Fractured Saints - never beyond mending - a christian blog for the broken ones

Christianity relies completely on the character of God. If He is not good, just, and holy then we are all undone.

Lately I have been struggling with my understanding of God and my lack of first hand knowledge of his character. I was discussing the idea of our salvation being a concrete thing with a friend of mine. And I explained that one of my accountants, whom I still consider an accountant, kind of went off then deep end spiritually and got divorced and went on a search for himself. I think, as I have been taught, that I would have to say he was never a Christian in the first place, because no one can pluck us from His hand, not even ourselves.

If this is the case, how can I have security in my faith? How can I know that I am a Christian? It is funny to think about how a year ago and at other times in my life I could have guaranteed my standing with Christ. But the more I realize how little I know of God and how minuscule my relationship is with him the more I am really concerned about the concreteness of my salvation. Looking back on why I felt so confident of my salvation I realize that it was based on a very limited and shallow view of who God is. My god was a god whose only purpose was to save, love, protect, and provide for me. The more I learn about God the more I see his justice and my brokenness, and to think of the end of my life with out him on my side is just plain scary.

The season of Lent is coming up, and even though I am Baptist it gets me thinking about fasting, or as my friend refers to it “the f-word.”

This year I am taking up a challenge that I want to pass along. Here is how it goes: you fast one meal a week and then donate that meal to a local food pantry or soup kitchen. Pretty simple. I encourage everyone to think about taking up the challenge. Even though we are saved through faith alone, doing a little penance never hurt anyone. Serving others and sacrifice are just a little bonus!

What is the role of God’s church when confronted with the real suffering of a fellow Christian?

Relieve that suffering?  Don’t answer too quickly…

What if that suffering is for a reason?  Let’s suppose God is teaching and growing that Christian through the suffering.  But how are we to judge that and keep from interfering with His plan?  Should we even attempt to?

But I don’t recall the Lord saying anything about withholding aid from others in the church.  Am I missing something?

This is a very real and troubling question in my mind, right now, dealing with a very real and troubling situation… RIGHT NOW.

This Christian is in a destructive housing situation and has no way out on their own.  It appears to be heavily interfering with their growth as a Christian.  Add some mental illness in for good measure, and that is one sticky wicket.

One of our pastors is working with this person in a weekly counseling session; this seems way too circumspect an approach to me.

My instinct is to rush in and fix things, whatever I can, right now.  Get the church elders together and figure out how we’re going to help!  Can we not solve this?  But I realize this urge is not always the wisest move.

Is our church too timid?  Are we afraid to be bold in coming alongside this suffering, creating solutions instead of sympathy?

Or, are we going to hurt by helping?  Is the circumspect approach appropriate?  I’m not sold on it.

Where is the rest of my church?  Why is no one else befriending this person in a tangible way during the week?  Why aren’t we confronting our people, assigning people to get to know this person?!?  Surely that doesn’t cost anything, and can only help.

This person is crying out for help to me – I can’t solve this alone – what can I say?

For now I guess I’ll trust the pastor’s take on it.  But what if he’s WRONG?

Confused, befuddled and frustrated,

Dick Ness

I have been trying to figure out why Pat Robertson’s comments about Haiti annoyed me so much. While it annoys me that this man labels himself as a Christian and therefore a lot of people will see him as a spokesperson for all Christians. I finally came to something else that seemed to strike a cord. Every time a public Christian figure throws out a punishment excuse they are avoiding the suffering. It almost feels like they are saying that God doesn’t allow suffering he just deals out punishment against those who have sinned against him. Come on Pat lets be honest, we both know that everyone has sinned against God. Welcome to being human. People suffer ALL PEOPLE SUFFER (even Christians) and not because God is punishing them, but because we aren’t in Heaven. We are in a broken world.

To imply that something bad happens to people when they aren’t Christians seems dangerous to me, because with that idea the counter is that Christians wont have bad things happen to them. And that’s the prosperity gospel which is not at all biblical. God doesn’t say we wont suffer and we should point a condemning finger at those who do. Just LOVE, that’s the best place to start. Enter into others suffering and allow them to enter into yours.

This is my first post on FS, and since I’m the first girl here I thought I would write about submission, or love, or Deborah, or Esther, or the status of women in the Bible in general. You know, either something “feminist” or something “girly.” But I don’t feel like writing any of that now.

My two-year-old daughter is sleeping peacefully upstairs after two days of fever that peaked at 104.4 degrees. My mother-in-law, who is one of the kindest people I know, spent yesterday morning taking care of her for me. My mom and dad, who moved here last year just to be near us, came over this morning to help out. My sister-in-law, another of the kindest people I know, was thoughtful enough to call on her way home from work to check and see how the midget was doing. My husband, who is slugging through one of his busiest work months of the year, made a special trip home yesterday just to have dinner with his little girl.

So I don’t feel like being anything but grateful today. I wish it didn’t take so many little salvations to make me feel that way. In the past few days people I love have saved me from frustration, and worry, and hassle, and I feel abundantly grateful for that. So you’d think that, faced with the one big salvation I’ve been given, I’d wake up every morning ready to tell those rocks not to bother crying out, because I’ve got it covered. Why is it often so much harder to praise the name of the Lord for His sacrifice than to praise our earthly, day-to-day saviors?

Yes yes Dr Horrible came out like 20 years ago. Why am I writing a post about it now? Well it just came up in my itunes shuffle (yes I own the soundtrack). But listening to it this morning got me thinking. I think the thing that I love about Dr Horrible is the evil of the good guy and the goodness in the bad guy.

It reminds me so much of Christianity. The Captain Hammers of the church look great and they do everything so everyone knows how great they are. But then there are the broken ones, the ones who don’t try to pull together their image. Now granted this is where my little comparison kinda falls apart a little, but let me try to pull it together. Dr. Horrible wants to get into the Evil League of Evil (the cool kids in his circle. He wants to fit in and does things that he doesn’t really want to for acceptance. I am the same. I do things that I normally wouldnt act ways I normally don’t all for approval from others.

So who are you most of the time a Captain Hammer or a Dr. Horrible?