We the black sheep | The reasons why I've begun to resent the church

Black sheep stick out because of their wool, but they're the same as everyone else on the inside.

I've noticed an interesting thought in my head recently, and one which continues to pop up more and more frequently. Though I've wanted to write about it for some time now, I've always hesitated because of how it might come off.

The reason? I've begun to resent the church for the way it treats black sheep.

Looking back at my childhood and relatively isolated upbringing, there are so many positives from how I was raised that have helped to mold me into the believer I am today. I understand the value of small-church community, and I've been helped along by the people from the body I've spent most of my life participating in.

But having made my fair share of mistakes and drifted more often than I'd like to admit, I can't help but look back at my old viewpoint on sin and wish I had learned to approach righteousness differently.

Example: When I was relatively young, I got mad at my older sister and I felt so badly about being angry I apologized through tears. I might have been seven or eight, and things like being angry, telling fibs or staying up late to read after my parents had put me to bed was the worst offenses I'd ever committed. I was destroyed at the prospect of having done something so wrong.

An earlier draft of this post skipped this next thought and moved on to slamming people for not reaching out to those who didn't have clean wool like they did. But after a fair amount of thought, I've realized that a large reason I reacted the way I did when I made mistakes or sinned as a youngster was out of a fear that I would be caught. Embarrassment plays a major role, and I would rather waste away than be vulnerable and admit my wrongdoings.

The next paragraph of the old post talked about how I sometimes missed the old standard, and how I'd gained perspective as I'd grown up. What I've come to understand, though, is that my fear of being discovered has led to my spiritual isolation from fellow believers. Instead, I learned to accept and befriend people as broken and twisted as myself, and along the way I think I've somehow become desensitized to the horror of sin.

I understand that there is a trade off; a compromise, I suppose. I'm not so horrified by the front they face to the world that I can't love people IN the world, but I've flown close enough to the sun to get burned, and I have scars that only Jesus himself can make new. He takes me in his arms daily for that purpose. I am well cared for.

Now to the meat of my resentment: Why was I — am I — afraid to be transparent with my own church? Is it because I grew up thinking I needed to look the right way and do the right things in order to be accepted? Is it pride? Probably. I've written about that particular issue before. But I think there's a larger component based on what I see around me. And as a disclaimer, this isn't directed at the church I attend. It's directed at THE Church as a whole.

I've seen the silent look of pity; the disapproving look Jesus describes in Luke 18. He tells of a pharisee who went to pray at the temple alongside a tax collector. The pharisee prays and thanks the Lord that he is not like the tax collector, that he prays and fasts as he should, and he's not caught up in sin — he's not "dirty."

If I carried all my sins up in front of MY church, would they look at ME that way? Why does a man who is openly gay, someone battling drugs or a woman who is pregnant out of wedlock get treated as repugnant in this church of Christ? Does the parable of the good Samaritan mean nothing? And what of Jesus' life example: he chose to spend his time with tax collectors, was heralded by shepherds and showed love and acceptance to whores.

So much for the current standard, right? While you bitch and moan about having a problem with swearing -- oops, did I say that? -- I'll sit and silently decide not to bring up the hit I'd taken in the parking lot earlier, or the person I'd slept with the previous night.

I've made mistakes. I've had some really dark stretches in my life, and I've never brought that to the church asking for help. Why would I? I know what to expect: the look and "Oh... wow. Well, I'll be praying for you, man."

Here's another excerpt from the first edition that I'll include because I feel like it captures the resentment, anger and fear I feel from people who have chosen to stay away from the church rather than face judgement from fellow believers: "I can hear the words coming out of someones mouth, and they make my blood boil. This world isn't all puppies and rainbows, my friend, and if you can't handle anything juicer than being late to book club, I've obviously chosen the wrong place to be transparent."

It makes non believers afraid to walk in the door. They know what awaits them. That young pregnant girl already sees it daily at the coffee shop. It makes wayward believers afraid to return and ask for support. They've seen it too, on the faces of their former friends or relatives before they fell away.

