
I am always very wary of 'worthy' Christians. Where does all the mess go?
I appreciate that this may well be my own insecurity. Maybe there are people who are simply that sorted in life and faith that there's never a hair out of place. But not me.
Oh no, not me.
I'm the hot mess in the back pew crying, "Lord! WT* is going on?? I know you're here, I know you're good but SERIOUSLY??"
I'm the one who looks at the American President and thinks we may well have got the President we deserve, but NOT the ideal candidate from God's point of view. I can't go there, not even for Bill Johnson or my old buddy Eric Metaxas.
I'm the person who looks at the shooting in Las Vegas and weeps ugly tears at the stupidity of gun laws. I don't blame God or think God is exacting judgment. I think the Lord, like me, is weeping. I'm not surprised by the brokenness of the shooter. we're all broken. But, thank God, I haven't reached for an AK47.
I'm not the best person to have in a small group from church. Because I immediately want to go really deep and really real. I immediately want to swear just to shake things up a bit. It's not coffee chat. And it won't wash with the "Praise the Lord, everything's going to work out" crowd. I'm the one sitting there thinking, "HOW? How can this be the fruit of righteousness? Of faithfulness? HOW could I/you have ended up here? HOW could this be the way the road went?"
I'm the one who knows I may well have got it wrong. From my own inevitably limited point of view.
I'm the one who contributed to the whole mess in the first place. I'm the one who agrees with G.K. Chesterton when he responded to the question posed by the London Times "What is wrong with the world?" with this postcard:

I'm with John the Baptist in the prison cell. I'm with Elijah curled up in a foetal position. I'm with Joseph in the pit. I'm with Elisabeth Elliott when Jim was murdered.
I'm not sorted, but I'm clinging on. Because the Person I've met is real and proves Himself to be real every day in my life. Through my kids, my friends, the beauty of creation, LOVE. And I owe Him, big time. I love Him.
I'm not where I want to be, I'm not doing what I want to be doing, I'm not living how I want to live. But when I ask God, He says to me (as He did to John the Baptist), "Look at the fruit."
I'm clinging on.
I'm surviving.
Jsg/Oct 17