Do We Pretend?

"Don't just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good." Romans 12:9 NLT

I have a confession to make. It's not an easy one it's not a fun one, but it is one that must be made.

I have pretended to love others... I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this particular act. We all do it, we don't like to admit it but we do. The real problem is many times when I'm pretending to love others, I'm fooling myself as much as I'm pretending. Fool myself into believing that I am showing love to people.

Aside from the fact that I am taking this weeks sermon text from Romans 12, there are other things that have brought this revelation to my being. Wow that sounds appropriately mystical, my being, anyway, in the past few weeks I have found that my tolerance level for a large group of people who are of a different political and social persuasion than I am getting less and less. In case you were wondering, and were unable to tell, I'm not really in the right camp as it were for many of the people I grew up with and who I am friends with. I know that many of my friends, former co workers, pastors and leaders are on one side of things, I also know that there was a time when I was there too, mainly because I was supposed to be, if I had any prayer of moving forward and moving up in certain circles in my chosen profession well there are things you are supposed to be, and a left leaning guy, that embraces some aspects (not all) but some aspects of socialism, who finds himself consistency voting on the Democrat side of the ticket isn't one of them. The thing is I have come to the realization that at the time I did hold a lot of those things as important, and while I would never really have branded myself as conservative, it seemed to make sense. As I've gotten older, and gone through life. As I have studied scripture, and as I have looked at history my views and leanings have changed.

I find some people hard to understand. Many times I get a sense that a lot of the people from my past would like to see the President fail, would like to take the New Pope to task for not holding the things they hold dear as important. Many of them seem to think more of their right to own a gun, than they do of the lives that are consistently taken by the same weapons. These same people call for a return to the way it was, to prayer in schools, to a melding of church and state to unfettered investment and capitalism at the expense of what I view as common sense.

BUT and here is where I realize I have been pretending to love people. Just as I get upset when a person judges my faith based on my political leanings. I have done the same thing based on theirs. I have pretended to love them. I have pretended to respect their point of view. I have pretended to be okay with what I view as their narrow view of life, and scripture and Christianity. Here's the problem in my passing judgment on them as narrow minded, I have shown my own narrow mindedness. I have taken delight in pointing out where they are wrong, or where they are posting things as fact that come strait from satirical news sources. I have looked at them as un-enlightened just as they may look at me. I have forgotten that Love is more than just saying it. Instead of taking them to task, instead of allowing the smug thought's that come to my mind, instead of writing them off I should talk to God for them. I should love them like Jesus did. That's what we are supposed to do. Countless times in the New Testament we find Jesus loving people where they were, not just geographically, but where they are in their journey. He didn't give a set of hoops to jump through for His love to be accepted. He didn't tell people to be worthy before he reached out to them. He just loved them as they were, weather they were a prostitute, a tax collector, a Samaratin woman, a untouchable leper...a traitor. Jesus loved people. He cried for people, he got angry at people, and he died for people, people that didn't agree with him, that didn't look like him, that didn't believe like he did. He died for people that were broken, people that were rich, for people that's what he did.

One of my favorite pictures of Jesus comes from the woman that the pastors wanted to stone because she broke the rules. At the end of the whole altercation, after ignoring them, drawing in the ground, and even agreeing with what the rules they were talking about were broken and that the punishment was legitimate, he does two things. He puts a condition on their being able to meet out said punishment. If you haven't ever sinned have at. Grab those rocks and start chucking them. He then looks at her asks where her accusers were, she looks up and realizes they are gone, and he says something that is very important. Neither do I condemn you. This is important because He had the ability to do so. He was without sin. He could have picked up the rocks but he didn't He loved her, didn't condem her and then made one request. Don't do it any more. That's huge. He didn't set up a 12 step program, He didn't give her an accountability partner, He didn't brand her for life. He simply told her to stop. He loved her, and trusted that the love he showed, that the encounter she had with him would be enough.

I have not done that. I have been pretending to love people, attempting to enlighten them, attempting to show them how it should be, trying to point out why I'm right and they're wrong... Who cares. What matters is this.

