Thus Saith the Dog!

Last week, I had a conversation with two people who were struggling with the same issue… the church and church people. The conversations both started with something that sounded like this:

I cannot understand the narrow mindedness of people who call themselves Christian. I no longer want to be around church people. The thought of going to church and facing judgment, mean spirited people and awkward situations is beginning to make me sick to my stomach. I am getting to the point where I do not want to hear the word and, even worst, I no longer feel like singing worship songs.”

There is nothing like sitting down to coffee with someone who opens the conversation with a statement like this. I suppose I should feel honored that a person trusts me enough to share this kind of thought but it can make my latte taste sour if you know what I mean! This is mostly because the conversation is going to be filled with stories that I’m not going to like. It breaks my heart when I hear that the very institution that should have helped heal a person has instead hurt them.

In each case, I was able to hear them out and add my “two cents”. Since I have also been through unhealthy relationships with pastors and church people, I suppose I felt qualified to counsel on the matter.

This is some of what I shared:

Right of that bat we have to get something straight in our minds. People are imperfect and since the church is full of people, it is going to be an imperfect place. There is no getting around it. This does not give people an excuse to act in unhealthy or in unfavorable ways, but they will and this can be hard to deal with. This is something that took me a long time to accept and an even longer time to get over.

We have to realize, as people who follow Christ, that distraction is the devil’s chief weapon. If we start worrying about all the ridiculous crap that some of these people in church are doing, we will forget our purpose of remaining connected to and serving Jesus. This is what happened to me and I ended up on a long and painful journey that I didn’t have to take, full was full of anger, bitterness and discontentment.

It’s important to remember that, without Jesus, we are all worthless dirt-bags. Sometimes we just need to let the other “dirt-bags” off the hook. I mean isn’t there someone let you off the hook a time or two? (hint: it was Jesus)

This in no way means that we have to take people’s crap. There is great wisdom in knowing how to set boundaries. There is never a reason to stay in an unhealthy or hurtful relationship with a pastor, a church, a friend or anyone else!

Also, remember that what you focus on is what you are giving power. If you have ever wondered how people get distracted and drift away, it is because of where they are focusing.

Colossian 3:2 says: “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” The bible says this for a good reason. It is a simple concept: whatever we are looking at is what we are moving towards.  You cannot look backwards and walk forward…at least not for very long.

I love how Col. 3:2 reads in The Message:

“So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective.”

Focus on heaven and reap heaven’s reward. Focus on earth and reap earth’s reward. We must keep our perspective focused up!

We have all experienced an unhealthy situation. We have all experienced the wounds of betrayal and have been let down. It’s not really about trying to avoid this stuff because that would be impossible. It’s more about learning to gain some sort of value in it. One of my favorite sayings is:

“It’s not about avoiding the storm. It is about learning to dance in the rain.”

You can’t truly dance in the rain if you focus on the mud puddles. When we learn to take our eyes off the negative, that bad situation becomes completely powerless and the Devil loses the ability to distract us.

Graham Cooke says, “What if every potentially damaging situation was really a shortcut to a brilliant experience with Jesus? Instead of being wounded, we would become more like Christ!” With that in mind, let’s remain connected to Jesus. Letting go of our right to hold on to our wounds and offenses we can be free and healed! That is a Heavenly perspective with a Heavenly reward!

By keeping a Kingdom perspective, we literally drive out the negative with all its sorrow, betrayal and wounds. There is no inheritance in any of that garbage so why keep it around?

Driving out the negative disarms the enemy and sets us free to live as followers of Christ and to be the people we were destined to be before all the hurt. We move into our destiny as His children who are Royalty and joint-heirs to the King himself.

Once we realized who we are in Jesus, and that we have a destiny in the Kingdom, dancing in the rain and stomping through the mud puddles becomes easy!

So…DANCE DANCE DANCE!

~Rude Dog