The Gifts of God
A man came into the store the other night, wasted. The smell of fairly cheap alcohol was obvious on his breath, in his walk, in his tone...everything.
Alcoholic, pot-head, and self-professed as such.
But it's been a long time since I heard someone preach and pray with the kind of authority he had.
...then, two days later. TWO DAYS. He comes back in, remembering me but forgetting that we had the conversation at all. Drunk again, wandering, aimless...
And I thought to myself, the thing that I admired most about him, is now just two days later, the thing I despise most. He admitted to struggling with alcohol, but he was confident in his salvation and in the value of the Word and of the Cross. He knew what he believed and knew that he was God's child. Beloved son. It was beautiful, as filthy as it was spoken with a breath of whiskey. He knew that there was more to life, more to God, than being perfect. Knew that something was deeper, more important. That it was not about being in right actions, but being in right heart.
Two days later his testimony's value was almost completely lost, because I found that the importance I had placed in his testimony was still wrong. That saying he was still powerful and an excellent witness to the inclusiveness of the Kingdom wasn't enough. Developing a growing relationship with your family, with...
Is this unreasonable of me? Is it wrong to say that forgetting the 45 minute sermon he shared with me about the love and acceptance of God...that it's largely lost when only two days later he couldn't remember giving it? Couldn't even FUCKING REMEMBER that I was a christian at all?
I'm not a christian cuz it makes me feel good. I'm not a christian because I have an obligation to God, or feel that He has one to me. I'm sure as fuck not a christian because I have my life in order, or as a way of getting it in order.
I'm a christian because in the end, it's the only hope I can find. The only thing that combines an explanation for the world's complete and utter broken shitty chaos with a chance that things will ever get better. Because it's the only thing that even suggests that there's jack shit I can do to help...and that, only by being willing and by trying to follow. He says He'll bless our efforts if our hearts and desires are right. My heart for people and for the world is unmistakable.
It's just broken, too. And that's what I can still admire about this guy. Drunk, drugged, and forgetting things from two days ago...still, he would have given me another sermon had I not mentioned that we'd had the conversation already. I'm sure of that. And I admire it. I admire that it wasn't just a passing fancy; it was a lifestyle. It was a belief, solid and firm. Faith. Faith that, in the end, has value by its own definition. And the unreliability of the person delivering the message does NOT negate the message.
I have to remember that. Or my last pieces of hope may fade, and my faith may be completely lost. No one deserves to preach His name. No one deserves to pray at His feet. There is none righteous. All have sinned and continuously fall short of the glory of God, the standard we cannot hope to obtain.
But the GIFT of God is salvation. The GIFT of righteousness. The GIFT of authority. We are not entitled to jack shit. We are not entitled to go on mission trips and tell other people what to believe, be those mission trips to foreign countries or foreign homes. We are not entitled to say that God is listening to us.
We have nothing to do with it.
I'm beginning to feel that American christians are the worst christians in the world...and will be until we shake the sense of entitlement that our culture inculcates in us. We're flooded with "you deserve this" from our first day of exposure. It's like a radiation, infecting a cancer in us almost from birth. And so we start to believe that we have a right to pray. We have the right to preach. We have the right to say that others are wrong and we are right, even when we say things that go directly AGAINST the Word...or at least, against its original intentions.
I am worthless. This I am growing to believe, in the most pure and accurate way possible. I am worthless because on my own, I have never been able to do anything. Why He has ever blessed my efforts when my eyes weren't on Him, I don't know. Maybe to keep me from forgetting that He's there and that He cares, because without that nurturing, I wouldn't likely believe in Him at all. And I've written stories about the kind of man I'd be; they end just as they begin, in utter shit, broken and doing all he can to break those around him. Hell, I do that now, even still, and I know I'm His.
If He is who He has claimed to be, I am His. If not, we're all pretty much screwed anyway, so it doesn't much matter what else He might be. We can only trust Him to be everything He says He is, or we cannot trust Him to be anything He claims.
