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

I don’t believe that I am better then other people, but I really believe that I am because I don’t do the public sins. Instead I pick ones that are easy to hide and live my life in secrecy even from fellow Christians. Isn’t this whats being a Christian is all about? Choosing more discreet sins so we can look down on our Christian brothers and judge the rest of the world for not figuring this out? I’m kidding of course this is the opposite of Christianity, but it seems to be my mindset at times and the mindset of a good many other Christians I know.

This came even more full circle yesterday in the sermon as Yim was talking about how our savior being only as big as our sin.
So if we deceive ourselves into believing that our sin isn’t so great then what do we need a great savior for. If we aren’t that bad then He’s not that good. Am I coming out of left field with this line of thought? Is this just a southern thing?

Most of the time I feel certain that if it weren’t for other people, all of us would have a much stronger Christian walk. If that guy hadn’t cut me off, I wouldn’t have cursed at him; I’d have no problem forgiving that friend of mine if she hadn’t done such a horrible thing to me; I would easily be able to love and respect people if they didn’t act so stupid. Maybe that sounds obvious or ridiculous, but really, isn’t that how we think?

Two years ago, a speaker at a ladies’ retreat I attended talked about this propensity we have to lay the blame for our own behavior on others. She said that since we can’t control what other people do or say or think, our only concern in all things should be that we do our part. Fundamentally, her lesson was pretty much the same as “turn the other cheek,” but for some reason, the way she put it really resonated with me, and it helped me better apply that principle to the situations in which I often find myself.

For instance, if someone at my job makes a bad decision that ends up costing me a lot of extra time and effort that could have been avoided, that doesn’t make it OK for me to fume over it or to be wrathful toward that person. My job is to do my part, and my part only—which is to do my work “heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men.” God won’t hold me accountable for my colleague’s actions, but neither will he weigh those actions heavily when judging the rightness or wrongness of my behavior.

If I hear that someone at church disagrees with my idea of appropriate church dress, that doesn’t make it OK for me to take pains to wear what they don’t like just to make a point. C.S. Lewis would call that uncharitable behavior, and I believe Christ would, too. My job is to do my part, which is to give fair consideration to that person’s objections and then to shut up and love them as God commands, regardless of whether we agree.

Say a prayer for me that in all things I can concentrate on doing my part, and nothing more.

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.

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

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?

Some people are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good.

My dad gave me a sermon series for Christmas which was Randy Alcorn speaking on heaven while at Billy Graham’s The Cove Training Center.  While I have read Alcorn’s nearly exhaustive book on heaven (review), this sermon series had some great new thoughts for me on heaven.

I often get all pumped up on heaven and talk to fellow saints about how great it is going to be to have restored relationships with nature / animals or how great it is going to work and accomplish such great things in heaven.  Many of them will say, “Yes, yes, but how does it apply to your current life?”  Generally, I am torn between agreeing with them and other times, I point to the fact that a vision of the heaven greatly energizes Christ’s work in my life.  But after the sermon series, I have an additional point to think about.

Clearly throughout scripture, there are multiple references to rewards in heaven according to the life we live here on earth.  This is most commonly thought of in terms of the martyrs and appropriately so as they will hold a great place in heaven.  Alcorn, however in his sermon series, points to our daily walk with Christ being a foreshadowing of the quality of our fellowship with God in heaven.  I hadn’t ever really thought of it in this way, but it makes sense to me in a way that I hadn’t thought of before.  Not only do I need to be living life in a Christ-like manner to gain crowns to throw at His feet, but I need to see my daily walk of prayer and time in the word as laying the groundwork for the rest of my eternal existence.

How does your eternal existence, not just your eternal destination, affect your daily life on this earth?

I am currently rereading Les Miserables. Evidently I have a couple of months to spare.  I started because I absolutely love one of the characters, and he has been popping up in my mind quite a bit over the last month or so.

It is easy to love characters in books, isn’t it?  One reason I love fictional characters is the fact that (when done right) they are consistent.  Since an author, or filmmaker, or playwright can edit their actions down to the essential plot points they can be defined with some absolute parameters.  You can never tell what a real person is going to do, but someone in a book or movie has to act in a certain way or we just won’t believe them.

The character I love in this book is the Bishop of Digne.  As written, he really is grace personified.  He is a man who has truly repented his old life.  Unlike the Rich Young Ruler in the Gospels, this man does give up everything to follow Christ.  What jumped out at me this time was just how much this character gives to the Lord.  When I was younger, I of course realized  that he was sacrificing a couple of candlesticks when he gave them to Valjean.  What didn’t truly hit me until the other day was that he doesn’t just give up some property to be nice. He gives the silver away because he realizes that he has to.  He is compelled to follow the commands and example of Christ.  In the book, we are told that his silver is really all that he had kept through the years.  This is a character who has answered the call to give ALL that he has.  Even more, this is an action that is at once voluntary and mandatory.

In reading this, I am torn.  Yes, the bishop is a fictional character, made up in the mind of some old, dead Frenchman who lived very long ago.  But, this character puts in to practice what we are all supposed to do.  He is at once, the very person we are called to be and a person that we can never hope to emulate.  He is a character who has given this life entirely to his Lord.

He reminds me of the Who’s in The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.  I don’t know anyone, Christian or not, who would wake up to an empty house on Christmas morning and run out to sing a song.  I think we would call the cops instead!

Before I begin, from now on I’ll be contributing to Fractured Saints every other week, instead of every week like I have been. So I won’t update next week, but I will the week after that.

I don’t really believe in “New Year’s resolutions.” It’s always some lofty goal that we never meet. For example, a few years ago when I woke up and suddenly realized I was fat, I resolved to lose weight. For the first month I did well; I counted by points like a good Weight Watcher. By April, however, I ditched the point counting and went on a major buffet binge.

That’s not to say that I don’t believe in making goals. I just don’t limit my goals to 12-month periods. Too restricting.

My goals include:

-Lose weight (I try to spin for about 15 minutes every night)
-Write a book (think of it as “Blue Like Jazz” if Donald Miller had mental issues)
-Get married (I’ve been engaged for almost three years, so I think it’s time to get the proverbial ball rolling

But my biggest goal is to, as we Christians say, draw closer to God. If you’re like me, you’re very easily distracted by the things of this world: individualism, materialism, etc. If I’m not careful, I can easily go so wrapped up in that stuff that I nearly forget who I am. So hopefully I can stay focused both this year and every remaining year after that.

So Happy New Year, everyone!

I find that writing a blog is really interesting. Your speaking to an unknown crowd. Kind of like a musician at a concert, your saying things to the darkness not really knowing who is taking in your works or if any one is at all. Sure you have invited a couple of friends and you have your groupies who tend to always show up for every showing but I always wonder how the darkness effects my words.

Do I tend to water or dumb things down that I feel will offend and I don’t want to argue about? Do I instigate more harshly when I am looking for a confrontation, throwing in words that demand a reaction or evoke emotion?

Looking back at why I started writing this blog and how much I enjoyed conversing (and maybe to some degree arguing) about the little, almost insignificant, aspects of Christianity, I now realize that the majority of spiritual struggles I face is not between me and my brothers on these finite details. The main struggle is internal. It is between my spirit and my flesh, my head and my heart, my conscience and my will.

I can spend my time discussing my beliefs on the 5% of our differing beliefs (and don’t get me wrong controversy definitely yields more of a response then conviction), but I think that controversy doesn’t help to much. It tends to make me switch off heart knowledge and turn on head knowledge. To be witty and right over being honest. Which takes my focus of the one who deserves it and puts it on me.