I am dry in my faith because I try SO MUCH to believe in a systematic way to achieve a blessed life. Once I feel as if God is blessing me, I feel as if it is because I am doing something right, and if everything seems to be going wrong, I feel it is because God is mad with me, and not liking what I am doing. I feel in the moments when everything is right that I am “Hearing” God. But in the moments where everything seems to go wrong, it is as if God is mute.
I feel like if I don’t define every aspect of my faith, I will be seen as just this typical so called Christian. I feel as if there is so much pressure to share my faith. But what if I don’t have enough faith left to share? What if tomorrow morning my theological points are defined differently. What if when I wake up I am Catholic and when I go to bed I am Baptist? What if I am Lutheran, Evangelical, Catholic, Covenant, Baptist, Methodist, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Messianic, Holistic, Adventist? What if I am a Calvinist, Emergent, Reformed, Arminin, Open theist? Does this still make me a person who is absent of God’s Grace? Can’t I share my faith by sharing my life?
Have you ever noticed how brutal we truly are? I mean think of recent news, the Mosque! We are arguing so much over this! I almost feel like we don’t know what we want. Why should some kid who lives in North Dakota have a say in what happens on the grounds 3 blocks away from an Islamic Center that has basketball courts? Why should I act like I have a say in what government HAS to do? Is the government capable of having Religious Freedom? We act like if they carry the title of Islamic, they are some extremist out to kill us! I can only imagine they think the same of us. I mean heck, all around the world right now we have Christian organizations killing in the name of God (witch hunts in Africa, Bishops against Iraqi Freedom, Lord’s Resistance Army, Ku Klux Klan, Protestant Death Squads, and so many more). I know because I say that I support the governmental right that the Islamic Community Center has, I will be ridiculed by my friends who are Christians. Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar (a verse that asks us to let the government be the government, and that we don’t control it, but instead allow the rights (Freedom to practice any religion and Freedom to build a building in an abandoned Burlington Coat Factory store) to be enacted unless they contradict and hinder your ability to walk with Christ.) How does this make us different to the world?
Do you start to see why I just get dry in my faith. I feel like EVERY corner of life is filled with oppressive questions. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the dialogue that comes from all these areas. I find it healthy. But also don’t feel offend when I say, that is not that important right now.
Have we looked recently at what is going on in today’s world? There is just so much. So much that it is nearly overwhelming.
-Untrained Doctors in a third world area informed their patients to pee on a rag and try to heal a wound, to feed their children water mixed with pigeon poop to heal their child
-Instead of spending 1.55 TRILLION dollars (Like the whole world combined did for Military), approximately $225 could be given to EVERY single person in the world
-Based on enrollment data, about 72 million children of primary school age in the developing world were not in school in 2005; 57 per cent of them were girls. And these are regarded as optimistic numbers
-Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names
-Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 (The children are still not in school)
- The poorer the country, the more likely it is that debt repayments are being extracted directly from people who neither contracted the loans nor received any of the money
-8 Billion dollars were spent on cosmetics in the United States in 1998
-An estimated 24,000 kids die every day due to poverty around the world
-Families who have husbands, wives, daughters, sons, parents, siblings overseas have limited contact with their family
-Parents who have a child with a disability are more in danger of getting a divorce then parents who have a child who is without a disability or disorder.
This is just the TIP of the iceberg and STILL does not address one of the LARGEST concerns.
“Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.”- Mother Teresa
The worst part of life is, HOW MANY PEOPLE are alone. The greatest poverty is going to bed feeling as if you are worthless. That eats at us faster than hunger and poverty. A middle school student who goes to bed thinking everyone hates them is a tragedy. A person who has an eating disorder because they have no control over their life and hate everything about them is a HUGE travesty. A person who self-mutilates to control one thing in their life and because they feel as if life is spinning out of control is just heart-wrenching. A child who wants to end their life because they feel unwanted, without purpose is just unbearable.
33,000 suicides per year(1800 attempts a day) and we considered a book burning of the Quran.
How do we have time to wait for the Lord to tell us to move when God has shown us a world that desperately is in need of reconciliation back to Jesus. We live in a world that is crying out for Love.
“There is more hunger in the world for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.”- Mother Teresa
So I realize why I am dried up. There is just SO MUCH to get done, but I spend so much of my energy fixing a religion. Christianity is not a perfect religion. I get that. I get that not everyone is called to missions in Chili. However, EVERYONE is called to the mission of the Kingdom. We don’t have to wait to hear God on that. The Kingdom moves with Love. I can’t feed every single person, but I can surely attempt to feed at least one person. I can’t change the fact that students want to take their life out of complete hopelessness, but I can surely share my life with them in a way where they begin to see that God has a purpose for them. I can’t end eating disorders, but I can love a person to the point of recovery that they choose to be courageous enough to endure. I can’t make every person literate, but I can at least help someone learn how to sign their name.
Recently I have been writing all these letters to my friends, about my quest to grow closer to the Lord and to see what God is placing on my heart to pursue in the context of a relationship. I still am on that adventure, however, it continues to take so many turns. I never knew growing in my relationship would be so hard but so beautiful. It has not been easy, and has had MANY times of doubts, and many times of being dry and stale, but God has been recklessly pursuing me, even when I have resisted it.
I am realizing that there is more to life then viewing people as saved and unsaved, but instead viewing them as Christ does, with a reckless Love that knows no depth, nor height, nor width and is not even conceivable to our concept of knowledge. People are not labels, they are our neighbors.
Love is very powerful. I find that God speaks to me while I am writing, and I begin to see the cracks of where truth must shine. Maybe instead of trying to define faith and making all these decisions, I just recklessly pursue God, by recklessly Loving my neighbor because God has this relentless and reckless Love for me that I will never begin to comprehend.
Hebrews 6:11
"11 Our great desire is that you will keep on loving others as long as life lasts, in order to make certain that what you hope for will come true. 12 Then you will not become spiritually dull and indifferent. Instead, you will follow the example of those who are going to inherit God’s promises because of their faith and endurance."
Much Love,
Casey
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