1. Jesus died for whoever...

2. Jesus death and resurrection was a game changer for all of humanity right where they were not where they should have been or where could have been

3. As a Christ Follower it's my job to be like Jesus to love people where they are without strings

4. If I will do that, if I will show my faith as well as sharing my faith with others, and then trust that an encounter with Jesus will make a difference, I won't find it necessary to defend my side of things, to prove that I'm right and they are wrong, no matter who it is, Republican, Democrat, Liberal Conservative, Strait, LGBT, Right or Left, Evangelical or Not. If I show the LOVE of Christ, and refuse to compromise on what is true, then get out of the way then that will be enough.

So there it is I am sorry for pretending to Love. It may take a while for God and I to deal with this issue, and I know that once we complete this project He'll start another but that's what it is to be a Christ Follower...

The Jorney that ended at a beginning...

The last five or six years have been really interesting in our life. There have been good times, bad ones as well and then of course the obligatory downright frightening ones. My kids are getting bigger and bigger, my age is going up and up. My eyes are beginning to betray me, especially when I have to read some fine print, who knew I would have to take off my glasses to see the small stuff, course if I am wearing my contacts it's the whole far away close thing or squint. Anyway I digress.

My family is an integral part of my life, but the journey that I'm talking about is more of a personal one. If you had asked me 5 years ago, shoot if you had asked me 2 years ago what I would be doing when I turned 40, I would have said that I would be subbing at my wife's school, or doing some sort of IT work, both of which have happened. I would have said that as sad as it is the whole ministry as a vocation thing is probably over. I'm 40 and I never really thought of myself as anything but a youth or young adult pastor. I would get glimpses of what I could do. I would pray, I wrote out ministry plans to start new churches, bounced them off other people I respected, but never really thought much past that. J and I would talk about what would happen if we were Lead Pastors, I was sending resumes out left and right for all kinds of positions, even lead pastor positions, even did several interviews for student ministry stuff. Worked part time at a couple of churches as a ministry coordinator, but that was it. As the mileage counter clicked to 40 I told J that no one was going to hire a 40 year old guy to be a student ministries pastor. I did some interviews, even got to the finish line of a couple only to be passed by another candidate on the way to the tape. It was hard to always be second, but I figured this was the way it was going to be. I would work IT and volunteer at the church we are attending and let that be the way things were...I couldn't shake that calling that I felt God had given me, I felt like I was sitting on the gifts that God has given me because no one wanted me. Amazing really how we can dig holes of pity, remorse, regret, and pride then jump down in them, looking up from our hole and tell the people looking down in on us that we understand, that God lets people go through things, we like to talk about 1 Cor. 13, wear it like a badge of honor, saying God won't give me things I can't handle. The problem is how we read that verse. We like to lump all the trials in our life into this non existent verse. If we read it properly in context... well here look at the whole thing.

1 Corinthians 10:13-14 (NLT)
13 The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.
14 So, my dear friends, flee from the worship of idols.

See it is not trouble or trials it's temptation. It's the things that tend to drag us down, that want to pull our focus from God. God tells us he will show us the way out of the temptation, the way to get away from the thing that could potentially pull us away from Him, he didn't say he would make it easy, the verse doesn't say God will pull you out of the trouble. It doesn't even say there will be big neon signs and a wide exit lane out of the temptation. It says there will be a way provided out of the temptation. It also doesn't say if we take the way out things will be rosy, it says he'll provide a way out of the temptation so we can endure. Endure is one of those words that denotes work involved, that says there is going to be some difficulty, some pain, some hardship. I love running, but due to my leg being messed up earlier this year, the doctor said I had to quite running for a while, now that it's healed I have some work to do to build up the muscles around the bone, I will then be able to start running again, and I'm going to have to rebuild the endurance that I had worked hard to achieve. It's the same thing with the whole temptation thing with God. He's not going to make it easy, he's not saying that there is going to be an easy way out of it. He's saying there will be a way out to endure the temptation.

