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

James 1:5-8

5 If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. 6 But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.

This past Sunday, the minister spoke on the first part of James 1, primarily talking through suffering.  I am really familiar with the book of James as my parents paid me at some point to memorize the entire book.  As a side note, I am not sure if that move of my parents was either really bad or incredibly smart.  Maybe somewhere in between, but I digress.

What struck me was the text around the doubting man.  I had always read this in direct application to the man who asks something from God, specifically wisdom.  Therefore, whenever I needed wisdom on some decision, I would try extra hard not to doubt my desire for wisdom.  However, upon re-reading the verse this week, I think God wanted to speak to my life on a deeper level.

In the past 10 years of my faith, I have certainly gone through several seasons of doubt with God.  Most notably was struggling through the concept of God’s sovereignty and supreme goodness.  By the grace of God, I do not doubt in these areas as I did previously, but at the same time, I think I may have wallowed in that time longer than I should have.  This isn’t to say that I should have just swept the doubt under a rug, but rather, if we have doubts about God or His plans, we should try to quickly address them to be able to leave the state of being a doubtful man.  If we do not, then James says that we shouldn’t expect to receive anything from God and that we are unstable in all that we do.

As it is somewhat in vogue to be doubtful these days (David Bazan?), do we risk seriously limiting our spiritual lives?

I was listening to a sermon this week and something he said really jumped out at me.  He said, “The problem with Christians today is that we love the sheep and goat story too much and ignore the stories of coming together.”   Like the Pharisees, I think we can too often be so smug in our Salvation that we kind of imagine ourselves separating the sheep and goats.  You know, just helping out the Lord, in case He had missed the sins of this person or that person.

I was pretty smugly thinking of all the Christians I know who are always talking about every one else who is going to hell and then I realized what I was doing.   Sitting in judgment of anyone, even my fellow Christians, is not exactly the action of a “sheep.”  Now, I am all for gentle correction within the spirit, but to stand there and try to sit in place of the Lord is probably not the best thing to do.

If we worked harder to be sheep and didn’t worry so much about who the goats were, we would be a LOT better off.

The more I hang out with Christians the more I think they can all be put into 2 categories. Regardless of denomination, race, or background all Christians I have met are either fake Christians or real sinners.

Let me explain. Fake Christians are the really really good ones, the ones who never have anything wrong and always look like they have it together. They would prefer use a cheese grater on their arm then be open and honest with anyone especially a brother or sister in Christ (it’s most important to impress them).

Real sinners are the folks who know they are screwed up. Now I am not saying that they know the level of their sin, nor that they realize how great their sin is and therefore how great their Savior is, but they do know that they are broken and Christ is the only thing that can fix them.

I think Christians have to be real sinners and constantly ask for forgiveness for it. If we try to cover up and minimalize our sin to look good, it makes our sin look small. Which in turn makes our Savior small. And trust me our Savior isn’t small.

I find the world to be quickly overwhelming for me. Disease, death, deceit, and destruction, it’s hard to look on the curse and get a small glimpse of its scope. It’s exhausting.

What can we do? How can we remain aware of it and yet feel strengthened and encouraged? How can we deal with a world that is crumbling around us?

Last week I finally saw the movie Precious. I thought it was great, even though some parts were really hard to sit through. Mo’nique definitely earned that Oscar!

As I watched Precious, one thought kept going through my head: “I think I know this girl.”

I work at a public library, and some of our patrons are from the “other side of the tracks,” so to speak. I get along well with everyone, but I find myself sometimes silently judging them. “Oh look, another sixteen-year-old with two kids, and neither one have the same father. How stereotypical.” But after watching Precious I wonder if I’ve got it all wrong. What if there’s more going on? What if she’s carrying a dark secret?

Maybe that’s why Jesus says not to judge (Matthew 7:1). I can only see what’s going on on the outside; I don’t know what’s happening behind the scenes (and maybe I don’t want to know).

Do you find yourself silently judging people? Have you every thought there might be more going on than what you see?

It snowed. It snowed in March in Hotlanta. It was beautiful. I love how pure everything looks when its covered in snow. It’s like Christ and how he covers our sin, but instead of heading down that path I want to go a different direction. As I stood looking outside yesterday, I saw what God had made and I saw his handy work. I get the same feeling every time I see my daughter smile.

Where do you see evidence of God and His handy work?

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.

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.

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?