Thursday, September 26, 2013

Loving the Lost into the Kingdom



Being a Christian on a very secular college campus on the “Left” coast is not exactly a walk through the tulips. There are days, even weeks, where my very spirit is twisting and turning in agony. Some days, it feels like my tiny little prayers get sucked up into a bubbling, oozing tar pit of decay, and other days I can feel the air electric in spiritual warfare. My heart grieves for the vacant eyes I see walking by in search of what, they don’t know.  I’ll tell ya, it can be exhausting and downright uncomfortable. 

This week was particularly tough. It was “sex week” on campus and they had posters and booths set out in the quad with large crowds gathered around. What I found a little more than interesting was a booth that was set up right next to them with a prominently displayed sign that read “Homosex is a God Damn Sin.” I wasn’t so sure how to feel about that booth, and I almost went over there out of curiosity. It was still a few minutes before my next class started and I could have gone over there for a few minutes, but I refrained. I suspect some well meaning Christian or Christians decided to put that up, and it drew just as large a crowd as the other “sex week” booths. 

Let me first say, I am in total agreement that homosexual sex is a sin, and so is any sexual intercourse outside of marriage. However, this is not my judgment, but God’s judgment, so if others have a problem with it, then it’s something they must take up with God, not me.  Therefore, I don’t have a problem with the anti homosexual sex message, but I do have a problem with the nature in which it was delivered in this case. 

What these vacant eyes I see passing by me on campus are looking for is not more of the same empty crudeness they can find at the “sex booths.” They are looking for the joy and the peace and the love and the grace that we have. They can go anywhere and hear crude language.  In these days of “political correctness” simply saying “Homosexual Sex is a Sin” is plenty enough to shock and awe onlookers.  I would even venture to guess that the crowds would have been larger if they weren’t trying so hard to use shock advertising to get a Biblical truth out and draw crowds. What they did with that sign was open the doors to angry arguments rather than true discourse.

We should trust the Holy Spirit to be able to do the work for us.  People can go anywhere and get anger, disdain, and condemnation these days, so they surely don’t need more of the same from us. Yes, we must proclaim the hard truths of the Bible, truths that people don’t want to hear, but we must do it in love. That is what this world is so thirsty for, and that’s what we should offer them in Christ Jesus.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Presumptuous


During a jog one day, the Lord began to speak to me. (I hate to admit it, but it’s one of the few times He has my undivided attention.) Like I was saying, the Lord was bending my ear during a good sweat because for the longest time I was feeling static and even useless as a Christian. It seemed no matter how hard I tried, I haven’t been able to connect to my Lord. You know what I mean by connecting to Him? Like when you feel the very presence of God enter the room, He practically suffocates you with His love, and He leaves you feeling like a pile of jelly lying on the floor.
Well, I hadn’t experienced the jellies in quite some time. And, to top it all off, I was in a rut at work—like I was having the same day over and over again and there was no way the Lord could possibly be using me—and, then, I was laid off and I got to feeling completely directionless. I guess you could say I’ve been battling the woe-is-me’s for the past couple of years.
Thankfully, the Lord finally tapped me on the shoulder to help me understand all of this. First of all, my dry spell wasn’t because He left me, because He never left. Even when it doesn’t feel like He’s there, it doesn’t mean that He isn’t there. He’s always there. We’re the ones that are limited, He’s limitless. We shouldn’t base our standing with God on how we “feel.”

We need to persevere and pursue Him even when we don’t feel His presence. He said knock and it shall be opened to you. Thankfully, I kept knocking through it all, but I should have knocked longer and louder. To some degree, I let my feelings direct how close I was with my Lord. He should be able to count on our love for Him through thick and thin, just as we can count on His love through thick and thin.
Speaking of thick and thin, tough times are what living in this world are full of. We can’t escape the rough patches. I went from feeling useless in my old job to feeling useless and directionless after getting laid off. It made things even worse when I went back to college to get my master’s degree, and I found myself a bit out of practice and feeling intimidated, surrounded by people who not only don't believe in God, but they hate anything that has to do with Him.  

Frankly, I’ve been feeling tired of having to trudge through the mud bog of life and battle for everything all of the time without rest. Especially since it didn’t seem like any of all this struggling and drudgery was useful for anything anyway. I was feeling tired and even anxious for the Lord to take me to my reward. I know, pretty pathetic huh? Well, haven't we all been there a time or two?
Anyhow, the Lord informed me that I was being pretty presumptuous. First, in assuming that He hadn’t been using me, and, second, in assuming that my getting laid off wasn’t part of His plans, too. As a matter of fact, He said He had been using me in my hum drum job as an example to the others there--He even showed me which ones I made an impression on--and He has huge plans for me in the future, although He didn’t tell me what they were. In reality, I am fulfilling his plans every day. All of His children are. Each of us fit perfectly into His great big plan. Even when we are leading what we think is a boring life, He’s using us.

We are soldiers in God’s army, and we must fight, battle, and weather all the trials that we face on this earth for our Lord even when it’s boredom. Really, most of the time we don’t know how He’s using us. Sometimes our dry spells are just testing and training. If you think about it, it’s all pretty exciting. It makes me want to pick up and fight again to serve my Lord. I will gladly fight the battle of boredom, or whatever else this life on earth throws my way, so I can continue to serve my Lord.  I will never presume to know what the Lord is doing with me again.