Anyway back to the Journey that ended at a beginning. I've been walking this journey of being a pastor that no one wants for so long that I figured that was how things were going to continue. J kept telling me God was keeping something for me, that he was letting me do all these things so that I could really minister somewhere. She said that she wished instead of identifying with Job when things were sad she wished I could identify with Joshua. It is in this vein that things happened. See back in June I had sent out yet another resume to a church in Baltimore. J and I drove over to check it out and get a tour, in the process we met with one of the people on the search committee, from there we had a second interview, but it happened so much later that I really wondered. We finished up the first official interview, headed back out to check out a neighborhood festival to get an idea of the people we would be serving. I had a burden for Locust Point. I never really undersold that concept but I think I do now. I get it, the people of this community and the people in the church were on my heart. I prayed for them, I prayed for the church, and I wanted to plan ministry, to do all sorts of work for this church that I wasn't guaranteed to be working at, in fact if past performance equaled future results it would be just another we like you but.

It got quiet. What was going to be a decision made in October, kept getting pushed back, then one Sunday I got a call that they wanted to do a second interview. I was really happy about that but it was strange because once again it got silent. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and then New Years passed with nothing and I just chalked it up to one of the other people got the nod.

Then I got an email, asking for a date in January to meet with me. The last two Sunday's had been taken but the second one was open. I said sure, pulled out the ministry plan I had been working on and that I felt was the direction God wanted the church in Locust point to go, prayed and we headed out there on a Sunday afternoon to what promised to be the final interview. They were lining the candidates up in the month of January and just like Highlander there could be only one. Final interview went well, and out the church doors we went to look at one of the hosing options for the pastor when the committee called the guy that was going to show us around back in. It was urgent they said.

We toured the house and I told them I looked forward to hearing from them in February, secretly figuring it would be at least March before a decision was made and when it happened it would be another "you're great but." Imagine my surprise when they said well we are canceling the other interviews. We want you to be our Pastor.

I figure the title is self explanatory now. It's been a long journey to full time ministry, and well that's where this whole thing begins.

Pick Me Pick Me

 

As we move into the Christmas season the Newell house find's itself watching all sorts of Christmas specials. We have the old standards to watch, Frosty, Jack Frost, Charlie Brown, The Grinch, the list goes on we also have Christmas specials with vegetables, panda's, animals marooned on an island and of course one with the guy you see in this picture.

Which of course reminded me of the original movie, and prompted my wife to ask if I ever felt like Donky from Shrek. Yeah I realize that I just opened myself up for all sorts of comments, I'm okay with that. The specific scene she is referring to is the one in the first movie when Shrek is getting ready to go on his epic quest to save the princess, he asks for volunteers to join him and well ...http://youtu.be/NF95MMcn_B0

I feel this way sometimes in a lot of ways, especially when it comes to the calling that God has placed on my life, the desire to fulfill it, the need to have a clear indication of how that's supposed to happen, and the revelations that come each time I move toward something that resembles not just what I am but who I am. I seem to be great at being the second or third, and well there are times I just want to say pick me pick me.

Here's the thing. I find myself being content with waiting and where things are for a time, but like so many things in life the ups and downs make me melancholy and I think about all that I was and all that I want to be. I still have times that I ask God to just remove the desire to pastor from my life. To take away the calling that he gave me and to leave me alone when it comes to that side of my life. I have no desire to abandon my faith, just would be great to abandon the calling. To put up my hands and say forget it.

So many day's start by me suiting up, finally applying the cowl of I'm okay with it and starting my day. The real deal is I can pretend for a while that I am. I can even fool myself into believing it for a while, but then the days grow long, and the walls close in and I sit a shell of the person that I was, going through the motions of life feeling inadequate, and unwanted. Thankfully this is not a permanent state of life. I know we all have the days that we feel like we can do anything, and the days that we feel like pulling the covers over our heads. The past months have been more akin to the later than the former. I know that it'll change, it always does. I know how blessed I am to have the family I have, to have the wife I have to have the girls. Nothing is better than Me Me giving me hugs or being full of joy when I get home from appointments at night. Amberly will come up in the morning and just drape her arms around my back or give me a hug and say I love you. Zoey makes sure I know she wants some snuggle time. J will scratch my back or hold my hand. These things are better than gold to me. They sustain me. They make me know I am loved. They should be enough, and in most instances they are but I still feel inadequate. I still feel less than whole and those are the times that I just want to jump around like Donkey and say Pick Me Pick me. I want to say it to the churches I apply to, to the ones that I would apply to, to anyone that will listen, and I want one of them, just one to do it...

