“Christianity is not about building an absolutely secure little niche in the world where you can live with your perfect little wife and your perfect little children in your beautiful little house where you have no gays or minority groups anywhere near you. Christianity is about learning to love like Jesus loved and Jesus loved the poor and Jesus loved the broken.... I think I would rather live on the verge of falling and let my security be in the all-sufficiency of the grace of God than to live in some pietistic illusion of moral excellence....”
Rich Mullins
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Going back a few posts, I felt sad when Rich Mullins died, although I never met him. He's one of my heros, and he's right about this. I lost my perfect little life recently, and while that hurt a lot, it helped me learn to rely on God. And you know what? He really was there for me. People told me all my life about how God can sustain you and provide everything you need. It sounds good on paper, but until you experience it, it doesn't feel real. It feels real now. And tonight, I'm off to eat dinner with the poor and broken. Thanks for the good advice, Rich.
I sometimes find myself feeling bitter towards these kinds of ideas and thoughts, even though (or maybe because) they resonate so closely to me. This way of living seems so very difficult...unnatural, even. Why is it that the true and natural way that God wants/created us to live is so difficult and unnatural to do? Why is the power and sway of sin's corruption so strong in our humanity, compared to the power and sway of redemption? I desperately want to live this way, but I never feel like I have the muster to manage it. (And catch phrases like, "Trust God to get you there," are too vague to be helpful.) Answers?
leah says:
several things: first, i'm excited that i finally came to your blog paul! i've never read any and was always skeptical of the "fad" if you want to call it, but i rather like it.
second, that's a great quote by rich mullins. the christian life can appear to be perfect to both christians and non-christians. i had a friend who got annoyed with me because i always answered "good" to "how are you?" and he thought it was because i was christian. "how are you?" has since become a perplexing question for me, not because i'm always bad but b/c if i really thought about it, there would be so many ways to answer. anyway, patrick, i wholeheartedly agree with your comment. i think though, that "the true and natural way God created us" did not involve loving the poor and the broken at all, b/c there wouldn't have been any poor and broken to love. loving the poor and broken is only part of the redemptive process, and it's quite hard to be redeemed to a Holy God from Sin.
3 cheers for platitudes like "just trust in God" and "everything has a reason, you know" that offer no help at all. (does sarcasm work on these blogs?) the only answer i can offer is to know your God. what i mean by this is just keep searching for him. if you remember that you have relied on him in the past, even if you can't see him now, that'll get you through. if you havn't relied on Him in the past, well then i don't know. and of course, as words often have no meaning, what i really mean is this: .
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