Koinos Community Church - The Latest v01.28

The Latest v01.28

I know everyone's crap. My career, my life calling, involves being in a position where people want to get together with me over lunch or coffee, or Outlook Express, and tell me their dark secrets. The ones nobody knows about, or at least, most people who don't share a bed or a room down the hall with them. I often sit across a table or computer screen from people who are dying to slit open their veins, and let the hidden stuff inside them spill out all over the table until it runs onto my lap. Then they wait to see if I will re-act in horror, or maybe, oh maybe, have some stunning insight that will magically change everything inside them and make it a little easier to get out of bed in the morning. Or at least, help others get out of that bed down the hall.

I have heard it all. Fire raging tempers that have led to back-hand slaps. Prolonged bouts of escaping the world all the way to the bottom of a blue-labeled bottle. Irrational fears and black emotional pits, that justify prescriptions that lead to wait gain, embarrassing sweating, and weekly therapy that just doesn't really help.

When most of these people were in high school, they thought when they grew up and settled down, it would all go away. When we become adults, we realize they don't, and maybe they never will.

I rarely have a Bible verse or a prayer that helps people put these failings behind them once and for all. Okay, honestly, I never do. And how could I? My demons have not been exorcised forever. And I haven't found a priest who has a spiritually powerful enough crucifix that scares them off for good.

But I think I have learned to see something that most haven't been able to quite make out in the midst of struggle. Listening for years to confessions and pleas for help, a certain pattern begins to take shape. Different names, different stories, different issues, but a similar pattern.

The things that are killing us, that can kill others, are the very same things that make us who we are. If they were never tormenting us, we wouldn't be able to bring healing to others.

People who can tear your head off when they disagree with you, are also the people who offer the world a conscience. People who can get lost in a swamp of addiction, are the very same ones who have a mind for creativity. People who can be anal and irritating to the point that you wonder if its okay to not invite them to the annual Christmas party, are also those dependable souls who can organize a house, or an office, or that "make it or break it" project.

But if all of their imperfections were made over for good, we couldn't see the beauty they bring the world.

When religion is at its worst, it appears as a sheep of final solutions, when inwardly it is a wolf that will devour our humanity. We can be shouting "Hallelujahs!" while we are losing the very person God created us to be. The very reason, specifically, we were born.

Are there emergency situations where people need to get involved? Definitely. Should we seek life-change? Of course! Does Jesus Christ offer it? Yes. Will He take everything away? Thankfully, no. Our God does soul-work that transforms short-comings into strengths, losses into lessons, and sin into the stuff that saints are made from.

The Creator doesn't offer final answers, but Himself. The grace and love of God is a relationship with the Divine that can flood us with perspective so we can successfully climb the challenges of life. We will lose our footing and keep slipping and skin our own and other people's knees. But we don't have to fall over the edge, or take others down with us.

The dark sides probably won't be flooded with heavenly light once and for all. But we can become individuals who see ourselves as people made to know a God who loves us anyway. We are offered inspiration and eventually handles, that can lead us into places of seeing other people, the way the Infinite One sees us. God ultimately points us to firm ledges from where we can rest for a moment to chart the best way up, skinned knees and all.

Oh, and those itchy scabs? They are evidence of knowing God.

Love you all! Have a great weekend!

Brian

[ Back ]