Dun dun DUUUNNNN!!!!
Two weeks and counting. Big stuff happening. Tomorrow we have an important meeting and then the big sermon, then next week is the interview... then dun dun DUUUNNNN!!! GRADUATION DAY!!! WOOHOO! So I've been scouring Seesta's closet for fantastic wardrobe possibilities for all the upcoming events. (the girls cleaned your apartment while I was trying on clothes, hope you were excited and thrilled) And studying for the interview so that I can hold my own when they ask me difficult theological questions, hardeharhar. And my mind is full of hope and excitement as it always is when I study.
My frustration with the church and church life is that it's weak and poor. Not the good weak and poor that we strive to attain spiritually. The other weak- as in powerless- and the other poor- as in no spiritual riches or fruit. We have become a pharisaical high society that accepts only the breed of the congregation. We sell salvation to tally up our numbers in reports and leave babies to feed and shelter themselves. We want to be intimate, but we hide our secrets for the sake of others. We long to be brothers and sisters, but we talk to much and listen too little. And when someone falls hard, we walk away because it's awkward to say anything. And if we do say anything, we remind the failure that they failed, all the while touting the heroes in our church that have secrets more ghastly than the failure. I have felt hopeless. Utterly hopeless about the condition of the church across the board.
Fortunately, after a much needed breath of life, I have discovered this amazing truth. Those of us that grieve for the condition of the church are the invisible church. We are His, those of us that know His voice. And He knows His own. And surrounding us is a great cloud of witnesses, those great men and women of faith that went before us, they stand with us as the invisible church. So I have hope again. Because we walk by faith and not by sight, I have a home and a family that surrounds me in this life, seen and unseen. Jesus said He would build His church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. I have felt such heaviness of heart knowing that the church is losing, but I am once again reminded that His ways are not our ways. And although it seems so hopeless, we are still His, the sheep of His pasture. Whether we see the solid foundation that He laid, and the bricks of the temple that we comprise, it doesn't matter because He promised that we would not be bowled over by the gates of hell. And so we stand. Invisible.
His promises sustain me.
My frustration with the church and church life is that it's weak and poor. Not the good weak and poor that we strive to attain spiritually. The other weak- as in powerless- and the other poor- as in no spiritual riches or fruit. We have become a pharisaical high society that accepts only the breed of the congregation. We sell salvation to tally up our numbers in reports and leave babies to feed and shelter themselves. We want to be intimate, but we hide our secrets for the sake of others. We long to be brothers and sisters, but we talk to much and listen too little. And when someone falls hard, we walk away because it's awkward to say anything. And if we do say anything, we remind the failure that they failed, all the while touting the heroes in our church that have secrets more ghastly than the failure. I have felt hopeless. Utterly hopeless about the condition of the church across the board.
Fortunately, after a much needed breath of life, I have discovered this amazing truth. Those of us that grieve for the condition of the church are the invisible church. We are His, those of us that know His voice. And He knows His own. And surrounding us is a great cloud of witnesses, those great men and women of faith that went before us, they stand with us as the invisible church. So I have hope again. Because we walk by faith and not by sight, I have a home and a family that surrounds me in this life, seen and unseen. Jesus said He would build His church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. I have felt such heaviness of heart knowing that the church is losing, but I am once again reminded that His ways are not our ways. And although it seems so hopeless, we are still His, the sheep of His pasture. Whether we see the solid foundation that He laid, and the bricks of the temple that we comprise, it doesn't matter because He promised that we would not be bowled over by the gates of hell. And so we stand. Invisible.
His promises sustain me.
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