Christian Living

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It seems to me that our Christian society has grown disillusioned. If balance is the key that opens the locked door, then we might as well sit down on the porch and wait.
There are so many people in the world that are hurting and broken. I don’t mean physical injuries, but rather a damage that is sustained by the inner person. The director of “Monster” didn’t pull any punches when she said, “ a lot people that go through a traumatic past never get better. Very few people overcome and rise above it. Instead they are left damaged and they live broken lives.”

I attended a kick off event for an Apologetic Seminar in 2004 that was held in a nationally renowned Christian University in Southern California. For a long time now I have focused my attention to being able to defend the gospel from ignorant people who rise against it- I still do. However, God caused me to realize, that though the Gospel needs to be defended, the essence of God’s desire is to mend the damaged and heal the hurting.

The church has gone to extremes, all in the wrong directions. On one end we have super-intellectuals who fill their brains with factoids of theology and replace their God-given compassion with pity, even annoyance for the unlearned brother. Meanwhile, the other end has grown too “spiritual” that they have lost the ability to become available to the ones who need to be ministered to the most. Jesus said “come to me, all ye who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest”. Sadly we have missed this huge mark and we have fallen short on the universal Christian calling. Reflecting on my place, sitting in the University listening to the various speakers, I now feel a little ashamed as though I was pushing myself towards Christian Academia while people outside are living and breathing the harshness of reality. Colin Powel said that, “there are people who have sheltered themselves so much, that they become hemophiliacs, who bleed to death when nicked by real world”. He spoke of leadership and management but it remains applicable to us whose duty is to be the ambassadors of comfort and good news. We have somehow found it acceptable to tuck ourselves away in our cozy churches and comfortable bible studies.

In a short time, I have realized that spirituality and the accumulation of knowledge must be secondary to extending God’s love to the hurting. While the Christian spiritualists and intellectuals point their noses up in the sight of the rugged missionaries of the inner city and foreign countries, who are appear neither intellectually or spiritually elite, we see before us the greatest hypocrisy every encountered. The calling to “go unto all the world”, where people are hurting from life, has been conveniently disregarded and drowned out by the self-imposed need to feel “empowered” by one’s spirituality or intellect. For how profiting is it to know God and feel HIS presence if in the end it does not help a damaged life? Since we were all broken when God first found us, our life’s purpose should be to help others search for and mend the broken pieces.

March M. Villareal
[email protected]
www.freewebs.com/manswicked

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