So What's the Bad News?

We've all heard it, I have some good news and some bad news. Sometimes it's said in jest, sometimes it can be very serious. Many times it's a way for someone to deliver news or information that they don't really want to.

Unless you are part of the Adams family delivering bad news, or sad news, or difficult information is just not fun. Many times when bad news of any form is delivered the messenger gets the blame, and no one wants to take the blame. Plus it's just plain hard to watch a persons face fall when they have to hear something difficult.

I hate bad news I hate getting it, I hate delivering it. Recently I had to deliver some bad news to my oldest daughter. It seems that the family Christmas dinner that is usually scheduled for the Sunday after Thanksgiving was moved up to the Sunday before Thanksgiving this year. It was bad news because she really was looking forward to going to Alive with the church we attend. Having to tell her she couldn't was a bummer.

Telling my kid she can't go to youth convention is one thing, it's sad, she gets angry, we deal with it. The thing that I am thinking about when it comes to bad news is the kind that a Christ follower must bring to people who don't have a relationship with God, or that a pastor needs to bring to a congregation. The kind of news that holds up the tuff parts of scripture, the messy ones, the ones that don't show as much of the grace, love and mercy of God as they do the justice, instruction, and correction side.

I find myself walking some interesting lines these days. As a Christ Follower who believes the Bible is more than just a good read, or a set of philosophical, moral, or religious teachings. The words that I ascribe to the Bible are Truth and History. Sure there are areas that I am willing to look at on a different level. Looking at the creation account I can see loads of room for the idea of Day Age, and even dare I say it some form of Theistic Evolution. The point for me when it comes to Genesis and the creation account has much less to do with literal, figurative, or poetic, as it does truth. The truth is no one knows. The truth is God created I really don't care how just the fact that it happened because GOD. Because God. Who cares how and why does it matter. But I digress.

The line I find myself walking is one that every Christian Leader worth his or her salt should walk. There is a balancing act in scripture. Some in the scholarly world would talk about old covenant and new covenant. A difference between the Old Testament God who on first read can seem angry, vindictive, and prejudice, and the New Testament Jesus who's ideas of love, grace, mercy and forgiveness don't really line up. How can those two personalities be reconciled.

Which brings me to the jumping off point for this post.

Within three days, Pharaoh will lift your head and remove it from you. He will impale your body on a tree and vultures will swoop down and eat the flesh from your bones. Gen 40:19 (The Voice)

Joseph has the whole good news bad news thing going on in this particular account. He just got done telling Pharaoh's Cup Bearer the good news. He was going to be restored to his position, he was going to get out of Jail. Things were looking up in his world. I wonder at what the Baker must have thought at this point. His buddy was about to be set free, not only that but he was going to be given his old job back. I'm guessing he may have had some excitement when he told his dream. Some anticipation that hey cool it's good news. But Joseph didn't have any good news to give him. He had to deliver the bad news. To tell the guy that things just weren't going to be working out for him.

This is the same line that Christ Followers walk when it comes to God's Word. It's the line that pastors walk when the come to those difficult parts of the Old Testament. It's the line that many people like to ignore. Many like to come down on one side or the other. Some churches embrace a world view that is decidedly non-inclusive. They use Old Testament Law to alienate, dissociate, or excommunicate anyone that doesn't measure up, forgetting that no one ever did measure up, even the guy that was known as being a man after God's own heart, didn't measure up, breaking more than one of the big ten in the process. Equally disconcerting is the other side, the side that uses grace, mercy and forgiveness found in the New Testament as an excuse, a way to make following Christ, easy. Tolerance becomes the all important word here. Many times to the point of throwing away any semblance of living a life that is pleasing to God. As a person that has preached many sermons I can tell you, it's a lot more fun to preach the cheerleader sermons, the ones about how Great God is, how full of love he is, how much he wants to bless his people. It's fun to watch people in worship, it can be an incredible ego boost to see people respond to a message in large numbers, and it's so much easier to get this to happen when we stick to the good parts. It's hard to wrestle the Old Testament God into submission, so why do so many leaders try.