And lastly -- and this is the worst poison -- it keeps believers who struggle with unsavory sins from being real, honest and open with their fellow believers. I count myself in this group, and I've begun to resent the "oh poor me, I lied once this week" crowd.

If that's the worst you've done, praise Jesus. You're further along the path to sanctification than I am, but I'm willing to bet there's something a little darker under the surface. If not, you have something invaluable.

We the black sheep -- weather we're open about our struggles or not -- don't need your pity. We don't need your self-righteous "come to Jesus" speech, and we definitely don't need your judgement. We don't even need your religion.

We need your love. And love knows no boundaries. It is patient and kind and accepting. It doesn't judge, and it doesn't compare. It leaves the fixing to the Lord and trusts in His timeline to do so.

There's nothing wrong with long hair. There's nothing wrong with tattoos. Jesus' example of the pharisee and the tax collector actually ends with the tax collector beating his chest, humbling himself and walking away justified before God. There's nothing that should keep you from showering love and support on anyone who walks through those doors -- harlot or pastor. The sacrifice of the Cross applies to them equally.

Pride: Strong wall and poisoned well

The poster boy for pride doesn't represent my pride well.

I've always thought that pride was like what we see in Disney movies: a boastful character with a pumped-up chest, usually wearing bright red and demanding attention from everyone around him. Picture Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. They're full of themselves, they're the best at everything and  tend to be woefully unbearable.

But I've begun to see pride differently. Pride might be what makes you turn down food stamps, or keep quiet about depression. It is holds silent the cries of people who are too afraid to look weak and instead bury themselves in all the good-looking things they can muster.

Basically, pride is a refusal to admit to my shortcomings and become vulnerable.

That's a little eye opening, isn't it? Pride is a crippling, undermining disease. It keeps me isolated in more ways than one, filling my heart with fear of my wrongdoings being unearthed. The result isn't safety or protection. All that happens is that, over time, the seeds of doubt, loneliness, depression and darkness take hold and grow into strongholds. The longer they grow, the more embarrassing they become and so we build our prideful little walls even higher.

"Look at my mighty fortress," I might tell my friends. "Look how tough the gate is, and how sturdy the foundation!"

All the while, there's a death spreading through the well water, poisoning the occupants. And if I'm so terrified of coming out of my shell, I'll waste away and not improve.

Why the siege? Fear of judgement, maybe. It's easier to tell my problems to a stranger than to a friend -- there's no accountability, and no reason for them to look at me any differently. There's zero vulnerability in a meeting like that, and the sole benefit is to simply get the words off my chest and go about my business.

But the poison is still in the well.

And I think that's why Christ told us to seek the fellowship of other believers. The disciples were in a group of 12, not each one on his own. The missionaries in the early church often went in pairs, not alone. The early church worshiped together, ate together, prayed together and died together.

It's like I wrote about a few weeks — months? — ago: the lone sheep will get picked off by the wolf. That post was talking about clinging to God, but I think the wisdom goes just as far when referring to other believers. I can't sit on an island and hope to see any change.

Here's where pride rears its head once again: I'll pray and ask God for things reluctantly, feeling guilty because I'm somehow not worthy or not good enough to ask — yet. Give me some time, God, and I'll have worked hard and cleaned myself up. Then you can take over.

Except it doesn't work that way. I won't ever get to the point where I'm good enough, and while that doesn't warrant throwing up my hands in defeat, it does mean I should be transparent with God from the beginning.

What is the point of pride, anyway? A prideful person sets themselves apart from others. The longer you stay that way, the more people begin to believe that you're alright on your own, even when you're not. The longer I stay this way, the more I begin to believe I can handle my problems, even when I can't.

I was going to type out a little prayer for me to remember and attempt to live by, and it was going to begin with something along the lines of asking God to cut down my pride and humble me. And even though it's with growth and healing in mind, that's terrifying — and rather so. Being humbled and made vulnerable to others is a scary thought for me, which again gives credence to the idea of pride being a response to fear.

