Being in.......

I've been reading a book -- Velvet Elvis-Repainting the Christian Faith by Rob Bell. It's one of those books that stretches me to breaking and I have to lay it aside and wrestle with it until I'm at peace and then I jump back into it only to repeat the cycle again. I find that painful. I'd prefer life to be a neat little package...no questions, only answers. Of course, I would have them all too (answers, that is). The only problem with my preference is - it ain't real life! I've discovered to my horror that life is not neat. It is not easy. It is all about questions and doubts and fears. Sometimes it brings laughter, sometimes it brings tears. It makes no earthly sense. And that is a tough reality for a legalistic gal to come to grips with. Rule keepers expect life to follow the rules. Do this, you get that. Here's your check list...make sure you follow it and you are going to have the results you want. It occurs to me that I used to think life was like MRE's. You know - those meals in the pouches that the soldiers in the field have. Open it up, add water and voila! you have dinner. Well, I've discovered---not so much.

One of the paragraphs that drew me in is close to the first of the book and it is about having the answers and being a people that insists on having it all right. He says "...the focus often becomes getting people to believe the right things so they can be " in". There is often a list of however many doctrines, and the goal is to get people to intellectually assent to these things being true. Once we believe the right things, then we're in. And once we're in, the goal often becomes learning how to get others in with us....it is possible...to be in, and to believe all of the correct things, and even to be effective at getting others in, and yet our hearts can remain unaffected. It's possible to believe all the right things and be miserable. It's possible to believe all the right doctrines and not live as Jesus teaches us to live..." That pretty well sums up how I've spent way too many of my years since I first surrendered my life to Jesus. I humbly ask God for forgiveness for that - I wonder how many people I hurt in my eagerness to get them "in"? "In" of course, to mean understanding the Bible the way I understood the Bible. Following the rules. I don't think I exhibited much of the love of Christ in those years but I could sure wield the sword.

Praise our glorious Lord! He's the God of second chances. Lord, forgive me when I fail to be your church. When being right is more important to me than being loving. Help me Father to understand your total acceptance of me and help me in turn be those hands of grace to everyone I meet...whether they are in or not.