Frustration

I'm tired.

It was around this time last year that someone told me God had left my church. Abandoned us because of the hardness of our hearts. And that He would not return.
I was also told that as long as I remained at the church, I wouldn't grow.
Because of yesterdays post they seem to think they're still right.
Months of my blog has been living proof that they were wrong, but one post wishing for the absolute best from my congregation, from every Christian, seems like proof of their claims.

I'm too tired to fight them.
But I can make weary complaining into an art form.


What kind of person tells a Christian that God is tired of them? We didn't change in the 3 months he attended our church. And now we're doomed.

To be entirely honest, I am at the end of a 20 hour day that hasn't ended yet. So vulnerable doesn't even begin to describe what I'm feeling.

So I have something to say.



Churches everywhere have someone in them just like the one I've dealt with. They're willing to walk up to tired, struggling Christians and tell them to "give up the fight". "Start over somewhere easier", they'll tell you. "Nothing will happen here", they say. They talk a good talk concerning biblical things, but their walk has them consistently kicking the well-doing until they are weary.

They seem most believable because they know the bible. You know they can grind you into the dirt during any biblical debate just by quoting scripture after scripture. They intimidate you with their words. Maybe even by their manner. And when they come at you with "Thus says the Lord," you're hard pressed to fight against them even when everything in you is screaming "God wouldn't SAY that." It's hard to defend against the God of one verse used for their specific reason, by brandishing your knowledge of who God has shown Himself to be. Their verse is easier to brandish with it's solid form.

It's not the world I fight with. The world has been kind to me. Strangers have helped me. It is family and those that claim to be Christian who are willing to tear me down and hold me back from fighting for the best God has to offer.

I'm tired.

I'm sorry I wrote yesterdays post. I suppose I did not accomplish what I was trying to say well enough. My church did nothing wrong yesterday. They sang well, They worshipped well. I didn't point out clearly that I see this problem in every church, and in almost every christian. We give less than the best. We don't just do that during a song service, we do it in our every day lives.

Instead of giving Him praise and worship, we give Him 30 minutes after our television shows are done. Instead of giving Him all of us, He gets what is left. We spend our lives, rather than investing them into Gods work. We hold onto that which is good, so tightly that we stubbornly refuse to release it long enough to grab something better.

And if all that isn't bad enough, every now and then one of our own reach out to grab onto the greatness that Abel had, only to have a Cain murder them.

No offense to us, but we're a stupid lot. Meekness is not timidity. And unfortunately the only ones able to break the timidity barrier seem to be the ones that are clobbering you in the pasture.

Something's gotta give.

So for every foolish Christian out there (and I do mean EVERY foolish Christian, not just the one I'm discouraged by), just as foolish even as myself, I beg you to stop. I beg you to stop trying to convince everyone that God gives up on people, on churches, and on families. I beg myself to stop considering it. God doesn't give up on people, churches, families or me. Let us all stop making the mistake of placing our character traits onto God, rather than trying to fit His onto us.

And, if none of us can find something to say that's encouraging, maybe we could all just quote "With God all things are possible." until we finally believe it.