For me, then, this is more appropriate:

Lord make me brave enough to become vulnerable, and help me to see my growth and rebuilding in spite of the fear vulnerability brings. Help me to be humble enough to ask for help when I need it, and to seek fellowship in order to stay that way.

Re-working my investment portfolio

A few months ago, I lightly blogged about how we humans are built to seek affirmation. In my post, I admitted to chasing validation, and blew it off as simply admitting to being normal.

But after some time to think, I'm not sure I agree.

See, when I wrote before that we should seek the approval of Christ before we go after the acceptance of our peers, I forgot how difficult it is to find balance between the two. I wrote about motivations, and how I'm basically geared to chase after happiness and friends and other things which will fade once this life is over.

Don't those two things strongly contradict one another? I look through my Facebook feed and see how I constantly drag out my greatest accomplishments for applause, and yet rarely speak of my walk with Christ and the things HE takes pride in.

I think that, more than anything else, shows where my attention is focused.

I'm not one to plaster my social networking accounts with verses, pictures of crosses and happy little Christian-ese memes, and I'm not about to make that jump. And I'm not going to shut it down and publicly "fast" from Facebook so everyone knows what I'm up to.

At the same time, I'm not about to cast away all the attention I give to the people around me. Conversations I've had with a few close persons have told me that people — loving people, caring for people, being interested in people, read my last post on Tea and Crumpets, etc. — is a calling of mine. Perhaps that is why I struggle with finding a middle ground, simply because God has given me a heart to connect and I haven't yet learned how to control it.

With all of those disclaimers out of the way, my thoughts are thus:

The reason I've gotten to where I am in my career is because I take pride in what I do. I spend my spare time at the office writing or working on the next section (when I'm not watching Netflix, shhhh) and because of the investment, I've seen a significant return.

I need to take pride in my walk with Christ. If I didn't spend any time singing, I wouldn't improve my sight reading or ear training. And because I don't spend time working on my relationship with the Lord, it suffers.

I haven't worked out exactly how to go about that, but I'll write about it in the near future. There are plenty of things I need to work out with my keyboard: what to do with church-time, wondering what mission God has for me, how to act out said mission, my contempt for Christians and what "pride" means to me.

For now, I'll stop worrying about chasing worldly acceptance and look after other needed areas.

Except coffee. I can still chase that.

Lessons: Tea and crumpets

If you know this book, serious points to you. Also, Ferdinand.

It's amazing how God works behind the scenes, setting up little miracles and revealing them to us after they've played out.

A few minutes ago, I went back and read yesterday's heartfelt post crying out about restlessness, dissatisfaction, doubt and guilt. It makes me glad I started this blog, as now I can look at where my mind was yesterday afternoon and begin to work through the things that happened in the aftermath with a solid starting point.

Shortly after the little story was posted, I received a message from an old friend, simply reaching out to see how I was doing. It was a few steps further from the usual response, which is the liking of a status on Facebook, or adding a sad face in the comments to somehow convey sympathy in a shallow, non-time consuming way.

Instead of exchanging a few words back and fourth, he invited me to call him, and I did. We spoke for the better part of a quarter hour, discussing work, music, people, etc., and it was healing. I went home a little while later feeling refreshed and appreciated, with the thought 'my, how God works in mysterious ways,' passing through my head before leaving the office.

This evening, as I went through the usual lonely routine of Netflix and trying not to head down the street for nasty-for-my-body fast food, the episode of the TV show fell upon the topic of Valentines day. There I went, rabbiting away to some deep, dark and dreary place, thinking over all of my choices — good ones and bad ones alike — and wondering which of them were mistakes.

That's just when I received a message from my mother, as messages containing her wisdom often do when I'm wrestling with something.

A few days ago, she told me about staying close to the shepherd, as wolves find it easier to pick off isolated lambs. It dawned on me that, regardless of my isolation from friends and family, I'm never isolated from God's presence — more on that later.