Alcoholic, pot-head, and self-professed as such.
But it's been a long time since I heard someone preach and pray with the kind of authority he had.
...then, two days later. TWO DAYS. He comes back in, remembering me but forgetting that we had the conversation at all. Drunk again, wandering, aimless...
And I thought to myself, the thing that I admired most about him, is now just two days later, the thing I despise most. He admitted to struggling with alcohol, but he was confident in his salvation and in the value of the Word and of the Cross. He knew what he believed and knew that he was God's child. Beloved son. It was beautiful, as filthy as it was spoken with a breath of whiskey. He knew that there was more to life, more to God, than being perfect. Knew that something was deeper, more important. That it was not about being in right actions, but being in right heart.
Two days later his testimony's value was almost completely lost, because I found that the importance I had placed in his testimony was still wrong. That saying he was still powerful and an excellent witness to the inclusiveness of the Kingdom wasn't enough. Developing a growing relationship with your family, with...
Is this unreasonable of me? Is it wrong to say that forgetting the 45 minute sermon he shared with me about the love and acceptance of God...that it's largely lost when only two days later he couldn't remember giving it? Couldn't even FUCKING REMEMBER that I was a christian at all?
I'm not a christian cuz it makes me feel good. I'm not a christian because I have an obligation to God, or feel that He has one to me. I'm sure as fuck not a christian because I have my life in order, or as a way of getting it in order.
I'm a christian because in the end, it's the only hope I can find. The only thing that combines an explanation for the world's complete and utter broken shitty chaos with a chance that things will ever get better. Because it's the only thing that even suggests that there's jack shit I can do to help...and that, only by being willing and by trying to follow. He says He'll bless our efforts if our hearts and desires are right. My heart for people and for the world is unmistakable.
It's just broken, too. And that's what I can still admire about this guy. Drunk, drugged, and forgetting things from two days ago...still, he would have given me another sermon had I not mentioned that we'd had the conversation already. I'm sure of that. And I admire it. I admire that it wasn't just a passing fancy; it was a lifestyle. It was a belief, solid and firm. Faith. Faith that, in the end, has value by its own definition. And the unreliability of the person delivering the message does NOT negate the message.
I have to remember that. Or my last pieces of hope may fade, and my faith may be completely lost. No one deserves to preach His name. No one deserves to pray at His feet. There is none righteous. All have sinned and continuously fall short of the glory of God, the standard we cannot hope to obtain.
But the GIFT of God is salvation. The GIFT of righteousness. The GIFT of authority. We are not entitled to jack shit. We are not entitled to go on mission trips and tell other people what to believe, be those mission trips to foreign countries or foreign homes. We are not entitled to say that God is listening to us.
We have nothing to do with it.
I'm beginning to feel that American christians are the worst christians in the world...and will be until we shake the sense of entitlement that our culture inculcates in us. We're flooded with "you deserve this" from our first day of exposure. It's like a radiation, infecting a cancer in us almost from birth. And so we start to believe that we have a right to pray. We have the right to preach. We have the right to say that others are wrong and we are right, even when we say things that go directly AGAINST the Word...or at least, against its original intentions.
I am worthless. This I am growing to believe, in the most pure and accurate way possible. I am worthless because on my own, I have never been able to do anything. Why He has ever blessed my efforts when my eyes weren't on Him, I don't know. Maybe to keep me from forgetting that He's there and that He cares, because without that nurturing, I wouldn't likely believe in Him at all. And I've written stories about the kind of man I'd be; they end just as they begin, in utter shit, broken and doing all he can to break those around him. Hell, I do that now, even still, and I know I'm His.
If He is who He has claimed to be, I am His. If not, we're all pretty much screwed anyway, so it doesn't much matter what else He might be. We can only trust Him to be everything He says He is, or we cannot trust Him to be anything He claims.