Recently I came across an article describing the overnight phenomena of a woman who rose to the top of the music charts for her song that bashes the church. I would applaud her except for the fact it isn’t anything new, but she has been able to corner the market on criticism to her advantage.
It is easy to look at others and find fault with their lives, while overlooking our own and the church has always been a target. It is an easy target because of the expectations placed upon the church. While it is true the church is supposed to be the Body of Christ and certainly much of the New Testament addresses how Christians within the churches should behave, we sadly fall short of expectations. Why? Because we are frail, imperfect human beings who need God. The thing is those who are in churches realize this fact. We need God, we all need God. We all have our own brand of being messed up, if we’re honest. We are people. People who sometimes say unkind words, get jealous, get angry, refuse to forgive, lie, steal, hurt others, swear, drink too much, face addictions of many kinds. I’m sure you can think of more things to add to this list.
Not everyone is so messed up, but we have our stuff that God is working on in us. Maybe its fears or insecurities, mental illnesses, anxieties, relationship issues, marriage problems, grief, homelessness, unemployment, financial issues. The point is: there is stuff. We all have stuff. We go to church because we need to be reminded that through all of our stuff it is God who cares.
It is not about fitting in and conforming ourselves to be carbon copies of others, it is because we desire to cry out to God in prayer, songs, and find support from others in church. We go to pray for others, and have others pray for us. We support each other in good times and bad. We are definitely not perfect. If we were, we wouldn’t be in church. We would be on some mountain top or starting our own religion and having people worship us and not God.
It is far too easy to point fingers at the people in church and declare they are messed up and harsh or judgmental, but really when you think about it, who is really being judgemental? Those who stand back and find reasons why Christianity is not for them because of its representatives? Or those who have reached out to God and fall at His feet as a broken people in need of a savior?
I do not deny that there are some pretty bad apples within Christianity. There always has been since the beginning. There are those who see it as a way to get rich and take advantage of others, There are those who exploit women, and children. There are those who lie and cheat in the name of God. This is never accepted by Christ, but it happens because this world is pretty messed up, inside and outside the church.
I hope no one would look at my life and judge Jesus by it. I am not perfect. Only Jesus is. I am a work in progress.
Last year I went on a very popular diet plan in order to lose weight before our son’s wedding. I had used this particular plan before, so I thought it would work great to shed a couple of pounds and fit into my wedding clothes easier. Well, if I had told you I had been on the plan and convinced you it would work for you, you might have questioned me. It didn’t work. Well, let me put it this way…. I didn’t do the work. I was lazy. The plan didn’t work, because I didn’t stop eating some of the foods I really liked, and I didn’t really exercise. The reality is that reading the plan, tracking the food, buying special foods, wasn’t going to work if I refused to realize my metabolism had changed as I got older, and that I needed to get rid of my bad habits- junk food and watching tv.
So, if someone wanted to look at me and judge the diet plan because of the way I looked to them, it would be easy. I would look like a failure, or more importantly the diet plan would look like a failure. Soon, word would spread to avoid this diet plan, because it was a fake, that it took your money, and did not produce the desired results. Examples would be found of others who were still overweight after joining the program. Photographs would flood social media and soon it would go viral. It would be called a scam, even if it did in fact work for some people.
We have become such a critical judgemental society, the very thing that Christianity is accused of being, without realizing the common thread in our criticism: we criticize ourselves when we criticize others about being judgemental. If we judge others for being judgmental, we are in fact being judgmental. We are all people. Imperfect people. All of us. Finding fault in others is easy. Blaming others for our own insecurities is easy. Humbling ourselves and admitting maybe we need God is hard.
Moving Forward 