Joseph had to deliver the bad news and he did. I wonder if we are willing to do the same. I don't think God is all sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns, nor do I think that God is all thunder, and fire, and wind. I think we try to hard. I know I do. How do you make God accessible to people who don't measure up to the Old Testament standard. The one that they see so many leaders today push. How do you make God accessible to the people who have bought into the whole I'm okay you're okay God is there to bless you he loves you?

Joseph holds the key. It was Joseph's job to deliver the message. That's what he did. He delivered the good news, he delivered the bad news, he left God to do the rest. I think that's the key. We can't wrestle the God of the Old Testament into submission, and we can't force Levitical standards that no one could live up to into Jesus teachings. Paul wrote to the Galatians about this whole thing. For the whole law comes down to this one instruction:"Love your neighbor as yourself. Gal 5:14 (The Voice)

As a Christ Follower it's my job to speak the truth, with love, compassion and care. To share the cool gooshy parts of scripture and the sharp angry parts of scripture. Then step back and let God take care of the rest.

Dear John and Mark,

Greetings,

I realize that I am not one of the influential christians that has the worlds ear. I realize I have not written books by the thousands, in fact the one that I am in the middle of writing is at most a cathartic practice.

I'm a used to be. I used to be a youth pastor, I used to be an associate pastor, I used to be involved on a district level in leadership.

I am called, I know that I am gifted, that's something that I realize. I am also broken, something that I wouldn't change for anything in the world. I am writing to you as person who was in full time ministry and who will be again if God opens those doors, and who will continue to do what I can where I am until that time comes if ever.

As a used to be that is attempting with all that is in him to follow Christ, I am really embarrassed by both of you. I have read and enjoyed both of your ministries, I grew up in the AG, moved on toward non-denominational leanings because I didn't really fit in the AG world. Since then I have moved in other directions. If you were to read any of the blog that I am posting this letter to you would find a person that is attempting to walk out the faith he has found in Christ and to bring light to people who have no clue.

I am writing because I don't understand the motivation behind the current fight within the evangelical church. As you are the most visible at this point, and as your twitter accounts, instagrams, and conference are at the forefront of this battle.

What I see in the events of the weekend, tweets from the conference, tweets from the people who are against the strange fire movement, rebuttals, articles, and proofs that either side is right has taken away from the work that we are called too.

If registration for the conference were just 50 dollars, with 3000 attendees we are looking at $150,000 that could have been used to reach people who need a relationship with Jesus.

It's a tragedy to me that instead of the church, not the cessasionists, not the charismatics, not the evangelical, not the catholic, not the AG or Baptist, or Episcopal... you get the idea it's a tragedy to me that we have the hope of Christ and instead of sharing the hope of Christ with a world that is dieing, we are throwing rocks at each other. Staging book give aways at a place we know will spark controversy, and telling an entire group of people who have a very real faith that they are wrong, and they really have no relationship with God.

A couple of days ago I wrote a blog that was a dig at the partisanship I see in the church. The idea that we are to live at peace with all men as much as possible.

Gentlemen when you fight like this, when you tear down in the name of truth you make it harder and harder for the every day Christ Follower to share their faith.

Jesus made a pretty clear statement. And then he told them, "Go into all the world and preach the Good News to everyone. Mar 16:15 NLT

This did not happen these last three days. What did happen was a bunch of christians (little c intentional) getting up and attacking each other while the world looked on, shook their heads, and stumbled away lost, hurting and lonely.

Praying for you both, and for those in authority.

