I'm fine: Authenticity in love

  I think a lot of us can say we've been mad at God. Maybe it was something shallow and stupid, in the long run. Maybe it was over something huge! Even if that huge something resulted in an equally huge blessing, when we feel we're being wronged, our first reaction is to be mad. Even after you've come to realize the blessing in it, you still might hold a grudge over the pain that came before it, over losses you've had, over heartbreak.

 What do you do with that anger? Do you swallow it, a bitter pill that leaves you sour, and sugar coat your prayers? Or do you let Him have it?

God knows it's there. You don't have to tell Him you're angry with him. He already knows. When you sugar coat and hide your anger you serve no good purpose; God wants an authentic relationship with you. God wants your real, raw self. You can't have an authentic relationship when you're holding back your authentic feelings. We have to let them go. We do it because He wants us to, because He knows that in pouring our real feelings onto him, we pour OURSELVES onto Him, and in doing so we draw closer to him. We draw closer and we allow Him to heal our hurts and our anger. When we hold them back, there's no healing.

 I was so angry with God when Karl's fight with cancer started going downhill. I was angry at the idea that my kids were going to have to watch their dad die slowly. I was angry that he had to be in so much pain. I was angry at the work I had to do; the job, the care-giving, the child-minding, the decision-making. It made me angry. Sometimes I held it back, sometimes I literally cursed God in my prayers. How could He do this to me? To my family?

 Even as the many blessings that resulted from those two years of cancer poured onto me (I can't call someone's pain and death a blessing, especially not that of a good man and a good father, but many things have happened as a result of the struggle that ARE blessings), as my anger faded, I held onto some resentment. It took awhile before I could admit that. But when I did, when I finally let God have it all, the relief that came surprised me.

 It works the same way in human relationships. We've all been angry at another person from time to time in our lives, but so often, we shrug when they ask and we say it's "fine," even when it's not. Even though we hurt and seethe inside. "I'm fine," is a lie I'm all too guilty of telling my husband when I just don't want to fight, or if I know that it'll hurt his feelings. Even when I'm mad, I don't want anyone else to get hurt. But you know, Greg knows me well enough, and I suck badly enough at hiding my emotions, that he knows I'm not "fine." And that hurts his feelings even more, because he, too, wants my real, authentic self. The people closest to us in our lives deserve authenticity from us. I want to be close to my husband, and he to me, and so we have to give of ourselves, the good and the bad.

 Real human relationships are the biggest gift God's given us on this earth. Relationships with our parents and siblings, our spouses, our kids. I'm guilty of occasionally souring those relationships with that big lie, that "I'm fine."  Probably most of us are. What I'm going to do, though, is work on being more authentic, more transparent, and more honest for the sake of my relationships with my loved ones. They deserve it and I deserve it and God wants that for us.

What happened to church?

 We went to church on Sunday for the first time since the kids and I moved in with Greg, a year and a half ago. Admittedly, it was a fun service! There was a band, smoke effects, light effects, a big screen with swirly patterns to keep our attention! The sermon was full of comic relief and amusing anecdotes!

But...

 When did we start going to church to be performed for, rather than to hear God's word? When did the focus of the service become entertainment? When did our worship become something we had to be amused with to stick with?

 The smoke effects aren't for God, they're for us. We live in this modern world where our senses are so overloaded with entertainment and the idea that everything we do should be for fun, that everything we do should have an immediate reward, that we apparently need a man behind a curtain to give us a show. That man behind the curtain isn't God, it's a cowardly wizard, and he's as fake as the one in the emerald city. We don't need him. Our church services have become so human-centered, and we don't even realize it. They will know us by our LOVE, not our smoke machine or killer drum solos or guitar skills, or our ability to jump up and down on stage while we sing or in-house coffee shops.

 There's nothing wrong with entertainment. There's definitely nothing wrong with a church service that grabs our attention and draws us in. But when the thing drawing us in is the flashiness, the comic relief, not God's word, we have a problem.

 The bigger a church gets, the less focus there is on God. The less focus there is on the fellowship He intends for us. And we don't even know it. We get out into the community now and then, but then we draw back and go on buying ourselves lights and smoke and fancy guitars and giant screens to keep the congregation entertained.  God doesn't care about those and bringing them into your service doesn't impress God. It doesn't add to His glorification. It adds to our own glorification, the glorification of our own pride. Our church has this and this and this. It's amazing.

 Is it, really? In the attempt to stay "relevant," the church is instead fueling a self-serving attitude and less desire to really hear God's word. The more money a church has, the less relevant it really is. Smoke screens are just that. We need to look through the smoke and reach out for what's real. We need to BE real.

 Be real, Christians.