Tonight's message brought me back to my days in grade school, where I had a few brief brushes with theater as a youngster. If my memory serves me correctly (this was something like 13 years ago), our class was split into groups, with each group set to create a skit about safety of some kind. I was paired with two friends, one of my few consistent companions, and a young boy with Down's Syndrome.

Stevie, as he was affectionately known by the class, probably wasn't the top pick for a theatrical performance. I'll skip over the specifics, but my friend and I ended up giving Stevie a simple speaking part that made him the star of our little drama, and my mom recalls Stevie's mother "bursting with joy over hearing him talk." It was a mark of my personality, she said, that I took the time to make him a part of it all, simply because people matter to me.

"My opinion is that God is into people too," she said. "Talk to Him all the time — I have been having coffee with Him often, and when I get up to do some thing else it seems He doesn't want me to go. Let Him talk too by reading his Words."

Wait, physically spend time with God? Should I pull up an extra chair in my little kitchen and make an extra cup of tea? Maybe God doesn't like tea... then the hammer, and the thing that tied it all together:

I remember my mom taking out the trash when I was young. The sound of the wheels dragging along the driveway still sticks with me as a piece of home, but it turns out that there was more to the routine than I had known about. It was a chance, a five-minutes' peace, to be alone with God.

"He would tell me He had been waiting for me to come out so we could be alone," she remembered.
"You are probably thinking I'm crazy, go ahead. God really does follow us around wanting to be with us especially when we are lonely."

So, all those times where I wallow in my sorrows, God's been simply waiting for me to realize that he's there? Following me with the hope that I'll turn around and jump into his arms and leave my foolish ignorance behind?

The last few months, in which I've allowed myself to spiral at times, are beginning to come together.

Maybe, I was brought out to Scappoose so I could learn and grow in the Lord without any distractions. It's something my mom — surprise, surprise — hit home in the latest message. Right now, I have the luxury of time without immediate responsibilities. No significant other, no wife, no kids — just a cat.

"Your relationship with Him is the foundation for the rest of your life, in which you may not be alone and you will need to work at being alone with God," she told me.

And right now, the only person I need to fight for alone time is myself.

Be still, my restless heart

Sometimes I feel like this. Other times I haven't the energy.

I'm no stranger to restless legs. At times in my life, I get so worked up that I'll pace in circles, disappear and drive to to beach (literally, it's happened several times) or contemplate some crazy change.

I'm not sure where it comes from, or why restlessness rears its head from time to time, but it's back. Maybe it's the stresses surrounding money, the load of responsibility from my job or the relationship I left behind in July, but something has eaten into my mind and heart.

It's frustrating. Taking a step backward, I have quite a few things to be thankful for. The bumps along the way are minor, and I can see God's blessing and crafting in my life, in spite of my many faults and shortcomings.

Still, I'm unsatisfied. I feel as though there is a change around the corner somewhere, or that there should be. There's something missing, some piece of me that I have yet to find.

I want to blame it on isolation from living in Scappoose. I'm not one to go out and meet people, and so in the nine months I've lived here, I don't have friends outside of the sporting world (work), other than the bartender at a favorite place of mine. My friends are in Portland, in Oregon City, in Milwaukie, etc. I see them once a week, with the other six days and all seven nights usually filled with emptiness that a cat — lovely and cuddly though she is — can't overcome.

This is a battle I don't know how to fight. I got Philli because I needed another creature to fill up the quiet apartment and provide a distraction for what is still ailing me more than a year later.

I also carry guilt on this one. Shouldn't God fill me up? Shouldn't God be enough? Why do I thirst for something more? Do I not have enough faith? Is there something keeping us apart? Probably.

All I know for sure is that I'll have to resist driving to Seaside tonight.

Deuteronomy 20:4: To Claim Victory

I serenade my cat rather often.

I've written before about how many of my best thoughts tend to hit me in the shower. It's a strange phenomenon — something about how our mind works when our brains shut off — but that's not the point.

