Anger, Judgement, Grace, and Love

I'm not going to lie. I've been pretty pissed with God lately. Am I allowed to say that? I think so. I mean, I've tried the whole "let's only offer up joy and thanksgiving" to God thing for a long time. And you know what? I think that's pretty fake. Because let's be honest, life isn't always easy. While challenges help us to grow and become the children that God desires for us to be, they can be difficult and painful. And I think we're led to believe as Christians that we can't have pain, we can't have struggles and we certainly can't publicly show that pain and struggles. But that's so fake. We live in a fallen, broken world. We will sin. And we'll try not to, and we'll fall to it again. And so I've decided I'm done with all of that. While there certainly is a time for joy and thanksgiving and while I know I'm incredibly blessed, right now the emotion that I'm dealing with is pain, hurt, and anger. I'm angry that God feels distant. I'm angry that it seems as though God refuses to listen to my prayers. I'm angry that it felt like God led me down this path and then peaced out on me.

But tonight...suddenly...I felt like he sent me a small sign that He hasn't peaced out. I felt relief...finally. Relief that He hadn't given up on me like I had given up on him.

See, here's how it all went down. Earlier in the day I was looking at some twitter updates...no, no, no...let's back up. In the past few days and maybe even the past week I've started to feel convicted a lot about how I pass judgement and condemnation on people very unfairly. I'm quick to call out faults in others all the while blinded to my own sin. I desire perfection (which in and of itself is likely a sin since I'm surely seeing this as an idol in my life), but I measure perfection according to worldly standards. If the world...even if it's the evangelical Christian world, expects for Christians to act and be a certain way, then I need to live up to that expectation. And everyone who is in relationship and/or community with me needs to live up to that expectation, too. Except, what does that create? It creates this big charade of people pretending like they've got their act together. It creates this entity of people claiming to be Christians but not fully benefiting of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. Jesus doesn't call us to have our act together and to be sinless. If that were the case, His death on the cross would be entirely insignificant and pointless. Rather, by following Christ we reap His reward...we are sanctified in Him. Our sins are wiped away (yes, even the ones that we commit over and over and over again) and we are able to experience true grace and true love. But we have to be honest and transparent with ourselves and our community to reap the full benefits of Christ's love for us. We have to be willing to admit our sins and our struggles and our imperfections...and our community needs to withhold condemnation b/c it's certainly not their place. Our community needs to extend love, mercy, and grace.

So, that's the battle that's been going on in my heart. I feel like I owe so many people apologies for judging and condemning them rather than extending unconditional love to them.

Anyways, back to where I felt God speaking to me again...so last night a friend of mine had made a statement on Twitter about how as Christians we should be cautious to make statements as to what does and does not glorify God (ie cautious to pass judgment). Then today I saw someone else Twitter about a blog post they had written about this very topic. Seeing as it was something that I had battling in my heart recently, I decided to read it. (You can find the blog post here). It really confirmed what God had already begun to speak into my heart. So fast forward to tonight. I'm at Small Group when our leader says we're going to discuss that day's City Bible Reading (my church has a daily Bible Reading schedule that everyone in the church follows). Well, since I've been pretty pissed at God lately, I've decided not to read my Bible (yes...GASP!) because clearly that'll show him that I mean business. So I open the Bible to the passage that we're going to cover and wouldn't you know...I actually had read it...by accident...earlier that day in the blog post. We were discussing 1 Corinthians 6:1-12 and what it meant not to be judgmental and condemning, but rather, what it would look like if we extended mercy to those in our lives.

Crazy. It's clear to me that God is orchestrating this all. To place this conviction upon my heart and then to have it show up so obviously in my life. It opened my eyes not only to the ways that I've sinned against others (by not showing love and grace and mercy) but also to the fact that God is clearly not giving up on me even though I've given up on him for a while. He hears my cries and He is reminding me that He's listening. I still confidently believe that God desires for us to be honest with him and convey to him when we're sad, upset, or even angry b/c it's only in this way that he can heal us of our brokeness so that we can lift up our joys and our praise to him.

Have any thoughts to share?

Suffering

I've had this feeling lately.  I don't know how to describe it.  It's like I'm on the brink of God unveiling something in my life.  I'll admit it.  It's mostly a pretty cool feeling, but sometimes it's a little bit scary (probably b/c of it's uncertainty) and I want to turn away.  I know for sure that I'm being molded in ways I don't understand right now.  I'm constantly feeling tugs on my heart, but it's like, what tug is the strongest one that I'm supposed to dive head first in for?  I think for now I'm just waiting for God to shove me through the door that He wants me to go through (because let's be honest, I'm quite stubborn, so a nice shove might be what it takes).  I think I'm still listening to hear what my calling is and maybe God's not quite ready to tell me yet.  But in the meantime, I'm trying my hardest to grow in his word.  

What's that have to do with the title of my post?  Here it is.  We talked about suffering tonight at small group.  And I feel like every time I leave church or small group lately, I just have so many thoughts running through my head and so much decompression that needs to be done.  I guess that's why I feel like God's doing something crazy in my life that I'm not even aware of yet.  Anyway.  We were discussing 1 Peter 2:18-25.  That passage talks about slaves submitting to their masters and enduring suffering even for doing good.  We talked about how, as Christians, we will suffer.  And when we suffer we are supposed to suffer with patience, respect, and by not retaliating.  How completely counterculture is that?  I mean seriously.  Think about all the times when you feel you've been wronged.  Don't you feel like you have every right to speak your mind.  Take credit for what is yours.  Put someone in their place.  But it's not like that at all.  As Christians, we are called to endure these times of suffering because our ultimate reward is heaven.  The funny thing is, we tried to think about how we suffer as 21st Century Christians living in the United States of America and let's be honest.  We don't really suffer.  We can go to church and worship without persecution.  We can read our Bibles in public without fear of death.  We can share the gospel without fear of imprisonment.  In essence, we really endure little suffering of this sorts.  So, I suppose that makes it a little bit harder on us.  I suppose our suffering comes in the variety of holding your tongue against someone who you've felt wronged by or giving respect to a boss who you feel treats you unfairly.  How hard can circumstances like that be?  

In any case, I keep thinking about how I should be praying for Christ to allow me to suffer more so I can more fully experience his love.  Because isn't it in times of our deepest pain and suffering when we most fully rest on Christ's love and grace to bring us through those times.  Isn't it then that we can fully experience what it means to be loved?  But I'll be honest...I'm scared to pray for suffering.  I'm scared to be outside my comfort zone.  I'm scared to live counter-culturally.  But in the end, I want that eternal reward.  I want to feast with Christ at His heavenly banquet.  So I supposed my prayer will have to be that Christ would teach me true love and grace through his suffering so I may fully experience his kingdom.  This could be hard...

PS--Have I mentioned how much I love City Church and my Community Group.  Amazing people and I can truly tell that God is doing incredible things there!  We just started a sermon series on the 5 vows of membership in the PCA church and I'm SO EXCITED to become a member there.  This'll be my first time to claim membership at a church other than my home church growing up.  I finally feel like I have a Church Home and a Church Family here in Florida.  It really does make all the difference.  Love it! :)