Hard Job

I said to someone recently that I felt like all the is going on is making it harder to be a Christian, and I was not pointing the figure at who you would think but rather Christians themselves for some of the choices that are being made and some of the things that are being said and are being said in such a way that all Christians hold that to be true.

But I will admit in that statement I was wrong. They are not making it harder, its always been hard and Christians are often our own worst enemy. American Christians have so many cushy things here but we love to call persecution. Somehow we have this misunderstanding that we own this country and it is owed to us. But things are not getting harder, Christianity is not the easy road, the Bible states that, but it is the road where God comes along side of you and helps to carry the load. The disciples themselves are the example that once you follow Christ everything doesn't become a sunny walk on the beach (ie prison, stabbed, running from people that hated them... doesn't sound like a beach)

But still I hold hope.

I grew up in a white community where almost everyone went to church. I remember someone making fun of a kid once for not going to church. I grew up fully believing that American's are Christians that have the same theological beliefs I do, and as I got older the realities of the world started to show more. I started to understand what check box Christianity is.

People using the cloak of Christianity to spread unbiblical things breaks my heart and makes me so mad, but it has been a problem for a long time, its nothing new, just different circumstances.

And so yes it does take a lot of others to stand up against a "popular" "christian" figure when they say unbiblical things, but that makes our job even more important. So here are some things I am hope I am learning:

-To read my Bible more, I can't say something is unbiblical if I don't know for myself what the Bible says. Ephesians 6:17 talks about God's word being a sword but I need to know what it says.
-Reminder that God is not confined to a political power. In America we like to think we are untouchable but we are not, I have studied other countries enough to learn about the fall of so many of them, but God is still God.
-That we need to be out there speaking and living love. The world love is used 551 times in the NIV translation. You don't bring up something that many times if it is not important. To quote Switchfoot "Love is the movement, Love is a revolution, This is redemption, We don't have to slow back down" We need to be so visible in our communities that when someone asks what the church does in the community the list is so long that people forget things. But this takes working together.
-To state when something is wrong. Right now it is so easy to find someone who supports your point of view but try to find facts instead of opinions can be hard. Saying something is wrong does not mean attaching someone, I will agree that as a society we have gone off the deep end with this 1. people yelling about everything 2. everyone taking everything as a personal attach. There is a way to say you disagree with someone without being mean and there is a way to listen without being offend. I see the complaint on both sides of the isle that the other side is offended over everything and in many cases here both sides are right. I'm still working on this. How do we say something is wrong lovingly?
-Stop being so quick to judge others and all judgement should come out of love. When I say to a friend that I am worried about something they are doing it is because I love them and genuinely care about them, and often times that is how things start off as a society but then it ends in "those stupid people"
-Work on admitting mistakes while loving others. I don't like pointing out when I am wrong. I like to be right. But there are times when I am wrong and I need to stand up for that and own it. The world often says Christians are hypocrites and I think some of that comes from us saying everyone else is wrong but never admitting our own failures. But the while loving others is an important piece there because just because we are not perfect is not a reason to not love others, all too often we think we need to have ourselves completely together before God can use us but then we always sit on the sideline because none of us are ever going to be good enough.
-Not being overwhelmed by the world that we become numb and stop helping others or working for what is right. I was talking to someone yesterday and they were commenting on how until they watched John Oliver's show this weekend that they had started tuning out what is going on in our country because it just became too much. Each day right now there is a new flashing news story of things honestly if they would have happened 6mo ago weeks apart from each other each one of them would have taken center stage on 24hr news networks but right now there is so much coming so fast that it is hard to digest what all is going on, but just because of that doesn't mean we can stop working hard to make sure that every person is treated like a child of God.I was talking with someone once and they said that they often think that the devil works in making us busy, too busy to love others and do what we are called to do. We become so wrapped up in things that they distract us from God. We always think the devil works in big things like addictions, affairs, abuse but we forget that sometimes the everyday simple things of life can be just as dangerous. I'm not advocating not cleaning your house or taking care of your children, those are things that God has called us to do too, but it is hard to not get distracted by it all.

As I was typing the Leeland song "Tears of the Saints" came on and hit my heart "Even churches have forsaken, Love and mercy, May we see this generation, In it's state of desperation, For Your glory, This is an emergency!"

So lets keep spreading love, lets stand up when something is wrong. Lets talking lovingly. Lets have conversations before judging people


But I will also be the first to admit how hard it is. Its 1:55 and right now I feel frustrated, tired, and stressed. The world is weighing on my heart but the day to day tasks of being a mom are hard. Jilli woke up with a yucky cough this morning and a wheeze but once she got a neb the lung sounds got better but I was not loving how high her heart rate jumped (I understand a heart rate jump with a neb but this one was high for her) I have spent all day debating if we need to have her seen but she has no other symptoms. She has even played some and helped me clean up toys. I really think this is just her lungs being her lungs. They do this and it sucks when they do but there is nothing we can do but support her body but it is that dance of how much support does she need. We have had two massively poop filled diapers here today that ended up on the rug. The power cord from the pulse ox was MIA and the battery started to die so I had to tare stuff apart because we needed that working today. Lydia keeps disconnecting her tube and I keep having to clean up milk puddles and one of those puddles soaked my clothes. I get how crazy life can get, but I want to keep working at loving and striving for better.  I get how easy it is to be overwhelmed by life. When big events happen like 9/11 we all feel a need to do something but we need to keep that drive day in and day out.