is capable of that. But what does it say about the body of Christ that the one person who you would have expected above all others to lend support, turned away? All of these examples lead me right back to Ghandi. “Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
There is one other quote that comes to mind as I write this. I posted a song in another blog once titled “Stained Glass Masquerade.” The jacket to the CD included comments about each song from the songwriter, and I love what he said about this one. He said, “I don't think it bothers the world that we sin. I think it bothers the world that we act like we don't.”
In the end I’m left wondering what it is about Christans that makes the rest of the world feel and say what they do. Maybe it’s that sense of arrogance the songwriter spoke about. That we take for granted that we have been given a miraculous and totally undeserved gift of forgiveness, and instead of being completely humbled by it, we walk around like our s**t don’t stink. Maybe it’s just much broader than that. Maybe, like Ghandi said, we are simply unlike Christ. So concerned with just being in church on Sunday because it’s the moral/right/trendy/good etc. thing to do, but we don’t bother to dive deep and investigate the true meaning and cost of being a disciple. Or maybe Christians will just always be viewed more harshly and held to a different standard no matter what. After all, we’re foreigners here. Aliens. Strangers. We don’t belong. Christ said to expect it.
The catch is that, as Christians, we can’t use that as an excuse. We can't profess and show the love of God only when it's convenient for us, have somebody speaks ill of us because of it, then turn to God and thank Him for the persecution that we are experiencing.
As I’ve stood back over the last couple of years, I’ve seen all of this. In fact, as I look back at my own life I see it. And quite frankly, it’s disturbing. So, what’s the answer? Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t think there is any one particular answer. I do have a few more thoughts, but I think I’ll just leave them for another time and let you all comment.
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