A few days ago, a phrase uttered by my sister Anna (you can see her lovely blog here) struck me as I scrubbed my nose with the little washcloth I keep draped over the cold-water handle.

"I claim victory over that," she'd say, during any discussion about sin and habits.

It goes back to my earlier topic comparing sin and our sinful nature to addiction, something I do intend to finish. Anna and I were talking about how alcoholics often never refer to themselves as being a former alcoholic or having beaten their alcohol addiction. They usually say they are a recovering alcoholic — clean and sober for, say, six years.

Awesome. Congrats. That's a major accomplishment, in my eyes.

But in the discussion between Anna and I, she challenged my way of thinking. Why recovering? What makes it so they haven't beaten the addiction — and in terms of Christ and sin: claim victory over that and be done with it.

There's that phrase again. I've heard it before, usually during a Gospel-talk in which the preacher says Christ claimed victory over sin, or something along those lines.

So what does that mean? Christ claimed a lot of things. He claimed to be the Son of God. He could heal un-cure-able sicknesses. He could bring people back from the dead, and feed 5,000 people at once. I can't do those things, not in and of myself. If I can't get through the day without tripping, I certainly can't walk on water or calm a storm with my voice.

But God can.

And therein lies my thought as I tried not to loudly serenade myself and my cat whilst in the shower — by claiming victory over sin, we're telling the evil one that God has won, we believe God has won, and we know God will carry out victory over sin, death and all the evil desires the world tries to stick on us.

I think of the movie Return of the King, and the scene in which Viggo Mortensen leads his outnumbered army headlong into a multitude of evil orcs. It's folly, really. And on his own, it means certain death.

That's the idea behind claiming victory over a sin, with one huge and rather essential exception: we have God as backup, and we have God's assurance that the fight is fought, and the battle won.

What 'claiming victory' means, then, is that we're saying to the evil one: "You have no hold on me, Satan. The Lord has already lifted your shackles from me, and I have undying faith in him to continue to fight until you are defeated — the battle has already been fought, and you've already come out the loser."

It's a powerful statement, isn't it? Without God in that picture, we'd look ridiculous, but that's the point. Throwing ourselves into the battle with the knowledge that God has already won, and will continue to reveal his victory to us as we grow in him makes fighting an awful lot easier to do.

"For the Lord your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory."

— Deuteronomy 20:4

Wages of Sin

It's a verse that I've heard over and over since I was young,  that the "wages of sin is death." The emphasis is usually on the BUT the gift of God bit, rather than the true reality of what sin does to us. Yes, the power and love of Christ washes us clean. I believe that.

But at the same time, I hold that sin affects us in underhanded ways, things we might not realize at the time we're doing it, but stuff that changes our outlook, our habits, our tendencies and our ability to appropriately cope with trouble down the road.

This is something that God has been teaching me over the past few months. The wages of sin have as much to do with the here and now as they do with what happens after death. Sin is like a parasite. Once it's in your body, it digs deeper and continues to grow. It becomes more difficult to function the way you were made to function, and your body can actually begin to work against itself. Sin is that way.

For someone battling lies, they lose sight of what truth really feels like after years of being mired in deception. Not only do they lose the trust of the people around them, they also lose the appreciation for honesty and transparency.

For someone who is battling lust, it might seem as though watching porn is harmless. But down the road as they attempt to be intimate with their wife (or husband, it goes both ways), they'll struggle because they were used to experiencing intimacy with a screen.

Just like when the Jews wandered the wilderness, there are reasons for the laws set down by God: to protect us. If I take something made by God and misuse it, it's ten times harder to relearn to act in a way pleasing and worshipful to the Lord.

This is something that's been on my mind for some time now as God has been showing me the damage I've done to myself. It's given me a deeper appreciation for the guidelines given to us from a loving Father. Loving. The laws have always seemed rigid to me until recently. I hope to maintain this new perspective.