 

Aaron

The Delicate Balance

As a Christ follower I tend to look at life through a lens of guilt. Now before you say but Christ has set you free from guilt, and his grace is sufficient and you know all those things. I don't mean that I feel guilty all the time, I don't mean that guild over rides my heart and mind any more. It used to but that's all water that has long since emptied into the sea of forgetfulness, I still remember it but it's not with the angst that was so prevalent. No when I say I look at life through a lens of guilt it has more to do with the continuing saga that is the attempt to live a life that is stamped with the marks of being more and more like Jesus.

So if the opening statement of this post is all about the idea of feeling guilty when I don't act, think, or react the way Jesus would, why is it titled the delicate balance.

I think that there is so much in scripture that tells us how to live lives that are pleasing to Christ, and that make others that are stumbling around in their own vain attempts at finding the thing that makes them complete take notice, not of all the rules and regulations that come from christianity, but of a life that is lived in obedience to Christ and His teachings. Scriptures that talk about love, and grace, mercy, compassion, are important, I think that they are to be the bulk of how we share Jesus with a world that is tired. I really think that's the long and short of it. People in general are tired of things. Tired of politics, tired of scandals, tired of war, tired of 20 something celebrities behaving badly just for the press it garners. People are tired and they are looking for people that are going to be real. That are going to say what they have to say and then, wonder of wonders actually live that way, or do that thing that they have said they would do.

In Mark, Peter makes the following statement to Jesus; Then Peter began to speak up. "We've given up everything to follow you," he said. Mar 10:28 (NLT) I think the fast majority of christians do the same thing. They look at the things that their friends, co workers and acquaintances are doing and when and if they take time to actually converse with God, they point out all the "fun" they aren't having. Sometimes they even go a step further and talk to other christians about all that they have done, all that they have given up. Perceived sacrifice is huge in our own minds, and a great way to prove how tight we are with Jesus. Many times we grab a hold of the first part of Jesus reply. It's one of those promises that Christians like to point to..."Yes," Jesus replied, "and I assure you that everyone who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or property, for my sake and for the Good News, will receive now in return a hundred times as many houses, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and property—. Mar 10:29 -30 (NLT) Doesn't that sound great, isn't that an awesome promise. If I give stuff up for God I get it all back with interest. I've actually heard people say that from the pulpit. This tends to be one of those carrot on a stick passages used to lure people into making a commitment to Christ. There's just one problem, see that hyphen that just seems to sit at the end of the verse? I like to look at that as the pause that Jesus must have taken when he was getting ready to drop the bomb that was to come.

There is a delicate balance that goes on in our lives, at least there should be. This balance has to do with how we look at the different stages of our lives.

1. The life we lived:

Many people look at their life before they chose to start on the path to a relationship with Jesus as a time of great loss, a time that they were blind, that they were searching fill in all the sad parts that people attribute to their life before Christ. The problem is I wonder if people really do look at their life without Jesus in that way. I wonder if there are times that they look back and are honest enough to say that things were easier before they decided to accept the sacrifice that Jesus made and to live a life that was going to constantly be at odds with friends, family members, co-workers. The life we lived may have been spiritually empty, but I would venture to say that for most of us it was full of things that kept us busy, things that distracted us, things that we enjoyed. I think that there just came a point that the spiritual emptiness became to big to ignore. So we have all these things before we make the jump to a relationship with Jesus.

2. The life we live:

This is where I peg that will receive 100 fold part of the verse. When we start to follow Christ the things that were fun suddenly don't do it for us any more. We don't enjoy them as much, many times we recognize that they don't really line up with how Jesus would act so we cut them out of our life, we lose friends who may think we just aren't fun any more, or that all we want to do is talk about God. Family members may walk away, not able to handle being around someone who always judges them. The sad thing about the last one is, at least most of the time there is no real judgment on the Christ followers part, just a realization on the family members part that there are things in their life that they would like to change, people that drag them down, and choices that they would like to somehow unmake. Still there is a loss here and it's that loss that can be made up for when the Christ follower attaches him or herself to a community of believers that is also doing their best to follow Christ. I think that's what Jesus is talking about. Sure we lose out on the things that we used to enjoy and some of the people we used to be with, but when we really make a connection into a local group of other Christ Followers we are seeing the fulfillment of that promise. Now for the rest of the life we will live...—along with persecution. Mar 10:30 (NLT) This is the part we don't want to read, this is the part we wish we could ignore, and unfortunately this is the part that many Christian leaders, especially ones in America use to point out how downtrodden they are when they don't like something happening in the Government or in the Media. I read and hear them say things like: "It's only going to get worse." Many times it becomes something to try to change, something to try to stand against, we want to get out of the along with persecution part of our walk with Christ, mainly because it's not fun. I just don't see that happening. We are going to be misunderstood, misquoted, and disliked, there are going to be groups of people that are going to try and make it hard to be a Christ follower, that also is a promise that Jesus made. He told us you will be persecuted. It will happen, he didn't say try and get out of it, he didn't say speak out about how downtrodden you are. He said it's going to happen and you will have to live with it, in fact realize that "my grace is enough to help you deal with it."

