lost world

Someone commented to me about the last post wondering why God hadn't spared me that pain. I truthfully never even thought of it in terms of why didn't he spare me, or anyone for that matter. I guess that requires that you expect something from God to start with. I guess I can't help but seeing how bad and unfair the world is. That's what led to the nihilism anyway. There seemed to be no order, no reason. The good suffered and the bad were rewarded and at other times it went the other way around. And through it all people bickered and competed over the most stupid unimportant things.

Obviously what I had been taught about God and the world didn't appear to hold up. It still doesn't to a large extent. That's what makes me so upset with the trite answers. I didn't look like I was that close to the edge most of the time. I had moments, but otherwise, I looked pretty together. So in any group, I always consider who might be sitting right there teetering on the very brink. Who might be a thread away from harming themselves or others. One careful word or kind gesture may prevent a tragedy.

There are so many people for whom life is a cruel joke. They want something real, something permanent. Something they desperately need but can't find anywhere. There's churches on every corner. If that was the answer, you'd think in 2000 years we'd have made a bunch more progress than this, huh? We are corrupt beings. We white wash it, but it only takes an open eye to see the results of our poison.

Jesus railed against the religious institutions of his day. He spoke in the "churches" of his era, was trained as a teacher, a preacher. But he offended them so much that he had to take to meeting in the country. John the Baptist, whom Jesus called greater than any man born, was a half-crazed hermit! His followers had to go find him in the desert! It was the religious leaders that plotted against Jesus and crucified him. Yet, in Jesus' very name, we have turned his ekklesia, the "called out" into the same entrenched institution that he railed against.

Don't get me wrong. I don't hate Christians. I don't even hate churches all together. I'm just saying that they are not bastions of God's Kingdom. They are miserably flawed at the root. Just like everything else in this world. And the more levels you add on top of the simple metanoia faith, that many levels you have departed from who God is. I don't care how much people might argue that the institutionalization is necessary to reach people...not at the expense of losing even one. Thank God that HE is the good shepherd. That HE is the one who saves the one lost lamb. No one else can.

If anything good comes out of this blog, it would be that those who do not know this Jesus will seek out more and that those who do, will realize what it means to seek first HIS kingdom and HIS righteousness. Myself included. I am just a howling dog running the flank for my master and holding the wolves at bay. And you can keep the gold and pleasures of heaven. I want nothing more than to be able to lie at his feet when the day is done and hear the words, "good boy." That's more than I deserve.