Hey
everyone, been a while since I posted on here. My Facebook fast was wonderful I
am back on now so if anyone wants to say hi please do.
I have
had some thoughts rolling around in my little heart lately about bitterness I
have towards modern day American Churches. I have only had experience with
American Churches, just to clarify so my little rant (?) today is focused on
that. I don't make it a secret that the past oh five or more years I have hated
going to Church, being at Church, talking to people from Church, having
anything to do with Church, having grown up in the Church that is not easy to
admit. I am one of those kids that the first Sunday after I was born I was in
Church.
Why are
you so bitter you ask? Well it all started with the way my mentally handicapped
older sister has been treated by many Churches, she has been kicked out and
treated sub human for being a poor kid whose body grew up but her mind didn't.
Then I watched as people fought with each other and Churches split over the
type of music that should be played; Church members spreading rumors about the
other members who sit behind them. This bitterness grew like a cancer all
through High school as I watched my friends go through tough times and instead
of being offered help, were kicked out. I went through some really tough times,
my rebellious period, to be fair I was not doing anything that God approved of
during that time. But the Church instead of being somewhere I could go for
help, turned into something that spread rumors about things I didn't even
do.
I came to
a Christian college hoping that maybe this magical thing would happen where
they would say some magic words and all my hurt, anger and bitterness would
just go away. I tried to pretend that it did, I have always been good at
pretending life was ok. It didn't work though, hiding it made it worse. Over
the past year I have yelled at God countless times about how much I hate
"The Church", how much I can't stand the hypocrisy and the lies, the
people who are fake; how I can't stand Pastors who say one thing and yet treat
people the way they do. I can give you a list of everything but that would take
the entire blog. I admit I have cursed out the Church to God so many times. I
would yell and cry as my heart broke over and over again about the things
"His Church" had done.
Finally
God had enough. He can only take so many one sided conversations before He says
how about you shut up, sit down and listen, won't that be a change of pace (God
speaks sarcasm to me). In my listening to God, He asked me a few important
questions, here is our conversation.
Natasha, what do you think the Church is?
My Sunday school answer: (please read in a bored/annoyed tone of
voice) Well Jesus the Church is the body of believers it's not a building it is
whole bunch of Christians getting together to worship you.
Gods answer: Natasha you are lying
Me: (totally offended) Excuse me? No I am not; I gave you the
right answer.
God: You gave me the right answer but you did not give me your
answer.
Me: (stops and thinks, this stopping and thinking took a couple of
weeks, I am slow sometimes)
That was
when I realized something about my view of "The Church". When I
talked about Church I referred to what I can only describe as a type
of ethereal floating being that hovered over Church building and caused
everything bad to happen; kind of like blaming the government for everything.
Everything bad that happened I just lumped into what I considered the Church to
be until everything I thought about the Church was just nasty.
Then God
reminded me of Matthew 7:1-5 (CEV)
1Don't condemn others, and
God won't condemn you. 2 God will be as hard on you as you are on
others! He will treat you exactly as you treat them.
3You can
see the speck in your friend's eye, but you don't notice the log in your own
eye. 4How can you say, “My friend, let me take the speck out of your eye,”
when you don't see the log in your own eye? 5You're nothing but show-offs!
First, take the log out of your own eye; then you can see how to take the speck
out of your friend's eye.
I said
screw the Church and God reminded me not so gently that he never said that to
me. I straight up yelled at God and said look what those people have done to me;
I am sick and tired of dealing with them. Gods response was look what you have done; look at what you have
said. I am not giving up on you; I am not giving up on them. I love them as much
as I love you.
I did not
want to hear that. God reminded me that every person in Church was human too.
They all had hurts the same as I did. I had hypocrisy and terrible things in my
life just like they did. But giving up on people is not what I am called to do
as a Christian, by giving up and turning my back on the Church I am turning my
back on my Christian family, the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27). I
am doing exactly what happened to me and my family. Ouch. I did not want to
come to that realization. I still can't say I have forgiven what has happened
in the past but here is where the Finding Nemo quote in the title comes
in.
My
favorite movie is the Disney Pixar movie Finding Nemo, in that movie (if you
haven't seen it go watch it like now) Marlin and Dory meet up with a group of
sharks. They think they are going to be eaten when they discover that these
sharks are part of a support group of sharks who don't eat fish, they even have
a pledge. "I
am a nice shark. Not a mindless eatin' machine. If I am to change this image, I
must first change myself. Fish are friends. Not food."
How does
this apply to anything I have just said? Well if I want to change the image of
the Church, if I want to change how Christians are viewed, I have to first
change myself. People are friends not food, or to put it another way, all
people are messed up but as a Christian I am called to love and to help them;
not devour them with hatred and bitterness. Yes people are still going to be hypocritical,
yes there are still going to be things that happen in the Church that will make
me mad. But guess what we are all hopeless sinners just trying to make it with
Jesus’ help. So instead of me being the one that talks bad all the time, from
now on I am going to try and be the one who encourages. I am going to try and
be the one who helps and loves. Who knows maybe a few others will start doing
the same thing.
The
sharks in Finding Nemo haven’t had much luck in changing the shark image but
who knows maybe God and I will have some luck in changing even a small portion
of the image of what a Christian is, even if that only means we are changing me
and how I am seen.
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