There is a cloud of things that I believe we don't want to face and it keeps us from being a part of a God-following community. It happened to us and then turned to bitterness, hate, judgment, and self righteousness and this is where we see the heart of rebellion in the Church. A whole generation of "social renegades" are on the loose with their fists in the air swearing change to the death!
So I wonder if there is room for those who are skeptics within the church? When do we go too far? When does searching for "truth" turn into rebellion and we see the roots of our pain? Why can't we just move on?
It is my thought that when we are damaged we tend to cry, freeze or fight.
We are at a place that God is calling to many of us to stand up and move into His thing but that means that it has a cost. We have to be transparent with our faith that God is right, trust in others around us including leadership, and show our enthusiasm about what we are doing. No one said that passion is pretty nor is it perfect.
I feel God calling us to be involved and to rise up and face the truth. There is a honing place where we can reject mindless social trends and embrace truth, passion and justice and that is with Christ. It is possible that the cynical mind has a place in the Church as long as the heart of it all is passionately involved with forgiveness, which is fuel for the fire that will explode in movement.
Today I want to forgive those who caused me damage and be active. As a church I want us to be a people with naked passion inside that pierces dullness and opens a surge of life!
Stand up!
Shake it off!
There's a mission for you. You already know its coordinates.
Allow your feet to move to the rhythm of God's heartbeat.
He is for you!!
May God cover us all. May we be well to the point of getting over the things we feel hold us down. May God use us.
So I wonder if there is room for those who are skeptics within the church? When do we go too far? When does searching for "truth" turn into rebellion and we see the roots of our pain? Why can't we just move on?
It is my thought that when we are damaged we tend to cry, freeze or fight.
We are at a place that God is calling to many of us to stand up and move into His thing but that means that it has a cost. We have to be transparent with our faith that God is right, trust in others around us including leadership, and show our enthusiasm about what we are doing. No one said that passion is pretty nor is it perfect.
I feel God calling us to be involved and to rise up and face the truth. There is a honing place where we can reject mindless social trends and embrace truth, passion and justice and that is with Christ. It is possible that the cynical mind has a place in the Church as long as the heart of it all is passionately involved with forgiveness, which is fuel for the fire that will explode in movement.
Today I want to forgive those who caused me damage and be active. As a church I want us to be a people with naked passion inside that pierces dullness and opens a surge of life!
Stand up!
Shake it off!
There's a mission for you. You already know its coordinates.
Allow your feet to move to the rhythm of God's heartbeat.
He is for you!!
May God cover us all. May we be well to the point of getting over the things we feel hold us down. May God use us.
- Kris Catoe
3 comments:
Kris, one of the things I've always admired about you is your boldness and truthfulness.
David, your nakedness before God and everyone else is what has endeared you to me. Both of you exhibit a passion that I wish I possessed.
I believe in a little skepticism. You cannot teach school for 30+ years, work with benevolence, or be married to someone in law enforcement without a little of it seeping into your psyche. People are just people, and human nature is what it is. Statistics support skepticism.
However, I consider myself a half-full-glass kind of gal (my glass is never half full when I'm thinking about myself) who believes that as long as there is life, there's hope, but human nature seems to win out so much of the time. Yes, I have seen people changed dramatically, and because of that I still hope.
I used to tell beginning teachers that I took under my wing that if they took things that happened in the classroom personally, then they wouldn't make a difference in the students' lives. Sometimes, teachers spend more time with their students than parents; therefore, more opportunity to observe them messing up or to be the recipient of their worst behavior. I remember looking at one first-year teacher who had tears in her eyes and telling her that she must learn to walk in forgiveness, that each day was a clean slate, a second chance. She said that she didn't know if she could, and I told her that she wouldn't survive somewhat sane if she didn't.
Skepticism is one thing; having a negative, destructive, critical spirit is another. One of the things I absolutely abhor even in myself is that tendency to let the skepticism mutate into a critical spirit. Have you ever noticed that sometimes the people who are most critical are the ones who aren't doing anything? You know, the ones who sit back and let everyone else all do the work, the arm-chair quarterbacks who don't sweat or sacrifice.
If skepticism stays way back in the recesses of our minds and hope stands tall in the front, if we take the time to get to know someone even if he is different instead of prejudging him, if we'll trust those God has placed in leadership and allow them to do their job while eartnestly praying for them every day, if we take the time to really listen and not just run our mouths, and if we'll remember that "there but for the grace of God go I," then maybe we'll all be able to be more like Jesus - forgiving, compassionate, loving, embracing people full of faith and trust that He really is big enough to take care of all His people and His church. After all, aren't they His? Isn't His church really His?
Unless setting the Fashion Bar is doing something, my gifts don't translate over to Vineyard for some reason. Believe me, I wish I could sing, play something, but I can't. I can dance. I love to dance. But I have to be careful not to offend anyone.
My glass is always 3/4 full even though this year almost suffocated me (see tomorrow's post at http://artmindful.blogspot.com/) The only time I am skeptical, cynical, whatever, is when I feel like God isn't in what's being done.
God Bless You all in the new year!
His love and mine...
Thanks David. I've never cared much what people thought, I'm freer than that, but I get caught up in the fact that my something might interfere with someone else's something. I pray I get past that.
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