3. The life we will live:

And in the world to come that person will have eternal life. Mar 10:30 (NLT)

I really don't think I need to explain this part of it.

Here's where the delicat balance comes in. We have to understand that life as a Christ follower brings with it all sorts of baggage. Christians like to point out the baggage that gets left behind when a person recognizes a need for a relationship with Jesus, we just don't like to point out the baggage that is going to be picked up. That baggage looks conspicuously like a Cross...after all that's what we are to do if we are really following Jesus, take up the cross and follow.

We don't have a prayer...

This verse struck me today as I was reading: But his brothers hated Joseph because their father loved him more than the rest of them. They couldn't say a kind word to him. Gen 37:4 (NLT)

The history behind this part of the Bible is not really a secret, and it speaks to the reason that people with multiple children have to work so hard at loving all of their children equally, still the thing that struck me was those last seven words; "They couldn't say a kind word to him." I actually read it a couple of times, it's an interesting statement. It seems that they really didn't have much of a choice in the matter, but why. I believe that what happens in life is always due to a choice. We make choices every day, and I like to think that I can and for the most part do make the correct choices, so reading that someone couldn't do something, even if they wanted to makes me wonder.

The thing is my thoughts are wrong on some occasions. We know that Josephs brothers were pretty bad guys in the beginning, if you continue to read the account of what happen, you will find that Joseph can't shut up about how important he's going to be, and his brothers can't see past the anger and bitterness they have in their hearts, and the favoritism that was shown on a regular basis. They toss him in a pit, sell him into slavery and well the saga continues. Still I am not like them am I?

If we have a prayer of making it, of doing the right thing, of proving how much we are worth, of showing God that he needs us and that we are worth saving we must be able to make the right choice, we must be able to be nice and do the right thing...

Paul even had this issue, and it's in him that we find the only hope we really have. In Romans 7:18, Paul talks about how frustrated he is when it comes to making the right decisions. How hard it is to do the right thing. He talks about how even though he wants to do the right thing, he can't seem to do it. This concept would seem to support the idea that Joseph's brothers couldn't say anything nice to him. It points out how truly sad humanity is. Ultimately no matter how hard humans try, and no matter how good they are, they are going to eventually come up against the wall of their humanity, the inability to not judge others, the difficulty in always telling the truth, the desire to get the dirt on whatever is happening in other people lives.

It took me a long time to realize that I can't do it all, that I need to rely on God, and the people he put in my life to make up the areas that I was weak in. Paul laments his inability to do the right thing, and then rejoices because for those times that he does make the mistake, and does do the wrong thing, Jesus is not just willing and able but really wants to help us through the issue.

As I live and move and have my being in Christ, something that takes effort on my part there are times that I don't do the right thing, times that I don't like people, times that I get angry and react instead of asking for help. So many times that I want to do the right thing, but I don't and in those times I have the hope that Jesus knew I would not do it right, or make the right decision all the time. He will work in me and through me though, pointing out the areas and helping me through them.

We don't have a prayer if left to our own devices in our walk with Christ. We will walk away from him, even as we desire to be more like him. That's just our nature. It is only because of his unfailing, unchanging grace that we can be more like him. So while we don't have a prayer...we do have Hope.